O'Brien will be waked this coming Monday, December 16, from 4:00 to 8:00 p.m., at Glueckert Funeral Home, 1520 N. Arlington Heights Rd, Arlington Heights. The funeral Mass will be celebrated on Tuesday, December 17, at 10:30 a.m., at St. Alphonsus Liguori Church, 411 N. Wheeling, Prospect Heights. There will be additional visitation at the church from 9:30 to 10:30 a.m. on Tuesday morning.
O'Brien's daughter Carol and I worked together on the Loyola Phoenix back in the day. The Phoenix even endorsed O'Brien's successful 1976 judicial campaign. Granted, the endorsement was probably not dispositive....
Although I suppose it looks rather presumptuous in print, my legal career sort of 'tracked' O'Brien's judicial career. As a newly-minted lawyer, I appeared in front of him when he was hearing Municipal jury motions on the 13th floor of the Daley Center. O'Brien was soon promoted to the Law Division Motion Court... and I, also more seasoned, was soon arguing motions before him regularly there.
Many lawyers may remember that Judge O'Brien used to have a binder with him on the bench, chock full of citaitons that he would toss out while deciding substantive motions at their first hearing. I wasn't the only one writing these down while waiting for my case to be called. It was not then the custom to automatically give 28 days to respond and 14 days to reply; Judge O'Brien would decide if a particular motion merited this special setting.
I had a number of these contested motions, usually on behalf of insurance company clients. Judge O'Brien was no fan of insurance companies. So when these afternoon hearings took place, I knew how they were going to turn out as soon as O'Brien took the bench. If he was cheerful and complimentary -- praising the brief I'd written, for example -- I knew I was certain to lose. On the other hand, if he came out looking slightly pained, maybe a little upset, I knew I had a shot. Judge O'Brien may not have liked my clients, but he followed the law; he looked -- he looked carefully -- to see if the law gave him an 'out' -- but he went, if not always willingly, where the law led.
No one can ask more than that from any judge.
And if I lost -- when I lost, as I often did -- Judge O'Brien always had an explanation. A reason. A flaw in my logic. An error in the procedure followed by the insurer on this occasion. Something. I have never yet met a client who was satisfied with a loss, but the ability to provide a cogent, plausible explanation for a disappointing result sure helped.
I appeared before O'Brien at least once when he was on the Appellate Court. I had a great theory, I thought. The way I saw it, all I needed was in Section I of my brief. I laid it out before the panel at oral argument... and, quite full of myself, said something like, "if you accept this, I can stop right here." Justice O'Brien punctured my balloon, but in a nice way: "No," he said, "why don't you go on?" (I won that one... just not on my pet theory.)
But I will end this reminiscence with one more Motion Court story. Opposing counsel and I were arguing a discovery motion, and like Grant after the Battle of Spottsylvania Courthouse, I was prepared to fight it out on this line if it took all summer. My opponent was similarly inclined. After we'd both spouted quite a bit, Judge O'Brien cut us off. He reminded us that the courtroom was full and that he couldn't inconvenience everyone else while waiting for us to finish beating each other up. He directed us to the jury box, saying he would give us a full hearing at the end of the call -- not that half hour motion call, we understood that instantly -- but after the last motion of the morning -- probably about noon.
Of course, I would like to think that I was the good guy here, but there's only a 50-50 chance. Eventually, though, one of us leaned over to the other and said -- quietly -- very quietly, so as not to incur any further judicial displeasure -- "I guess we're being kept after school." Whichever one of us said it, it broke the ice, and we'd soon worked out an agreed order.
Still, we waited. We both realized that premature presentation of our overdue agreement would not be kindly received.
At the very, very, very end of the call, Judge O'Brien called us back up. We informed him of our peace treaty. He beamed. "I was hoping you would do that."
There are judges who are well-versed in the law. There are judges who are good presiders, skilled at handling a roomful of quarrelling, querulous lawyers. It's the rare judge who are strong in both areas. Such was Judge O'Brien. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Photo courtesy of the O'Brien family
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