JOHN D. GORBY - John Marshall Law School

JOHN D. GORBY
The John Marshall Law School
315 South Plymouth Court
Chicago, Illinois 60604
[312] 427-2737
7gorby@jmls.edu
Education:
1) Knox College, 1957-61, A.B. (History; English)
2) University at Tuebingen, Germany, 1963-65 (Economics)
3) University of Michigan, 1965-68, J.D. (Law)
4) University at Heidelberg, Germany, 1968-71 (State and International Law)
Scholarships and Fellowships:
1) Knox College General Scholarship, Knox College
2) Fredrick L. Leckie Scholarship, University of Michigan Law School
3) German Academic Exchange (DAAD), The University of Heidelberg
4) Max Kade Fellowship
5) Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Science (Germany) Stipendium
Present Position: Professor of Law, The John Marshall Law School
Law Related Employment:
1) Academic:
a) Max Planck Institute for Foreign Public and International Law, Heidelberg,
Germany, 1968-71. (Duties: research and translation; assisted Prof. Herman Mosler,
Director of the Institute, Judge on European Court of Human Rights and Judge on
International Court of Justice)
b) Western Illinois University, Macomb, Illinois, 1973-74. (Assistant Professor of
Sociology)
c) The John Marshall Law School, Chicago, Illinois, 1974 to present. (Assistant
Professor, 1974-76; Associate Professor, 1976-78; Professor, 1978 to present. Courses
taught: constitutional law I & II, federal jurisdiction, evidence, criminal procedure,
philosophy of law, scientific evidence, argumentation in law, trial advocacy, advanced
trial advocacy, and counseling and negotiation)
2) Prosecution and Representation of the State: McHenry County States
Attorneys Office, Woodstock, Illinois, 1971-73. (Assistant States Attorney, 1971-72;
First Assistant States Attorney, 1972-73. Cases handled: felonies and misdemeanors,
appeals and civil rights actions against county)
3) Criminal Defense: McDonough County Public Defender’s Office, Macomb,
Illinois, 1973-74. (Public Defender)

4) Pro Bono:
a) Co-founder and Legal Director, Americans United for Life Legal Defense
Fund, 1974-1981. (Cases handled: numerous civil rights cases involving the abortion and
other "life" issues at all judicial levels, including acting as primary attorney in the "Hyde
Amendment" (abortion funding) cases (Williams v. Zbaras; Harris v. McCray).
b) Plaintiff's attorney in civil rights cases involving housing discrimination, e.g.,
Cunningham v. Lee, wrongful prosecution, etc.
c) Attorney in various cases involving important legal issues, e.g., Einhorn v.
Einhorn, which involved the issue of whether a 1984 change of federal tax law had
preempted state domestic relations judges of their traditional authority to award
dependency exemptions. The case affected divorce judgments in nearly every state.
d) Plaintiff's attorney at trial, appellate and Supreme Court levels in an
environmental action to require the surface mining industry to comply with local mining
reclamation laws. Lily Lake Road Defenders v. County of McHenry and FRAMS Gravel
Pit, 156 Ill. 2d 1 (1993). From an environmental standpoint, the case is significant
because it upheld local law, which requires the mining industry to reclaim surface mines
to a future productive state; from a legal standpoint, the case is significant because it
clarified the state-local preemption doctrine, which had been causing much confusion in
lower courts.
e) In re Marriage of Ancelet, No. 3-94-0816. This case in the Appellate Court, 3d
District, raised several important legal issues: 1) whether the Illinois Supreme Court
Zells case, which held that good will of a sole legal practice is not a marital asset is
applicable to a law partnership, where partners buy into the partnership with marital
assets; 2) whether a payment to the estate of a deceased partner is an expense of the firm
or a purchase by surviving partners of the deceased partner's interest in the firm; 3) in a
second appeal, whether a trial court has the authority to revise a misstatement of facts by
the appellate court; and 4) whether the Appellate Court has authority to revise its
previous judgment when it misconstrued the record.
f) Lead counsel, Government of Liberia v. Former Chairman of the Transitional
Government of Liberia Charles Gyude Bryant, in Application to Economic Community
of West African States for mediation concerning the meaning of the Liberia
Comprehensive Peace Agreement, the powers of the Transitional Legislative Assembly
and executive immunity for the Transitional Head of State; pending.
Significant Supreme Court Cases:
1) Harris v. McCray, 448 U.S. 297 (1980)
2) Williams v. Zbaras, 448 U.S. 358 (1980); clients included U.S. Senators James
Buckley & Jesse Helms & Congressman Henry Hyde.
3) ARDC v. Oakey, MR 4439, 11/10/1987, Il. Sup. Ct.
4) Lily Lake Road Defenders et al. v. County of McHenry et al., 156 Ill.2d 1
(1993)
[Note: There have been a number of others, but these are the only cases that were fully
litigated.]

