Frank Cicero Jr.

Frank Cicero Jr. (November 30, 1935 – February 25, 2024) was an American trial and appellate lawyer and published historian. In his five-decade career as a litigator and partner at the international law firm Kirkland & Ellis, he handled major U.S. civil and criminal trials and highly publicized international proceedings, such as those arising out of the Amoco Cadiz and Exxon Valdez oil spills. His legal work was recognized by the Chambers & Partners and The Best Lawyers In America lawyer-rating directories, The New York Times and Chicago Tribune, and several books. Cicero wrote two history books, Relative Strangers: Italian Protestants in the Catholic World and Creating the Land of Lincoln: The History and Constitutions of Illinois 1778-1870 (2018). The latter work won the Illinois State Historical Society's Russell P. Strange Book of the Year Award in 2019, in recognition of its contribution to the study of Illinois history.

Early life and education Frank Cicero, Jr. was born in Chicago in 1935 to Italian-American parents, Frank, Sr. and Mary (née Balma) Cicero. Giacomo and Margherita Balma were Waldensians (an Italian Protestant movement) from the Italian northwest region of Piedmont; Giuseppe Cicero was a Catholic from Montemaggiore, Sicily who emigrated to Buffalo in 1893, where he met and married Antonina Panepinto, also a Catholic, from Valledolmo, Sicily. The two families remained unknown to one another for nearly thirty years, until Cicero's parents, Frank, Sr. and Mary, met while working at the nearby LaMantia Brothers produce house. In 1965, he was hired by the Chicago-founded international law firm, Kirkland & Ellis (then named Kirkland, Ellis, Hodson, Chaffetz, & Masters). and Chambers & Partners America's Leading Business Lawyers, as well as in the books, Superwreck (1987), Chambers & Partners identified Cicero as "the elder statesman" at K&E, highlighting his litigation and defense experience, strategic advice, and oversight of major cases. The Chicago Tribune described him as "one of the top corporate trial lawyers in Chicago;" in an interview, Senior U.S. District Judge Prentice H. Marshall named him among "the great lawyers" that appeared before him. After Richard M. Daley's election as mayor in 1989, Cicero was widely mentioned as a candidate to succeed him as interim Cook County State's Attorney.

Notable cases In 1975, Cicero became the chief litigator representing the Chicago Afro-American Patrolmen's League (AAPL) and Renault Robinson in a civil suit (United States v. City of Chicago, 395 F. Supp. 329) against the Chicago Police Department regarding racial discrimination in hiring, promotion, assignment and discipline. Author and Chicago Defender editor Robert McClory described Cicero in the courtroom as quick on his feet and "extraordinarily authoritative yet non-threatening," a "perfect foil" to the city's often overbearing defense attorney.

From 1978 to 1992, Cicero represented Amoco in U.S. and European proceedings brought by various French parties over damages resulting from the oil spill of the supertanker Amoco Cadiz off the coast of Brittany in 1978. Authors Yvon Rochard and Alphonse Arzel, a senator and leader in the proceedings for the French, described Cicero as thorough, highly informed, According to author Rudolph Chelminski, Cicero devised a two-pronged strategy, contending that the wreck resulted from negligent design and engineering by the shipbuilder, Astilleros Espanoles, and that the spill's effects were worsened by the incompetence of French authorities in preparedness and response.

Cicero also represented BP in proceedings resulting from the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill. BP was sued for damages as the principal owner of Alyeska, which participated in response efforts and operated the crude oil pipeline from North Slope of Alaska to the station where the tanker was loaded.

Legal writing and lecturing Cicero wrote journal articles and book chapters on a variety of legal matters, and lectured before state and federal bar associations, the University of Chicago Law School, the National Institute of Trial Advocacy, Harvard Law School Trial Practice Institute, and others. His article, "Personal Jurisdiction and Service," serves as a chapter in the book Business and Commercial Litigation in Federal Courts (1998), and his articles on final argument and verdict strategy are published in The Litigation Manual: Trial (1999).

History books Cicero's first book, Relative Strangers (2011), explored his family's Italian and religious roots through the immigrant journeys of his Waldensian Protestant and Catholic grandparents from Italy to Chicago, where their paths crossed with the meeting of his parents. detailed neglected aspects of Illinois's political history by studying its 19th-century constitutional conventions and constitutions, which recast the state from one destined as an extension of the American South into a northern stronghold. Professor and reviewer Todd E. Pettys described it as "carefully researched and engagingly written" and relevant to "those interested in nineteenth-century politics of race in the Midwest, the forces that placed Douglas and Lincoln on the nation's political stage." He also served as a delegate to the 1972 Democratic National Convention. Cicero was a trustee of the Crow Canyon Archaeological Center and Newberry Library in Chicago, and previously served as a trustee for the Nature Conservancy of Colorado and the American Waldensian Society.

Personal life Cicero was married to Jan Cicero since 1959. She relocated the gallery to Chicago's downtown area in 1977, eventually settling in the River North gallery district. In 1987, they built a home in the mountains outside of Telluride, Colorado and Jan opened a second gallery there.