The Honorable Leonard J. Wojtecki, 69, grew up in Cary, IL., passed away Saturday, August 13, 2016 surrounded by his family at home. He was born July 6, 1947 in Chicago, IL. the son of Leonard and June (Larsen) Wojtecki. He was united in marriage to Frances Robertson on August 23, 1969 in Cary, IL.

Judge Wojtecki graduated from Marquette University in 1969 and went on to earn his law degree from John Marshall Law School, Chicago, IL in 1976. Right out of law school, he joined the Cook County State's Attorney's office as a prosecutor. He then moved to private practice as a trial attorney in Aurora, IL. He also served as an assistant public defender in Kendall County before his appointment as an associate judge in the 16th Judicial Circuit in August 2000 retiring from the bench in July 2015.

Richard James Puchalski, age 70, passed away amidst his family while on vacation on August 4, 2016 in Anchorage, Alaska. Richard "Dick" was born in Mojave Desert, California in 1946 and was the eldest of five children of his beloved parents, Bernard and Estelle Puchalski.

For the past forty years Dick worked as a prominent pension, labor, employment and immigration attorney. He was a founding partner of several successful law practices with the most recent being Puchalski Goodloe Marzullo, LLP. Dick enjoyed cooking, gardening, playing the piano, the Premier League Tottenham Hotspur team, and Ron Rico rum (double tall, splash of Diet Coke, and one ice cube). He worked hard all his life to provide and care for his family. His strong work ethic and commitment to his wife, Cheri, of 41 years and family lives on in his children, family and friends.

Kent Bronson Hampton, former vice president and general counsel of Marathon Oil Co. passed away early Saturday, July 23, 2016. Born in Mattoon, Il in 1920, he grew up in Evanston. He graduated from ETHS in 1938, and from Grinnell College (Iowa) in 1942. He graduated from the Navy's OCS at Great Lakes Naval Training Center in 1943 and served in the Atlantic and Pacific theatres in WWII as a navigator aboard an amphibious craft and a destroyer escort. He earned a law degree from the University of Michigan in 1949. He joined the Ohio Oil Company (now Marathon Oil Co.) in 1951. His most notable accomplishment was to lead the legal team that thwarted Mobil Oil Co.'s attempted takeover of Marathon in 1981-82. Mr. Hampton first engaged in law practice in Charleston, IL in 1949. He was a member of the Illinois Bar Association for sixty years.

Abner Mikva brought his sharp legal advice and principled worldview to all three branches of government — he was a congressman, federal judge and presidential adviser. He stood up to Richard J. Daley, for years, and managed to survive hizzoner’s efforts to destroy him.

And if that weren’t enough, if giving legal advice to Bill Clinton and encouraging Barack Obama to try for the White House weren’t enough, Mr. Mikva, who died of cancer at age 90 on Monday, was also the young man who tried to volunteer to help the Democrats in 1948 and was told by a ward heeler: “We don’t want nobody nobody sent,” coining the immortal distillation of political cronyism.

“That’s Chicago for you,” said Obama, remembering the phrase when he awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Mr. Mikva in 2014. The president called Mr. Mikva “one of the greatest jurists of his time,” someone who “helped shape the national debate on some of the most challenging issues of the day.”