Significant Law School Committees:
1) Student Recruitment Committee Chairperson, 1977-80 (during which time the
law school experienced an 18% increase in applications).
2) Tenure and Promotion Committee Chairperson, 1981-84.
3) Executive Committee Chairperson, 1985-87.
Teaching Awards: “Favorite Professor Overall” – 2003 JMLS graduating class
Legal Publications (Completed):
1) Book, Demonstrationsrecht und Strassenverkehr, a comparison of the right to
demonstrate in ten different nations; co-author 1970; Carl Heymann Verlag.
2) Translation from German: Fontes Juris Gentium 1970; Carl Heymann Verlag.
3) Translation from German: Judicial Protection Against the Executive, 3d vol.,
1971, Carl Heyman Verlag.
4) Article, "The Legal Case for the Unborn," in Abortion and Social Justice, coauthor,
1973.
5) Article, "Abortion and the Supreme Court: Death Becomes a Way of Life," in
Abortion and Social Justice, co-author, 1973.
6) Article, The Danforth Brief," in Human Life Review, 1975.
7) Translation from German: "The West German Abortion Decision," in The
John Marshall Law Review 1976, cited by U.S. Supreme Court in Planned Parenthood of
Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833, 120 L.Ed. 674, 112 S.Ct. 2791
(1992).
8) Article, "Introduction to `The West German Abortion Decision', a Contrast to
Roe v. Wade," in 9 The John Marshall Law Review 557, 1976, cited by U.S. Supreme
Court in Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833, 120
L.Ed. 674, 112 S.Ct. 2791 (1992).
9) Article, "Abortion and Human Rights," in 11 Human Life Review, No. 3, 1976.
10) Article, "The Right to an Abortion, the Scope of the Fourteenth Amendment
Personhood, and the Supreme Court's Birth Requirement, in Southern Illinois Law
Journal, Vol. 1979, No. 1, reprinted in AUL Studies in Law and Medicine, no. 5. Cited
by the Illinois Supreme Court in People of State of Illinois v. Greer, 79 Ill.2d 103 (1980).
11) Translation from German: "The Idea of Fundamental Human Rights" by
Alfred Verdoss, In Human Rights, 1980.
12) Article, "The West German Abortion Decision Before the European
Commission on Human Rights" in New Perspectives on Abortion, Horan, ed., 1981.
13) Book, The Federal Rules of Evidence, 1st, 2d, 3d editions, co-author, IICLE.
14) Article, "Coaching Evidence," in Trial Advocacy: Teacher's Edition, 1985.
15) Article, "Doing Politics in the United States Supreme Court," in Studies of
the Institute for European Law, University at Saarbruecken, 1988 and in The John
Marshall Law Review, 1989.
16) Article, "A Question of Honesty: Roe v. Wade, Judicial Review and the
Abortion Dilemma," in The Case Western Reserve University Health Matrix Journal,
Vol. VII, No. 2, 1989. (This essay was the winner of the Sidney Lewine National Essay
Contest of The Case Western Reserve University.)
17) Article, "Admissibility and Weighing Evidence of Intent in Right to Die
Cases," in Issues in Law and Medicine, Vol. 6, No. 1, Summer 1990.

