Michael Allen O'Connor

Michael Allen O’Connor (b. March 28, 1943) a Chicago lawyer who spent his career assisting low-income people with legal aid, tax preparation and special education problems with local districts passed away unexpectedly on April 1, 2020, late Wednesday at home. He graduated from DePaul University Law School where he was the editor of the Law Review from 1969-70. Mr. O’Connor worked at legal Aid Societies in New York from 1970 through 1978 and in Illinois from 1979 through 1990.

Upon law school graduation, Mr. O’Connor started his work as a staff attorney at a legal aid office in Buffalo from 1970-1973. Mr. O’Connor was “Reggie” (Reginald Heber Smith Community Lawyer Fellowship Program) in his first two years in Buffalo. He worked extensively with the Buffalo Rights Action Group (BRAG). Mr. O’Connor was featured in the Buffalo’s Sunday “The Courier-Express Magazine” on March 12, 1972: “Prestige Practice? Who Needs It?” He is quoted: “Whatever the future brings, I think I’ll stay in some form of community legal service.” Upon reading the announcement that Mr. O’Connor had accepted a position in New York City, Judge John T. Curtin of the U.S. District Court, Western District of New York stated on May 7, 1973:

I was very sorry to read the announcement of your decision to leave Buffalo. In my judgment, the work you have carried on in my court has been important and presented in a forceful and intelligent manner. You are to be commended for your efforts in a field of law which is difficult and has been given too little attention in the past.

While in Buffalo he had two welfare cases combined that eventually went up to the US Supreme Court.

Mr. O’Connor was a Coordinating Attorney at the New York City (CALS – Community Action Legal Services now Legal Services New York) from 1973 to 1978. He was responsible for helping lawyers in more than twenty offices around the city as they worked on welfare law cases. He answered their questions, edited their briefs, mooted their oral arguments, organized and provided their training and guided the development of our welfare law strategies. Per his then supervisor, Gerry Singsen, many occasions standout such as:

The NYC Department of Social Services was limiting the number of individuals that it would see in the course of a day at its local offices. Clearly unacceptable. So Mike developed a federal case about it. People were lining up in the winter's cold to be sure to make it through the DSS door before it was locked for the day. One frosty night Mike led group of us with cameras to a welfare office in upped Manhattan. At 4:00 in the morning there were maybe forty people in line for the door that would open at 9:00. Wonder milk cartons were burning for a spot of heat. We snapped pictures and waited. The crowd surged through the door when it opened. The case was called Nelson v DSS. He won an injunction.

Mr. O’Connor continued working at legal Aid Societies in Illinois from 1979 until 1990. Even after leaving Legal Aid staff positions, he continued to work on the contract level from 1990-1994 with The Legal Services Corporation, providing evaluations of programs through the U.S.

He returned to Chicago at the end of 1978. Mr. O’Connor took off about 8-9 months and drove from Chicago to California. Then he rode his bicycle through Ireland for about ten weeks. He met Sara Mauk (who would become his wife) and her mother traveling through England and went with them to Norway to visit Sara’s brother David and his wife Marit. In the fall of 1979, he was employed as the Director of Litigation for Cook County Legal Services and later employed as the Director of the State Support Center for Legal Services, where he was also a lobbyist in Springfield, Illinois.

Mr. O’Connor also was on the Board of the Howard Area Community Center in his neighborhood from approximately 1980 through 1989, including serving as Board Chairman for several years. https://howardarea.org/about/our-story/. He worked extensively with Sister Patricia Crowley.

Upon leaving employment in the legal services community in 1990, Mr. O’Connor founded the Center for Law and Human Services (CLHS-later renamed the Center for Economic Progress), a non-profit organization based in Chicago and devoted to improving the lives of lower income families through legal research, policy analysis and advocacy. He served as the Executive Director of the Center for 8 years, from 1990 until 1998, at which time the organization employed 30 individuals and relied on over 200 volunteers. During his time as Director, CLHS secured Supplemental Security Income and Social Security benefits for in excess of a thousand Foster children. Mr. O’Connor served from 1994-1996 as a board member of the National Foster Parent Association. He was also on the board for the Illinois State Foster Parent Board Association.

