James E.S. Baker of Chicago was always at the top of his game, whether in school or at the law firm where he worked.
Mr. Baker, 90, a former partner of Sidley & Austin and past president of the American College of Trial Lawyers, died of heart failure Wednesday, Jan. 22, in Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago.
Mr. Baker was born in Evanston and raised in Wilmette. After graduating as valedictorian of New Trier High School, he received a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from Northwestern University and a law degree from Northwestern’s School of Law, and he was valedictorian of both classes, said his son, John. When he graduated, Mr. Baker got a job as a lawyer at the then-small law firm Sidley & Austin.
In college in the 1930s, Mr. Baker joined the Navy ROTC, one of the first such units nationwide, and later was put into active duty in Pearl Harbor. Mr. Baker was aboard the USS Pelias when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, but his submarine tender, equipped to maintain and repair battle submarines, was unharmed, his son said.
After the battle, the tender was reassigned to western Australia for two years. When Mr. Baker returned to his wife and son in 1946, he returned to Sidley & Austin in Chicago. Two years later, he was named partner, his son said.
Mr. Baker was an antitrust attorney and headed the litigation department for 20 years. His son said he had a good sense of timing, understood the complex inner workings of companies and was always well-prepared. Mr. Baker was known to stockpile his office with three-ring binders full of useful information.
“He always found a way to win without rubbing the opposite side of the bar’s nose in it,” John Baker said of his father, who represented the William Wrigley Jr. Co. and was personal attorney to “Mr. Cub” Ernie Banks. Apparently, law ran in Mr. Baker’s family: His father was a lawyer, his grandfather was a judge and his great-grandfather and great-great-grandfather were lawyers.
Mr. Baker served as president of the American College of Trial Lawyers, an invitation-only organization for the country’s top attorneys. And for 28 years he ran the summer internship program at Sidley & Austin, which is now one of the largest law firms in the country called Sidley Austin Brown & Wood. He retired in the early 1990s.
Mr. Baker was involved in Northwestern alumni associations and was president of the condo association for his Gold Coast home, his son said. He said his personable father made friends quickly.
“He was always glad to see people. When you saw him, it made you think he’d been waiting all day just to see you,” said Mr. Baker’s colleague and friend, Russell Bennett.
In his spare time Mr. Baker loved to play golf at the Westmoreland Country Club in Wilmette, read World War II books, collect stamps and do handiwork, his son said. Mr. Baker also is survived by two grandchildren.
Services were held.
