b y O l i v i a C l a r k e

A painting of an airplane and twostick figures hangs on RogerPascal’s office wall.

A 14-year-old boy painted thepicture to thank Pascal, a SchiffHardin partner, for flying him andtwo other boys to Milwaukee forlunch. They participated in aprogram that gives inner-citychildren a chance to experiencetheir first flight outside of Illinois.

“It’s rewarding for the personwho does it,” Pascal said. “Whowouldn’t want to take a bunch ofwide-eyed kids on their first flight?”

Doing good deeds seems tosimply be a part of Pascal’severyday life. But he getsembarrassed taking credit for hisvolunteer work because he enjoysthese experiences just as much asthe people he is helping.

When he’s not doing his day jobas a trial lawyer, he’s volunteering tofly patients to hospitals,participating in legal groups,working with the ACLU of Illinois,and spending time with his family.

Friends and family describePascal as a tenacious lawyer whodoesn’t enter a courtroomunprepared and can be dogged inhis litigation. But at the same timehe’s a modest lawyer who firmlybelieves he has an obligation toserve others through his pro bonoefforts.

“Roger is the lawyer you wantwith you in a life-or-death case ifyou were in a criminal trial, or thebet-the-company case in a civiltrial,” said Colleen Connell,executive director of the ACLU ofIllinois. “He is extremely smart,

incredibly quick, and veryprincipled.

“If you were in the legalequivalent of a dark alley, Roger is

the guy you want at your side. He isthat good.”

Creating a life as a lawyerPascal, a lawyer for 42 years,

chose law because he wanted a

career that involved a life oflearning.

“I decided to be a lawyerbasically when I applied to lawschool,” said the 66-year-old lawyerwho has spent his entireprofessional legal career at SchiffHardin. “We couldn’t afford, Icouldn’t afford getting a law degree,just to say I had a law degree. Ineeded to give the law profession atry because by the time I was in myfirst year of law school I wasmarried and had a child.

“I always had to work for aliving. And, fortunately, I think thelaw and I have had a pretty goodrelationship for a long time.”

Today he is a trial lawyer whohandles a cornucopia of commerciallitigation including trade secrets,

Trial lawyer finds success inside and outside the courtroom

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Partner Roger Pascal, who keeps busy as a trial lawyer at Schiff Hardin, also does pro bono work and useshis pilot skills to occasionally fly people in need of medical treatment to hospitals and medical centers.

Pascal: “You don’t always win,

but I’ve won enough to keep it

interesting and rewarding.”

patents, contracts, securities,antitrust, and business tort cases.

When asked to describe himselfhe says, simply, that he’s a lawyer.

“It is what I do and probablythat’s what I am,” said Pascal, whowas head of the firm’s GeneralLitigation Practice Group for 20years and is now chair of the group.“All my other interests in one way oranother flow from my curiosity.Being a trial lawyer is beingcurious.”

Heidi Dalenberg, a partner atSchiff Hardin, describes Pascal asan “inventive, creative, aggressive,and thorough” lawyer.

“He’s got such personalmagnetism,” Dalenberg said. “Youcan’t be in a room and not knowRoger is there. He’s got a veryforceful personality. He has a terrificsense of humor. He is a very hard-working lawyer.”

Dalenberg said Pascal’s pro bonoefforts have encouraged a slew ofpeople at the firm to make a similarcommitment to pro bono.

Pascal started doing pro bonowork in law school as a member ofthe Harvard Voluntary Defenders,which was made up of law studentswho volunteered to representindigent criminal defendants infelony show cause hearings andmisdemeanor trials, and to help withpost-conviction legal advice.

Law students in this group wereallowed to practice in court under aMassachusetts rule similar toIllinois’ 711 rule. Second-yearstudents generally went to the jail tointerview prisoners, and third-yearstudents got experience in thecourtroom, he said.

During his time in the group, itsvice president of research andappeals, James Zagel, who is todaya U.S. district judge, asked Pascal toassist a Rhode Island publicdefender on an appeal in a murdercase, State v. Bradshaw. Pascalwrote a draft of a brief for theappeal. But after the appeal wasfiled, he learned from the publicdefender that it was filed exactly theway he had written it.

“I was taken aback,” he said. “Idon’t know if I started shaking. I feltkind of a sinking feeling. That was

pretty scary.”But about two months after he

joined Schiff Hardin, he waspleased to learn that the RhodeIsland Supreme Court reversed theconviction.

“When you have that kind ofgood fortune, that gets you prettyexcited,” he said. “I have had thegood fortune to be motivated bygood results or exciting cases even ifthe result wasn’t good.

“You don’t always win, but I’vewon enough to keep it interestingand rewarding.”

In addition to his regular case

work, he has also found rewardingexperiences in his pro bono work.

He helped start the SchiffHardin/Howard Area CommunityCenter Legal Clinic. And today hispro bono work includes sitting onseveral boards, including the PublicInterest Law Initiative.

