People

Dennis A. Rendleman, of Springfield and Chicago, has been promoted to Ethics Counsel in the Center for Professional Responsibility at the American Bar Association (ABA). He will serve as chief counsel to the Standing Committee on Ethics and Professional Responsibility and provide oversight for ETHICSearch. Since joining the ABA in April 2009, Rendleman has served as staff counsel for the Standing Committee on Specialization and associate counsel for the Standing Committee on Professionalism and managed the Consortium on Professionalism and the E. Smythe Gambrell Professionalism Award. He is one of the authors of the Annotated Model Code of Judicial Conduct, second edition. 

Prior to joining the ABA, Rendleman was Assistant Professor of Legal Studies at the University of Illinois at Springfield and spent 23 years at the Illinois State Bar Association leaving in 2003 as General Counsel. Rendleman has engaged in the private practice as a consultant and expert witness in professional responsibility and discipline. As a member of the Illinois Supreme Court’s Committee on Professional Responsibility since 2004, he was involved in redrafting of the 2010 Illinois Rules of Professional Conduct based upon the ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct. He is an original member, since 1998, of the ISBA/CBA/IJA Illinois Judicial Ethics Committee which issues advisory opinions on the Illinois Code of Judicial Conduct.  He received his AB (1978) from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and his JD (1981) from the University of Illinois College of Law.

Franks, Gerkin & McKenna, P.C. is pleased to announce that Joseph C. Ponitz has been named a Partner of our firm.

Joe has an extensive legal background that encompasses a wide range of practice areas, including Criminal and DUI Defense, Family Law, and Commercial Litigation.  Prior to joining Franks, Gerkin & McKenna, P.C., Joe served as a Prosecutor with the Winnebago County State’s Attorney’s Office.

Joe attended the Southern Illinois University School of Law, where he was a published author and an editor of the School’s Law Review.  Joe was also awarded the Southern Illinois University Alumni Scholarship Award.  In addition, Joe served as a graduate assistant to a prominent professor and his research was accredited in the Duke Environment of Law and Policy Forum. 

Joe is fluent in Spanish and volunteers with and serves on the Governance Committee of the Healing Pathways Cancer Research Center.  He is a member of the Cosmopolitan Club of Boone County.  He also serves as an Arbitrator for the Seventeenth Judicial District.  From 2007 to 2010, Joe served on the Executive Committee of the Board of Directors of McHenry County Youth Service Bureau.  

It is with great sorrow that Wildman Harrold announces the death of Max Wildman — one of Chicago’s most legendary trial lawyers, founder of Wildman, Harrold, Allen & Dixon LLP, mentor and role model to hundreds of young attorneys, and civic leader. Mr. Wildman passed away on September 16, 2011. He was 91.

Although his lawyering skills were extolled on the front page of The Wall Street Journal and by Dirksen Federal Building court buffs whose newsletter ranked him “number one,” Wildman took his greatest pride in starting Wildman Harrold in 1967 and watching it grow from a small operation to a national law firm whose longstanding reputation in litigation is now complemented by its intellectual property and transactional practices. The firm represents private businesses and Fortune 500 companies.

Such growth could only be dreamed of over forty years ago, when Wildman, already recognized as one of Chicago’s top trial lawyers for his representation of clients like IBM, left a secure position at the well-established Kirkland, Fleming, Green, Martin & Ellis (now Kirkland & Ellis LLP) to strike out on his own with three partners and two associates.

Nat P. Ozmon, a member of the Illinois State Bar Association's Academy of Illinois Lawyers's Laureate Class of 2003, died on Sept. 14, 2011, in Chicago at the age of 86 of natural causes. Ozmon was the senior member and founder of the Chicago law firm Anesi, Ozmon, Rodin, Novak & Kohen, Ltd

He was born in Davenport, IA, attended college at New York University and received his law degree from Northwestern University, ranking first in his class. He was elected to the Board of Law Review Editors and installed in the Order of Coif, a legal scholastic honor society.

Mr. Ozmon's 40 years as a trial and appellate lawyer was dedicated to preserving and enhancing the rights of injured victims. He was certified by the American Board of Trial Advocates, a diplomat of the American Board of Professional Liability Attorneys, a fellow and a founder of the Roscoe Pound Foundation, the Trial Lawyers for Public Justice and the Institute for Injury Reduction. He was a recognized leader of the bar and has served on the managing boards of the Association of Trial Lawyers of America, the Chicago Bar Association, and the Society of Trial Lawyers. He was also a past president of the Illinois Trial Lawyers Association. He was an Adjunct Professor at Loyola University School of Law where he taught Trial Advocacy senior law students for ten years. The Harvard Law School Study listed him as one of "The Best Lawyers in America." He also received the Leonard Ring Lifetime Achievement Award for his commitment to victims rights and trial by jury.