Judge Milton Shadur stands at the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse on Nov. 3, 1999, in Chicago. Shadur, now 93, is set to retire Sept. 1, 2017.

Over 37 years, U.S. District Judge Milton Shadur has gained recognition as the academic of Chicago's federal court, widely respected for his intellect, fairness and work ethic.

He was known to arrive early on weekdays and work most weekends, conducting legal research and writing opinions.


But on Tuesday, the court announced that Shadur, now 93, would be stepping down effective Sept. 1 because of complications from recent surgery.

Chief U.S. District Judge Ruben Castillo said Shadur has been unable to travel to the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse since the surgery, but he still continued to keep up with a full calendar by issuing numerous opinions and orders from home.

But in a telephone interview, Shadur said it wouldn't be fair to attorneys or their clients to continue that arrangement.

"As a result, I made the only decision I thought was possible and fair to those two constituencies," said Shadur, who indicated he had never really thought about retiring before his surgery.

Nominated to the bench in 1980 by then-President Jimmy Carter, Shadur has become a bonafide legend at the downtown federal courthouse.

In the nearly four decades since, Shadur has authored more than 11,000 court opinions, Castillo noted, "many of which directly impacted the rights of thousands of individuals."

"No other member of our court can match this stunning body of written work," he said in a statement announcing the retirement.

Castillo also praised Shadur for his "truly encyclopedic" knowledge of the law and his "boundless" intellectual curiosity.

And on the home front, Shadur scored success as well, married to his wife, Eleanor, for more than 70 years and counting.

A child of the Great Depression, Shadur was born in St. Paul, Minn., and graduated from the University of Chicago at 18 with a bachelor's degree in mathematics and physics. He received his law degree from the University of Chicago after serving as a radar officer in the United States Navy during World War II and earning the rank of lieutenant, junior grade.

Before joining the bench, Shadur spent what would be a career for many attorneys in the private practice of law, from 1949 to 1980.

Shadur's route to the bench began with a call "out of the blue" from then-U.S. Sen. Charles Percy, who wanted to know if Shadur would consider joining the federal court of appeals. Shadur agreed but didn't get the appointment.

After a couple more false starts, then-U.S. Senator Adlai Stevenson recommended him for the district court, and Shadur got the job.

"It's not something I sought out," he said.


In fact, Shadur said, he was making about twice as much money in private practice but decided to join the bench because "I thought it was something you could contribute to society on."

Known for his professorial style, Shadur often peppered his courtroom remarks with quotes from literary, legal and historical figures, sometimes even seemingly offbeat sources. In his interview Tuesday, Shadur referred to the legendary Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner "2000 year old man" comedy sketch while discussing his authorship of thousands of court opinions.

Some of the more widely known proceedings Shadur presided over include a pivotal Chicago school desegregation case in the early 1980s; the criminal trial stemming from the 1984 near-collapse of Continental Bank; a long-running lawsuit over severe overcrowding at Cook County Jail; the first potential death penalty case in federal court in Chicago; and a case in which he ruled in 1995 that horseman Richard Bailey conspired to kill missing candy heiress Helen Vorhees Brach.

Shadur also used strong language to describe allegations of torture by Chicago police officers in the 1990s, making him among the first federal judges to explicitly acknowledge abuses.

"It is now common knowledge," Shadur wrote in 1999, "that in the early- to mid-1980s, Chicago Police Cmdr. Jon Burge and many officers working under him regularly engaged in the physical abuse and torture of prisoners to extract confessions."

He spent a quarter-century as a senior judge, meaning he could have pared back his workload substantially long ago but kept working a full caseload.

"It's a wonderful job," Shadur said. "It's the last refuge of the generalist. It's essentially as close as the Renaissance ideal as any job for a lawyer."

Elaborating on the point, Shadur said it's "the idea of being a person who is in a position to evaluate problems, to bring an understanding to them, to resolve things in a fair way, is really what ought to be everyone's concern."

Lawyers advocate for their client, limiting their ability to do that.

"What the judge does ... is to make a judgment call on the controversies that appear before that judge and to decide them in accordance with the law and with the equitable principles that really govern," Shadur said. "That may sound very naive to you, but I believe it."

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