18) Article, "Viewing the Draft Guidelines for State Court Decision Making in
Authorizing or Withdrawing Life-Sustaining Medical Treatment, View from the
Perspective of Related Areas of Law and Economics: A Critique," in Issues in Law and
Medicine, Vol. 7, No. 4 (Spring 1992).
19) Article, “The Values of the Law and The Secret Work of Illinois Courts”
(This critical article was accepted for publication by The John Marshall Law Review in
1998, but was later rejected because I refused to remove the names of the judges who
based a decision on a claimed lower court finding of fact that never was made and was
not of record and rendered its judgment not to be published or cited. It will likely be
rewritten and submitted for publication in another forum.)
20) Article, “Why Law Review and What is its Purpose” (This article was
accepted by the JMLS Decisive Utterance, but later rejected presumably for reasons
related to the above and fear of controversy.)
Legal Publications (Pending):
1) Book: Verification of Facts and Skepticism in Litigation, a study of reasoning
and truth finding in litigation
2) Book: “Building, Destroying, Analyzing and Evaluating Arguments: The
Foundational Skill of Good Lawyering” & “The Arguer’s Dictionary”
3) Possible evidence problem book, based on the success of the Verification of
Facts . . . (in planning).
4) Article, "Sacrileging the Sacred Cow: Civil Rights Violations and Illinois
Land Trust Law" (in planning).
Significant Speeches:
1) "In vitro Fertilization and the Abortion Controversy," at the Virginia State Bar
Association, 1982, broadcast later on National Public Radio.
2) "I'd Rather Be a Fiji," at the Phi Gamma Delta Fraternity Banquet, 1986, a
speech about racism in American College Fraternities.
3) "Doing Politics in the United States Supreme Court," at the Universities at
Cologne, Mainz, Saarbruecken and Bielefeld and at the Max Planck Institute for Foreign
Public Law and International Law, 1988.
4) "Weighing Evidence in ‘Right to Die’ Cases," at conference sponsored by the
National Legal Center for the Medically Dependent and Disabled and Georgetown
University, entitled, "Current Controversies in the Right to Live, Right to Die," April
1989.
5) “On the Constitution, Lawyers, Theologians and the Abortion Problem,”
Trinity International University Founders’ Lecture, February 1996.
Legislative Testimony: Before the Subcommittee on Civil Rights, House Committee of
the Judiciary, on the authority of Congress to enact a freedom of choice bill which limits
the power of the states to enact "pro-life" legislation, October 1990.
Faculty Advisor:
1) John Marshall Law School Federalist Society
2) Decisive Utterance (emeritus)

Non-Legal Publications:
1) "Pause That Refreshes in Bibulous Germany," New York Times, 1964.
2) Booklet, An Ascent of the Western Rib of Mt. McKinley, Chicago
Mountaineer, 1980.
3) "The Joy of Mountaineering," in The Graduate Review, Fall 1989.
4) "The Snow Cave," in Chicago Mountaineer, Spring 1990.
5) "In Defense of Old Siwash," in Zephyr, Vol. 4, No. 52, May 27, 1993.
6) "Siwashing and the Archdeacon of the Yukon," in Zephyr, Vol. 6, No. 17,
September 22, 1994.
7) "The Ethics of Compromising on Old Siwash," in Zephyr, Vol. 6, No. 18,
September 29, 1994.
(8) "Why Today's Knox Students Should Care About Siwash," in The Knox
Student, Vol. 102, No. 5, November 11, 1994.
(9) "The Case Against Old Siwash and Why It Fails," in The Knox Student,
published Vol. 102, No. 6, January 1995.
(10) Book: The Stettner Way: The Life and Climbs of Mountaineers Joe and Paul
Stettner, Colorado Mountaineering Club Press, April 2003.
(11) Book: Three Tales of Denali (in progress).
Non-Legal Hobbies and Professions:
1) Mountaineering: guide, retired, Colorado Mountain School and Guide Service,
Rocky Mountain National Park; member, American Mountain Guides Association;
former president, the Chicago Mountaineering Club; co-founder and president,
Mountaineering Foundation of Chicago; member, American Alpine Club; Honorary
Member, Colorado Mountaineering Club.
2) Cross-country ski racing: 50 some Nordic ski marathons.
3) Biatholoning (running and bike racing): fifth in age group, Coors National
Biathlon Championship, Phoenix, AZ (1991).