Jerold S. Solovy

IN MEMORIAM

Jerold S. Solovy was Chairman of Jenner & Block from 1990-2007, and was Chairman Emeritus. He was widely regarded as one of the preeminent appellate and trial lawyers in the country. Mr. Solovy had regularly been cited in The National Law Journal as one of the 100 most influential lawyers in America, most recently in 2006.

Mr. Solovy had extensive experience in successfully handling high stakes litigation, both at the trial and appellate levels, and argued several cases before the United States Supreme Court. As a member of the Firm's Litigation Department, Mr. Solovy focused on litigating complex business matters and insurance coverage issues, while litigating many high- profile intellectual property and securities cases.

Mr. Solovy was repeatedly recognized for his career-long commitment to the highest ideals of the profession. He is a 2007 recipient of The American Lawyer magazine’s fourth annual prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award. He was also recognized in 2007 as Chicago Lawyer’s Person of the Year. Mr. Solovy also was widely honored for his career-long commitment to pro bono representation. In 2005, Mr. Solovy received the American Bar Association Section of Litigation’s prestigious John Minor Wisdom Public Service and Professionalism Award.

Among the several cases Mr. Solovy handled before the United States Supreme Court is Bolger v. Youngs Drug Products Corp., 463 U.S. 60 (1983), in which he helped set an important precedent involving commercial speech. In 1865, a crusader named Anthony Comstock pushed a bill through a lame-duck Congress which prevented manufacturers of contraceptive devices from sending unsolicited advertisements through the mail. In 1983, on behalf of his client, Youngs Drug Products Corp., Mr. Solovy argued that the law was an unconstitutional regulation of commercial speech. The slightly modified Comstock Act had remained in force for more than a century until the statute was successfully challenged before the Supreme Court. In Lexecon, Inc. v. Milberg Weiss Bershad Hynes and Lerach, 523 U.S. 26 (1998), Mr. Solovy represented the Milberg Weiss firm before the Supreme Court of the United States, which was considering whether a federal district court conducting “pretrial proceedings” under 28 U.S.C. § 1407(a) may invoke section 1404(a) to assign a transferred case to itself for trial. Ultimately, the Court ruled that a district court conducting such pretrial proceedings has no authority to assign a transferred case to itself for trial.

Mr. Solovy personally handled, on a pro bono basis, hundreds of criminal court cases as well as precedent-setting appeals for indigent individuals. Three of those cases have gone all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, including Kirby v. Illinois, 406 U.S. 682 (1972) (regarding whether an indigent person is entitled to appointment of counsel for the purpose of conducting a pre-indictment lineup); Ralston v. Robinson, 454 U.S. 201 (1981) (involving the efficacy of sentencing of a juvenile offender to an adult sentence); and Reed v. Farley, 512 U.S. 339 (1994) (regarding whether an accused's federal right to a speedy trial is violated when the state court fails to observe a 120-day speedy trial rule because no objection was raised at the time the trial date is set).

Mr. Solovy was a graduate of the University of Michigan (B.A., 1952) and Harvard Law School (L.L.B., cum laude, 1955). At Michigan, he was a member of Phi Beta Kappa, Phi Kappa Phi, Pi Sigma Alpha and Phi Eta Sigma. At Harvard Law School, he served as a member of the Board of Editors for the Harvard Law Review (1953-1955).