Royce Glenn Rowe Jr., 85, died of lung cancer Saturday, Nov. 12, at the Midwest Palliative & Hospice CareCenter in Skokie. The longtime Wilmette resident was a retired founding partner of the downtown law firm of McKenna, Storer, Rowe, White & Farrug.

Mr. Rowe co-founded the Illinois Association of Defense Trial Counsel in Chicago in the mid-1960s to fill a void in the legal community.

Born in Chicago, Mr. Rowe grew up in Wilmette and graduated in 1944 from Shattuck, a military boarding school in Minnesota. He joined the Navy near the end of World War II, serving for two years at bases in California and Virginia.

After graduating from Northwestern University with a degree in history in 1950, Mr. Rowe attended Cornell Law School, receiving his law degree in 1952.

Mr. Rowe worked as a government lawyer for a short time in Washington, until moving to Chicago in the early 1950s, where he helped form the law firm.

Mr. Rowe retired from the firm in 1992, after 40 years.

In 1978, Mr. Rowe was inducted into the American College of Trial Lawyers.

Mr. Rowe's wife, Kathryn, died in 1998.

He is survived by three daughters, Elizabeth Neary, Sarah Rowe and Katrina Sullivan; a sister, Mary Robertson; and five grandchildren.

No services were held, as was Mr. Rowe's desire.