Recorded on Tuesday, July 27, 2021
The Chicago Lakefront: How Did It Happen?
How did Chicago, a city known for commerce, come to have such a splendid public waterfront—its most treasured asset? The story is told in Dean Kearney’s new book—Lakefront: Public Trust and Private Rights in Chicago, which is coauthored with Thomas W. Merrill, the Charles Evans Hughes professor of law at Columbia University and published by Cornell University Press. The product of two decades of research, Lakefront sets forth the social, political, and legal conflict in which private and public rights clashed repeatedly over time, only to produce, as a kind of miracle, a generally happy ending. The extraordinary story should be of interest not only to Chicagoans but to all interested in urban history and the preservation of public spaces.
Presenter(s): Joseph D. Kearney, Dean and Professor of Law, Marquette University
Appointed in 2003, Joseph D. Kearney is one of the longest-serving law school deans in the country and only the ninth person to hold the position at Marquette University since 1908. Dean Kearney has been a member of the Marquette faculty since 1997. Before coming to Marquette Law School, Dean Kearney practiced for six years at Sidley & Austin in Chicago. He also served as a law clerk to the Honorable Antonin Scalia, Justice of the United States Supreme Court, and to the Honorable Diarmuid F. O'Scannlain of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Dean Kearney is an accomplished teacher, scholar, administrator, and lawyer. He teaches each semester, including upper-level courses in Advanced Civil Procedure and Federal Courts and a Supreme Court Seminar. His areas of research include regulation of industry (particularly telecommunications) and civil litigation. His collaborations with Professor Thomas W. Merrill (Columbia University) include their book, Lakefront: Public Trust and Private Rights in Chicago (Cornell University Press 2021). Dean Kearney's background as a practitioner is in appellate and telecommunications litigation. He has argued cases before the Wisconsin and Illinois Supreme Courts and the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit and has been the primary draftsman of winning briefs on the merits in the United States Supreme Court. Dean Kearney is an honors graduate of Yale College and Harvard Law School.
