Part-Time Faculty
Robert P. Cummins
Biography
Graduated from DePaul University Law School in 1962 and has pursued a civil and criminal trial practice and related counseling for over 40 years. He is admitted to practice in both Illinois and Colorado. In addition to maintaining his private practice, he served as Vice President and Trial Counsel of Motorola Inc. from 1982 to 1985. He is also admitted to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court and numerous Federal Courts of Appeal and Federal District Courts.
As evidence of his high standing in the legal profession, Mr. Cummins has been elected a 2004 Laureate of the Academy of Illinois Lawyers.
He served as Chairman of the Illinois Judicial Inquiry Board until December 1987. He served as a member of the Review Board of the Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission of the Illinois Supreme Court for seven years until appointed by the Governor to the Judicial Inquiry Board in 1979.
He currently serves on behalf of the American Judicature Society as advisor to the American Bar Association's Joint Commission to Evaluate the Model Code of Judicial Conduct.
He is a member of the ABA Standing Committee on Professionalism; is past Chairman of the American Bar Association Standing Committee on Professional Discipline; and a past member of the Standing Committee on Lawyers' Professional Liability. He has served as a member of the ABA Standing Committee on Lawyer Competence and as Vice Chairman of the ABA Litigation Section Professional Responsibility Committee. He served on the ABA Litigation Section Task Force on the Independent Lawyer and chaired the Litigation Section Task Force on Ethics 2000 and served as Chairman of the ABA Judicial Division Lawyers Conference Committee on Judicial Performance and Conduct. He is currently a member of the ABA Joint Committee on Lawyer Regulation.
He has been a member of the Board of Governors of the Illinois State Bar Association and served as Vice Chairman of its Task Force on Professionalism. He is a former member of the American Bar Association Commission on Lawyer Assistance Programs and the Advisory Commission on Client Protection Funds. He has also served as a member of the Board of Directors of the Criminal Justice Project of Cook County and was a co-chairman of the Special Commission on the Administration of Justice. He has served on the Board of Managers of the Chicago Bar Association and the Board of Directors of the Chicago Council of Lawyers.
He was Charter Member of the Illinois Bar Foundation. He serves as a member of the Board of Directors of the American Judicature Society, has chaired the Society's Advisory Committee and served as Chairman of the American Judicature Society's Committee on Judicial Independence.
He has lectured on trial practice and professional conduct at the John Marshall and DePaul Law Schools and conducted a seminar course on ethics and professionalism at the Loyola School of Law from 1979 to 1989. He has authored a variety of articles and lectured extensively to judges and lawyers on topics focusing on trial practice and related professional practice issues. For example, he served for ten years as a faculty member of the annual New Judge Seminar pursuant to appointment by the Illinois Supreme Court and has lectured on the subject of lawyer and judicial conduct at the National Judicial College and at a variety of national and regional judicial seminars, conferences and symposia.
He served as a member of the Editorial Board of the ABA/BNA Lawyer's Manual on Professional Conduct. He has served as a member of the Performance Assistance Committee of the Trial Bar of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. he is a member of the Fund Committee of the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. He was appointed by Chief Judge Aspen to serve as Co-Chairman of the Trial Bar Advisory Committee of the Northern District of Illinois. He has been appointed as special counsel in a variety of circumstances including the so-called Black Panther (Fred Hampton, et at.) case in 1970 and has represented the Committee on Character and Fitness of the Illinois Supreme Court in connection with the infamous Martin Trigona and Matthew Hale matters. He served as court-appointed counsel in the Pontiac prison case and chaired the Defense of Indigent Prisoners' Committee of the Chicago Bar Association. He has chaired or served on numerous other committees of the American, Illinois and Chicago Bar Associations.
Additional professional activities include his service as a member of the Board of the Chicago Law Enforcement Study Group, the Cook County Special Bail Project, the Legal Clinic for the Disabled, the Central States Institute of Addiction, the Judicial Training Group and the Lawyers' Assistance Program of which he was a founder.
Other activities included his membership in the Law Club of Chicago, the Legal Club of Chicago and service on the Dean's Visiting Committee of the DePaul University School of Law and the DePaul School of Law Advisory Council. He has been a Board member and served as Secretary of the Gastro-Intestinal Research Foundation and as President of the Foundation in 1986.
He served on active duty in the United States Marine Corps from 1952 - 1954.
