David E. Springer, an attorney who specialized in complex corporate litigation, did pro-bono work for a gay-rights group and represented a Wisconsin man who sued administrators from his high school for failing to protect him from anti-gay harassment.
Mr. Springer, 55, died Tuesday, June 19, in his Andersonville home of cancer, said his partner, Bill Strausberger.
A partner with Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom in Chicago, Mr. Springer’s clients included investment banks in securities litigation involving WorldCom, the telecommunications company that famously flamed out, and Kmart in its reorganization after bankruptcy.
“He had a very good sense of the law and the litigation process and an extraordinary ability to calibrate other human beings,” said Wayne W. Whalen, a Skadden partner who hired Mr. Springer in 1986. “Quiet, thoughtful and forceful. He was very firm in his views about how things should be done.”
Openly gay since high school, Strausberger said, Mr. Springer offered his legal talents on a pro-bono basis to Lambda Legal, a national gay rights organization.
In 1996, Mr. Springer was part of a Lambda team representing Jamie Nabozny, a Wisconsin man who sued the Ashland, Wis., school district for failing to protect him from anti-gay harassment during his high school years.
A jury found Mr. Nabozny’s rights had been violated, and the case was settled for just under $1 million, said Jon W. Davidson, Lambda’s legal director.
“That case sent a message to school districts around the country,” Davidson said.
Mr. Springer more recently enlisted his firm’s help for Lambda Legal in a New Jersey case similar to the one in Wisconsin.
Mr. Springer grew up in Morton Grove and earned his undergraduate and law degrees at Yale University. He worked for Kirkland & Ellis in Chicago before joining Skadden, where he was on the ethics committee.
HIV-positive for many years, Mr. Springer took a year off from practicing law in the 1990s because of his illness. More recently, he was forced to slow down because of cancer. Yet he continued to be among the hardest-working attorneys at Skadden, Whalen said.
“He and I talked about this, and he told me, ‘I enjoy my life most when I’m practicing law,’
” he said.
Mr. Springer had been with Strausberger, a scientist at the Field Museum and an avid bird-watcher, for 17 years. They traveled to South America on birding expeditions and regularly headed to the Morton Arboretum to watch birds.
Strausberger identified most of the birds, but Mr. Springer appeared to enjoy the pastime. “He always had his binoculars on. He was always trying,” he said.
Mr. Springer is also survived by his father, Edward, and a sister, Annette.
Services are scheduled for 3 p.m. Saturday at Pilgrim Congregational Church, 260 Lake St., Oak Park.
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ttjensen@tribune.com
