Illinois Life Fellow Chester L. Blair
January 26, 2009, Fellows in the news, Chicago Daily Law Bulletin
CHICAGO, IL - Renowned Chicago criminal defense and personal injury lawyer Chester L. Blair, of Blair & Cole, will be honored by the Chicago Bar Association (CBA) with the 2009 Earl Burrus Dickerson Award at a reception and luncheon on Wednesday, February 11, at the Standard Club. This special award was established in honor of the late Earl Burrus Dickerson who was an outstanding lawyer and among the first African-American members of the CBA. His life and professional career were devoted to the law and helping others gain equality and justice.
Blair is a Texas native who became the first African-American president of the CBA in 1990. Born in 1928, he started his working life as a manual laborer before entering Fisk University. When he was later hired by the U.s. Post Office, he transferred to Chicago State University, graduating with his bachelor's degree in education in 1952. While teaching for seven years, he pursued a master's degree at Roosevelt University and then earned a JD in 1959 from John Marshall Law School.
Throughout his career, Blair has served a wide range of legal organizations with distinction, including serving on advisory committees of the Illinois Supreme Court and the American Bar Association. He is a past President of the Cook County Bar Association and a member of the Illinois State Bar Association and the Illinois Trial Lawyers Association. He served on the boards of the Illinois Institute for Continuing Legal Education and the Chicago Bar Foundation. He became a Fellow of the American Bar Foundation in 1987. Blair has been a lecturer and professor for the Association of Trial Lawyers of America. From 1984 to 1998, he wrote a weekly column for the Chicago Daily Defender. Blair and his wife, Judith, are longtime residents of the Hyde Park neighborhood where they raised their six children.
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