“Most lawyers who embracepublic-interest work do it becausethey believe the profession owes itto the community that gives a lawyera license,” he said.

“It may not sound like much,but to secure a divorce for a clientwho is struggling through all kindsof issues in their life, maybe theirspouse is abusive or holding thatparty back, even doing a divorce fora person who cannot afford to have alawyer can be very rewarding,because the alternative is for themto have no access to what peoplewith means have.”

Protecting civil libertiesAs general counsel for the ACLU

of Illinois for about 20 years, Pascalacts as the liaison between the legalstaff and the board, and is a legaladviser to the organization and itsstaff, Connell said. He is also on theboard.

“Roger himself and the partners

and associates at his firm havecontributed millions of dollars inattorney time advancing civil rightsand civil liberties over the last 20years,” she said.

One such case was B.H., et al. v.Samuels, which Pascal brought toSchiff Hardin. The case involved theIllinois Department of Children andFamily Services and the systemicproblems with the way foster carewas handled. Dalenberg and othersin the firm worked with the ACLU tonegotiate a consent decree, andmonitoring of the department’simprovements continues.

Dalenberg said the caseaddressed the deprivation of fosterchildren’s constitutional rights dueto the level of care and the system-wide problems. This includedeverything from inadequateeducation to constantly moving thechildren around, she said.

“What happened is, we wentfrom being a state with the veryworst foster care providers to beingone of the best,” she said.

Pascal worked with the ACLU onK.L. v. Edgar, a suit that challengedthe adequacy of care received byadult mental health patients in ninestate hospitals. He personallyvisited Chicago Read Mental HealthCenter and spent the day touring thefacility and observing theconditions.

A settlement in the case wasreached that met the objectives,Pascal said.

“Roger is so principled and sopassionate about defending theconstitution,” Connell said. “Hereally does see that as lawyers weare taking an oath, which we do touphold the constitution of the stateof Illinois and the United States.Roger takes it very seriously.”

The Bill of Rights isfundamental to what it means for usto be Americans, Pascal said.Litigating civil liberties cases meanshaving to sometimes representunpopular clients, he said.

“It is about the system. It can’twork if lawyers won’t take casesbecause they don’t like theirclients,” Pascal said. “Lawyers arenot supposed to love their clients.They are supposed to love the law.

Peters: “Roger is incredibly

dedicated and tenacious.”

The whole theory of the system is, ifyou have well-prepared advocatesarguing each side, the truth is goingto come out.”

His wife, Missy, said herhusband has spent his entire legalcareer doing public service inaddition to handling a very activeprivate practice. He has defendedpeople’s constitutional rightsthrough cases involving such issuesas fair housing, and the hiring andpromotion of black police officers.

“Being a trial lawyer carries acertain Type A personality, but thatdoesn’t preclude you from alsotaking those skills and using themto help others, and using it forpublic good and public interest,”she said.

Shaping his careerSchiff Hardin partner Charles

“Chip” Peters said Pascal isthinking about his cases even whenhe isn’t actively working on them.

“Roger is incredibly dedicatedand tenacious,” said Peters, who hasworked with Pascal for about 20years. “Some would say he isdogged in his litigation. He doesn’talways look at cases theconventional way and is willing tolook at new angles and to see wherethe law should be going, not justwhere it’s been.”

Peters considers Pascal a mentornot only for teaching him differentlegal skills, but also for serving as aprofessional role model. He hastaught him through his willingnessto do pro bono work and in how hestays true to his convictions.

But Pascal has also pushed himto step back at times and enjoy thejourney, Peters said.

“There are certain commonelements in all lawsuits, even somecommon elements between criminaland civil, as well as in differenttypes of civil cases,” Pascal said.“But the subject matter varies fromcase to case. We have theopportunity to educate ourselveswith every new area we deal with.That’s why it stays fresh for me.”

Early in his career, at age 35, heargued Boston Stock Exchange v.New York State Tax Commissionbefore the U.S. Supreme Court, an

experience he calls remarkable,especially considering they had lostin each of the three New York statecourts.

Pascal represented the Detroit,Boston, Midwest, Pacific Coast,Cincinnati and PBW regional stockexchanges. The issue was whetherthe amendments to the New Yorkstock transfer tax statutediscriminated against interstatecommerce by taxing more favorablythe transfer of securities traded onNew York exchanges than the

transfer of securities traded onexchanges in other states.

He said it might have seemedlike a boring case to those whovisited the Supreme Court that day,but to lawyers and the securitiescommunity it was an important one.He said he believed the SEC andother policy makers viewed adiscriminatory transfer tax as anunwelcome restraint on free andopen interstate competition in thesecurities markets.

Pascal prepared for theexperience by going through severalmoot courts. The moot courtschallenged him in ways that weretougher than what he wouldexperience from the justices —although not too much tougher, hesaid.