Additionally, CLHS developed and implemented a nationally recognized program of tax preparation and Earned Income Taxes for low-income people in Illinois. He participated in the initial design and launching of Mayor Daley’s EITC Outreach Program, which became a national model. Since the CLHS start in 1990 the Center generated $560 million in returns for 370,000 families. In addition, during this time he served on the Federal IRS Advisory Board, advocating for lower income families regarding taxation.

In 1999, Mr. O’Connor began a law practice, partnering with his wife, Sara Mauk, as legal assistant, representing parents in disputes with local school districts concerning special education services. Mr. O’Connor was a member of the Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates (COPAA) a national organization of attorneys and advocates who represent parents in special education matters. From 2002 through 2007, he served as a board member and, from 2002-2006, he served as Treasurer of COPAA. From January 2008 through November 2016, Mr. O’Connor served on the Board of Directors of the Family Defense Center (FDC) (http://www.familydefensecenter.net/), from November, 2009 to 2012 as Board President, and thereafter as Treasurer. He was honored as a “10th Anniversary Honoree”. Director Diane Redleaf describes him: “He was always the calm in every storm. What a great man in so many many ways..... our world is much poorer without him.”

Mr. O’Connor authored a guide to the education rights of displaced and homeless children (http://www.wrightslaw.com/info/homeless.educate.htm). He delivered numerous workshops and seminars at national conferences, including the International Dyslexia Association, COPAA, Illinois State Foster Parent Association and the National Foster Parents Association. In July 2005 he joined with Sara Mauk, (law partner) in establishing Mauk & O’Connor, LLP, a law firm devoted to representing low and moderate income families in special education and disability related matters. In 2005 Mr. O’Connor authored guides on the special rights of children displaced by Hurricane Katrina. This information was updated in 2017 for Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria.

Besides being admitted into the U.S. Supreme (November 19, 1973) and New York Federal Courts including U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit he was admitted to Illinois Federal Courts: The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, The U.S. District Court for the Central District of Illinois, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. Mr. O’Connor was the lead attorney in more than 20 class actions and appellate cases. He was also employed in the capacity of supervising attorneys conducting federal and state court litigation. In addition to his other litigation cases, in the U.S. Northern District of Illinois alone he has zealously represented families and children in numerous Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) reimbursement fee cases for special education: nineteen (19) fee cases between 2008 and 2014 as well as litigated several fee cases for administrative hearings from 1999-2005. In addition he was the first to federally litigate in IDEA cases “fees on fees” and interest fees for school districts’ delay in reimbursing parent fees. This is especially important in Civil Rights cases with fee shifting statutes such as IDEA as this ensures that parents at the poverty level and low/middle income parents can enforce their children’s rights by obtaining high level of legal representation in a complex area of the law. During all times of his federal litigation, he represented parents in administrative hearings as well as seeking injunctions in Federal Court. The American Bar Association award Mr. O’Connor’s Law Firm, Mauk and O’Connor, LLP the prestigious Meritorious Recognition 2011 Louis M. Brown Award for Legal Access. Mr. O’Connor co-authored Chapter 5 of the American Bar Association “Reinventing The Practice of Law” (O’Connor, Feldman, Singsen, Dandelet; Professor Luz Herrera, Ed., 2014) addressing the need regarding “The “gap group, those with incomes too high to qualify for legal aid but unable to afford to pay a lawyer’s fee, is just as disadvantaged when confronting litigation as are the poor.” Dollars and Sense: Fee Shifting, Ch. 5, page 87.

