Lightfoot named Person of the Year

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot received a professional accolade on Thursday as Person of the Year by Chicago Lawyer Magazine who praised her unbridled principles of justice and integrity as hallmarks of both her academic and professional lives, long before she became mayor, or thought of running for public office.

The accolade was given at the Chicago Daily Law Bulletin and Chicago Lawyer’s Women in Law Conference held in downtown Chicago, after the mayor gave keynote remarks.

In a published interview on the magazine’s website, Lightfoot was quoted as saying, “I really understand the necessity of total preparation,” she said, speaking to her effectiveness as an attorney. “There’s nobody who is going to outwork me, there’s not going to be an argument that I haven’t anticipated and am ready to respond to.”

That thoroughness and preparation is one that has been noted by her attorney colleagues, as well as those,now, in her political life.

She is also known for her tenacity, and integrity, in her dealings with others, and despite the bruising battle of the recent Chicago Teachers Union strike, Lightfoot managed to remain above the fray, and her reputation as a negotiator, remained mostly intact.

Victory came as she created a blueprint to dig Chicago out of an $838 million hole with a budget that passed, with only the loss of 11 votes; something that she said she was going to celebrate with a cigar and some scotch whiskey.

“She’s an incredibly smart person. She is extremely principled and she can critically think through a problem and see various sides of it,” said U.S. Magistrate Judge Susan E. Cox, who has known Lightfoot since the two were federal prosecutors in the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Chicago, noted the interview.

Translating her work as an attorney to mayor of the nation's third largest city was hard, by many standards, but in keeping with her fighting spirit, as she creates a battle plan, not only to dig the city out of the red, but also to fight long held corruption and nepotism, with many residents noting that she has true grit.

“During her time as a Mayer Brown partner, Lightfoot had a number of associates working with her, including Michael Frisch. Frisch is now senior adviser and legal counsel for the city, a job he has held since Lightfoot took office,” and he noted that “She advocates strongly for what she believes in [as mayor] and that’s the way she practices law as well,” he said in the piece.

This was patently true when she called out her mayoral candidates rivals for their ties to now disgraced alderman, Ed Burke and found herself, a relatively political outsider, as a front runner, heralded for her outside status.

Perhaps the quote from an interview this summer with Chicago Magazine captured it all when it quoted Lightfoot as saying, “I am who I am, and I am not going to change.”