Since becoming an attorney in 1983, Kevin G. Owens has left his mark on not only our firm, but the entire legal community in Illinois. Over the years, Kevin has built a prestigious legal career, built on foundational principles like client service, professionalism, and legal excellence. As Kevin rides off into the sunset, towards retirement, Kevin afforded the marketing team here at J&B the privilege to highlight his career through a retirement interview. We want to thank Kevin for his time and dedicated service to the firm.
If you know Kevin, you know that one of his strong suits is telling a great story. Kevin had a plethora of stories regarding his legal career, and time at J&B, that we are excited to share with you. Enjoy!
Kevin has always had a fondness for the legal profession, recalling that he had dreams of becoming a lawyer back in high school. However, after taking a high school journalism class, Kevin decided to pursue Journalism as his undergraduate major at Marquette University. He also studied related subjects like Marketing and PR. Law school remained in the back of his mind, and upon graduation from Marquette, Kevin began to apply to law schools. As a native of Chicago’s South Side, Kevin knew he would end up back in Chicago postgrad. This led him to attend Depaul University for Law School.
When reflecting on his introduction to Johnson & Bell, Kevin detailed how he walked over to the DePaul Law Career Office one day while looking for a job and saw a post looking for associate attorneys by former hiring partner at J&B Pam Gellen.
Like other recent retiring Shareholders, Kevin remembers the hiring processing being a whirlwind affair, recalling “…that was a Thursday [seeing the posting], I sent her my resume the next day…on Tuesday I got a phone call asking me to come in for an interview the next day. Kevin remembers interviewing with three former J&B shareholders and foundational members of the firm Tom Andrews, Brian Fetzer, and Peggy Unger. After the initial interview, Kevin was asked back for a second interview, where he was introduced to more J&B shareholders like Bill Beatty and, last but certainly not least, “Johnny” Bell. Kevin remembers the last thing that John Bell said before hiring him, “I don’t see a problem with you coming to work here.”. “I wasn’t sure if that was an offer of a job or not…but about an hour later Pam called me and made a formal offer,” Kevin recalled.
Kevin was in great company when starting at J&B, with future shareholders and firm leaders Bob Burke, Bob Comfort, and Joe Marconi, all joining the firm right around the time Kevin joined.
After his before mentioned licensure, Kevin began his career at a “small, 12-14 lawyer, litigation shop” located across the street from the current J&B offices in the Zurich Center. Kevin detailed the wealth of legal experience he got in this formative role, saying “I got exposed to all kind of different areas of law, criminal, civil, you name it.” Kevin tried his first jury trial with this firm, and soaked up all the experience he could, but ultimately realized he wanted to be a part of a larger organization.
Coming from another Chicago-area law firm, Kevin had experience with trying cases and other aspects of the profession that many Associates directly out of law school do not have. He described J&B in this transition phase as “…bigger and more…” when compared to his previous experiences. Kevin remembers appreciating the extra resources and support available to him at J&B, and the fact the firm was primarily focused on litigation. He remembers hearing that J&B did “nothing but litigation” and that aligned heavily with Kevin’s career goals.
From the very beginning, Kevin realized that he would be a good fit at J&B. When reflecting on the types of litigation that the firm focused on in those early days, Kevin identified Product Liability and Medical Malpractice as the two central areas of practice. Outside of these central practice areas, Kevin also recalled how the firm handled a lot of “General Tort Litigation” with their biggest clients being “Dominick’s Finer Foods” and “Walmart”.
Kevin reminisced fondly on these old days, with foundational attorneys like Bill Johnson, John Bell, Brian Fetzer, Ray Cusack, Jack Riely, etc. in their primes, and a tightly knit firm. Kevin recalled that “…it was a lot of fun, at that size everybody knew everybody…It was a great atmosphere.”
We then moved to the highlights of Kevin’s career. Specifically, why did Kevin choose to stay with the firm for so long, when long tenures are becoming less common in today’s workforce? A primary factor in Kevin’s success and long tenure at the firm was meritocracy of J&B, especially back in the beginning. Kevin described how he was given opportunities to work on cases with experienced trial lawyers like Bill Johnson, Bill Beatty, John Bell, Ray Cusack, Jack Riely, etc. almost immediately. He summed it up simply by saying “competence led to popularity”. Kevin explained that this exposure to different types of attorneys and cases was a highlight of his career and shaped the attorney that he is today and contributed to his successful career. Kevin also detailed the collaborative environment, especially back in the day. He told a story of how Ray Cusack took a case off his plate when he was a young attorney. It showed how the leaders of the firm would consistently support the more junior attorneys, working closely with them and doing many of the same tasks, something that Kevin identified and appreciated.
While these were great overall highlights of Kevin’s career, we followed up on the more concrete, case-specific highlights across his career. Kevin had several great anecdotes related to cases he had been a part of, with the Miller Park Case being an obvious standout.
The Miller Park Case was a widely publicized construction case in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The world’s largest mobile crane fell onto the “Miller Park” stadium, home of the Milwaukee Brewers Baseball Team, during construction causing multiple deaths and exorbitant amounts of property damage.
Kevin also recalled how he was on vacation in Florida recovering from surgery, when he found out that he had been assigned to the case. Kevin remembers John calling him and saying, “We got that crane case from Milwaukee …turn on the news!”
Kevin remembers the pre-trial process being intense, with hundreds of depositions and mountains of discovery documents. It was a lot of pressure, and it culminated in an almost two-month trial. John Bell & Kevin litigated the case, alongside local co-counsel, and unexpectedly, John allowed Kevin to argue in court. Kevin described how rewarding the experience was saying “It was a fabulous experience, it’s the type of case that 98% of lawyers in America never get near…It was the best professional experience of my life, but one of the most challenging personal experiences of my life!”
Finally, we reached the portion of the interview where we look towards the future at Kevin’s plans for retirement. While Kevin has many things planed for retirement, above all else, he is excited to do “whatever I want whenever I want.” Specifically, Kevin plans to become more involved in the golf community, a sport that he has loved for a long time. Kevin not only plans on working on his game, but he also has begun serving as the General Counsel for the Chicago District Golf Association. Kevin described his role to us, saying “We run upwards of 40 competitive & social golf tournaments all summer long... We also hold camps for young people with developmental or intellectual disabilities, and I signed up to do a camp that starts in April...It is very rewarding.” Kevin is obviously keeping himself busy, even after starting retirement!
Thank you, Kevin, for your years of dedicated service to Johnson & Bell and our clients. We wish you nothing but the best in retirement, but you will be dearly missed.
Congratulations on an extremely successful and prestigious career.