“It was a remarkable experiencebecause of the sheer magnitude ofthe institution. For a lawyer,especially a trial lawyer, whichincludes lawyers who argue appeals,it is the ultimate forum,” he said.

Seven of the nine justices askedhim questions, and, in the end, thejustices ruled unanimously in hisclients’ favor.

“Everyone always dreams ofarguing before [the Supreme Court]because they are so well-prepared

and they have a vision that isbroader than that single case,” hesaid. “They expect the lawyerarguing before them to understandnot just the cases that are importantto their position but to understandconsiderations that move the courtone way or another.”

He said he has worked on manyother cases that have given himgreat satisfaction because theycontinued to ignite his passion forpracticing the law.

Peters and Pascal workedtogether on the case, In-FlightPhone Corp. v. AT&T Wireless, for 10years. It was tried twice, oncewithout a jury and once with a jury.Pascal and Peters won both trials.The case, a complex and protractedtrade secret dispute, involved ahuge number of legal andtechnological issues, Pascal said.

Jack Goeken, a founder of MCI,claimed that their client, AT&TWireless, had taken technology andbusiness information in order tostart up a competitive air-to-groundphone system, Peters said. But thejury found that a release Goekensigned should be enforced, and theinformation he claimed was a tradesecret was not, he said.

Through the case, PepsiCo, Inc.v. Redmond and the Quaker OatsCo., Pascal and other members ofthe firm developed the now widelyutilized doctrine of “inevitabledisclosure” to enjoin a departingexecutive from competing againsthis former employer by “inevitably”utilizing specific sensitiveinformation gained during his prioremployment.

“Inevitable disclosure issomething of a cottage industry,” hesaid. “It has created a lot oflitigation, both pro and con.”

Outside the courtroomPascal said he has found a way

to maintain a career he enjoyswithout sacrificing a life outside ofthe firm.

“I would like to think that it is acombination of energy and just arefusal to be a single-dimensionalperson,” Pascal said. “My earlyyears of practice weren’t so multi-dimensional. I think I am probably a

Pascal: “Doesn’t everybody want

to fly? What could be more fun

than flying an airplane?”

Reprinted with permission from Chicago Lawyer, May 2007.

better grandfather than a father. It isvery difficult to find the time to doanything other than the law. Lawyerswork hard. It is very difficult tosucceed without being dedicated.”

He says his wife holds a lot ofthe responsibility for their having afull life. She is always game for newadventures and activities, he said.

Even Pascal’s attire shows thisbalance of being a lawyer andhaving outside interests. An orangeand black sports watch peeks outfrom under his suit coat. It’s awaterproof Timex digital watch thathas two time zones and a timer,which he uses when he pilots hisplane.

A pilot since 1977, Pascal hasparticipated in volunteer flightprograms. For between 10 and 15years he has flown a couple ofmission trips each year throughLifeLine Pilots, which facilitates thetransporting of patients for on-goingmedical treatments, diagnosis andfollow-up care through a pilotdonation of flight expenses andtime.

He has flown patients to suchplaces as Mayo Clinic. He may flythe whole journey or a leg of the trip— depending on how far away thehospital or medical facility is located.

“Pilots are always looking for a

good, rewarding reason to fly,” hesaid. “When you actually dosomething that renders a veryserious, valuable service that ahuman being needs — that is thecomplete package there.”

He shares a Bonanza single-engine, four-seat plane with acouple of partners. He enjoys flyinghis family and friends on day and

weekend trips to such places asDoor County or Mackinac Island.

“Doesn’t everybody want to fly?”he said. “What could be more funthan flying an airplane? For a lot ofus the sheer joy of flying an airplaneis something special.

“Part of it is, human beings liketo separate themselves from humanbeings by doing something thateverybody else can’t do. I thinkthere is some of that. It can be avery cool way to get around.”

Besides flying, he and his wifehave enjoyed scuba diving for 25years, but they now mostly snorkel.Photos of fish they’ve seen on theirdifferent excursions decorate hisoffice.

He and his wife met while theyboth attended the University ofMichigan. She was a freshman andhe was a sophomore. They both wereinterested in the business side ofthe school newspaper and werearguing over whose fault it was thatan ad did not look right, he said.

While he attended law school,she worked as a social worker andsupported him. Pascal wanted tofigure out a way to repay her whileshe was working and he was homestudying — so he taught himselfhow to bake bread.

Today they have three childrenand two grandchildren. His friendsand family say he’s known for hisbread-baking talents, whichincludes whole grain and rye loaves,as well as round rustic loaves.

When asked how he finds thatbalance between practicing the lawand enjoying life, he says, “Thereare things in life other than this very challenging profession. Thequestion is, what you do with thetime? We try to max out on goodthings to do.”�

Pascal: “There are things in

life other than this very

challenging profession.”