Conversation with Attorney James Montgomery on Civil Rights, Justice, and Law

In recognition of Martin Luther King Jr. Day 2021, join Illinois Institute of Technology for a conversation and live question-and-answer session with attorney James Montgomery, who has extensive litigation experience in both state and federal courts and has appeared at trials in various states throughout the country. He is admitted to practice before the United States Supreme Court, and has appeared before various U.S. Courts of Appeal and the Illinois Supreme Court to argue cases.

Montgomery was involved in several landmark civil rights cases including Hampton v. Hanrahan, a case where the Black Panther chairman Fred Hampton and Rockford Black Panther leader Mark Clark were murdered during a Chicago police raid. After an 18-month trial and subsequent appeal, the case settled for $1.8 million. In the 1960s and 1970s, Montgomery filed suits successfully challenging de-facto school segregation and disparate compensation paid to African-American full-time-basis substitute teachers in the Chicago Public Schools.

Montgomery was appointed corporation counsel of the City of Chicago under former Mayor Harold Washington, where he supervised a legal staff that exceeded 190 lawyers. In 2001 he also settled a case against the City of Chicago for $18 million on behalf of the Estate of LaTanya Haggerty, who was shot and killed by a Chicago police officer in June 1999. The settlement represents one of the highest awards in the history of the state of Illinois. Montgomery also settled the wrongful-death case of Rashidi Wheeler for $16 million. Wheeler was a Northwestern University football player who died at an unauthorized football practice in August 2001.

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