Jonathan K. Baum

Jonathan K. Baum is the firm’s Director of Pro Bono Services. He is one of only a handful of law firm partners in the nation, and was the first in the Midwest, whose full-time responsibility is the delivery of pro bono services. An experienced litigator, Mr. Baum both actively litigates individual cases, principally in the areas of civil rights and civil liberties, and also coordinates the firm’s entire pro bono practice, both litigation and transactional.

Mr. Baum joined Katten in 1993 as the firm’s first Director of Pro Bono Services, a position he conceived. Prior to joining the firm, Mr. Baum served as a litigation associate at the Chicago law firms of Jenner & Block and Sidley Austin and as a staff attorney and clinical fellow of the University of Chicago Law School’s Edwin F. Mandel Legal Aid Clinic. He is a member of the bars of the U.S. Supreme Court; the U.S. Courts of Appeal for the Fifth, Seventh and Ninth Circuits; the Federal Trial Bar and the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois; and the Supreme Court of Illinois. Profiles of Mr. Baum and his unique pro bono position have appeared in numerous publications from The ABA Journal to The Wall Street Journal.

Mr. Baum graduated, with honors, from the University of Chicago Law School in 1982, where he was elected to the Order of the Coif. Mr. Baum received his bachelor’s degree, magna cum laude, from Harvard University in 1978, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. Prior to attending law school, Mr. Baum had served as legislative aide to then-U.S. Representative Abner J. Mikva. Following law school, Mr. Baum served as law clerk to the late Judge Bernard M. Decker of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.

Mr. Baum served as chair of the Board of Directors of the Chicago Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law from 2004–2005. He received the Distinguished Public Service Award from the Public Interest Law Initiative in 2010, and was awarded the “Unsung Hero Award” from Action for Children in 2004, for his victory in an Illinois Supreme Court case denying local governments the authority to interfere with the operation of day care homes licensed by the State of Illinois. Mr. Baum’s extensive service to the community and the bar has also included serving on the Illinois General Assembly’s Committee to Re-examine the Illinois Constitution, as chair of the Illinois State Bar Association’s Individual Rights & Responsibilities Section, as a member of the Editorial Advisory Board of the American Bar Association’s Law Firm Pro Bono Project, as a member of the City of Evanston (IL) Human Relations Commission, as a member of the Boards of Education of Evanston/Skokie Community Consolidated School District No. 65 and Evanston Township High School District No. 202, and as a vice president of the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois. Mr. Baum has repeatedly been listed in Illinois Super Lawyers (2007–2009).