People

During the recent annual meeting of Shriners International and Shriners Hospitals for
Children®, Robert O. Kuehn of Park Ridge was appointed General Counsel for both organizations by Shriners International’s Imperial Potentate (President and CEO) Mike Severe.

As General Counsel, he will attend all Director and Trustee meetings, be responsible for legal matters and render legal advice to the Board of Directors and Board of Trustees of Shriners Hospitals for Children and the Board of Directors for Shriners International.

A member of the Illinois State Bar Association, Kuehn is a partner at the Barrington law firm of Williston, McGibbon, and Kuehn, and concentrates his practice in estate planning, real estate, corporations, business planning, trusts, guardianship and taxation.

He earned a bachelor’s degree from North Park College (now North Park University) and a Juris Doctorate from Loyola University Law School. Robert and his wife, Natalie June (nee Benziger) have resided in Park Ridge for 35 years where they raised three children, William, Natalie and Elizabeth.

Kuehn served as the Medinah Shriners’ attorney from 1986 to 1995, Potentate in 2000, as well as Chairman of the Board of Governors for Shriners Hospitals for Children — Chicago from 2006 to 2009. He has also served on several national-level committees for the organizations.

Although Kuehn’s work with the Masonic and Shriners organizations has occupied his time recently, in past years he served on the Board of Directors of St. Paul’s House, a Lutheran home and rehab center in Chicago, as well as the Boards of Directors of two local YMCA’s and the Children's Dyslexia Center of Metropolitan Chicago.

Chuhak & Tecson, P.C., is pleased to announce that Eileen Sethna, an attorney who brings a deep knowledge of bankruptcies and commercial litigation, has joined the banking group as a principal.

Sethna most recently had been with Querrey & Harrow, Ltd., for seven years. She is a graduate of The John Marshall Law School in Chicago.

With a rich understanding of creditors’ rights, business reorganizations and individual insolvencies, Sethna is a trusted adviser to bank officers and a respected trial attorney as well. She has extensive courtroom experience representing debtors, trustees and creditors, both in state and federal courts and at the trial and appellate levels.

Sethna also counsels clients through transactional workouts, reorganizations and other commercial remedies.

“Eileen brings an increased depth in handling bankruptcy cases,” said Josh Hyman, principal and banking group head. “She’s very knowledgeable, and from my perspective as head of our group, it’s nice to have another principal who can help mentor attorneys who haven’t yet attained her level of experience.”

Sethna never set out to become a bankruptcy lawyer. After earning her bachelor’s degree, she worked as a human resources manager for a hospitality company and found herself immersed in union issues interpreting a collective bargaining agreement.

“There was a lot of discovery and investigation. I likened it to trial readiness, and I thought it was pretty interesting,” Sethna said. She started in night law school, later remaking her schedule to study full-time.

Rolfe Ehrmann, co-founder of the Dixon firm Ehrmann, Gehlbach, Badger and Lee, passed away on July 26 at his home. He was a graduate of the DePaul University College of Law and a member of the American, Illinois and Lee County bar associations.

Read the full obituary in the Sterling Daily Gazette.

ISBA Council member Michael G. Bergmann took the gavel as the new president of the ABA Young Lawyers Division on Saturday, August 6 at the ABA Annual Meeting in Toronto. Bergmann is the Executive Director of the Public Interest Law Initiative (PILI) in Chicago. Bergmann is pictured (second from right) with fellow ISBA Section Council members (from left) Tarek Fadel, Kenya Jenkins-Wright and Bob Fink (ISBA YLD Immediate Past Chair).