Mr. O’Connor has also received many other awards over the years some of which are: Chicago Bar Association Service Recognition as 1991 Chairman of Legal Aid committee; Kid Care Excellence Award 2001; 1989 ICBC Honors Award for service in the Illinois Legislature on behalf of Nursing Home Residents; and 1990 Certificate of Appreciation from the Illinois Hunger Coalition.

As a member of the Trial Bar of The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Mr. O’Connor was assigned several pro-bono cases for individuals with disabilities. He provided zealous legal advocacy.

Mr. O’Connor had a long association with the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless (https://www.chicagohomeless.org/) and for a period of years volunteered by staying overnight staffing the shelters. He was initially an active board member for Growing Home. http://growinghomeinc.org/. Les Brown and John Donahue (Homeless Coalition), Doug Dobmeyer (Public Welfare Coalition) and Richard Cunningham (Death Penalty Defense) were good friends in the fight.

Mr. O’Connor had a passion for reading, particularly history and he actively pursued collecting books for Illinois prison libraries including his direct delivery of books over the State of Illinois. In July 2018 he participated in an expert panel in Champaign, Illinois regarding the difficulties of Illinois inmates obtaining access to reading materials and the sad state of prison libraries.

Mr. O’Connor was a veteran of the U.S. Air Force, working as a Russian translator in Wakkanai, Japan. While stationed in Japan he earned 1st Degree Black Belt in the Art of Hakkoryu Jujitsu. At this time he also started downhill skiing which he continued back in the States. Upon his honorable discharge in 1964, Mr. O’Connor attended University of Illinois Circle Campus (now UIC) obtaining a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1967. Mr. O’Connor’s high level of fluency in Russian enabled him to take university classes conducted in Russian. In the late 1980s, Mr. O’Connor also taught his two older children Russian children’s nursery songs and was able to converse in Russian with the owners of the Howard El newsstand (Russian immigrants).

Born in Chicago March 28, 1943 to pre-deceased Charles and Dorothy (nee Gelbach), Mr. O’Connor had just celebrated his 77th birthday on Zoom with his siblings and children. He married Sara E. Mauk on July 5, 1980, which means they would have celebrated their 40th anniversary this year. Michael was the oldest of 5 siblings, (Margaret (William) Tominosky of Venice, Florida, Charles (Sally) O’Connor of Jacksonville, Florida, Robert (died in Vietnam 1969) and James O’Connor of Chicago, IL. He was the loving father of three children: Annette M. Mauk-O’Connor (Chicago, IL), Peter J. Mauk-O’Connor (Chicago, IL) and Benjamin C. Mauk-O’Connor (Savoy, IL). He was grandfather to 6 (Rebekah, Jonathan, Caleb, Lucas, Hannah, and Logan). He was brother-in-law to Clinton (Lillian Mauk), Leslie Thais, David Mauk (Marit Dale), and Ann Bonito (Paul Bonito pre-deceased). Mr. O’Connor had a wonderful extended family: Allison and Timothy Birks, the Birks family and the Grochowski family, as well as Crystal Jones and Saunya Shaff and their adult brothers Emmanuel Barton and Oliver Gregory. He was uncle and great uncle and cousin to many. He will be greatly missed, as he was a loving husband, father and passionate human. As many repeated to his family, Michael O’Connor was “one of the good guys.”

A Celebration of Michael’s life will be held at a future date to be determined, due to the Covid 19 quarantine. Arrangements for cremation are entrusted to Drake and Sons Funeral Home, 5303 N. Western Ave. Chicago, IL, 60625. Share online condolences and memories https://www.dignitymemorial.com/funeral-homes/chicago-il/drake-son-funeral-home/2202

In lieu of flowers donations in his name can be made to the following organizations:

Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates https://www.copaa.org/default.aspx

Connections https://www.connect2home.org/

Chicago Coalition for the Homeless https://www.chicagohomeless.org/

St. Leonard’s Ministry https://slministries.org/

Equip for Equality https://www.equipforequality.org/

Access Living https://www.accessliving.org/

Howard Area Community Center https://howardarea.org/