It is with great sadness that we pay tribute to Thomas J. Boodell Jr., our retired founder, who passed away yesterday. He will be remembered as a great attorney who used his talents to help his clients and the disadvantaged including his work in the 1970’s to stop redlining practices and housing discrimination with his legal work on behalf of the Chicago Contract Buyer’s League.  See “The Story of the Contract Buyers League,” The Atlantic, May 28, 2014. He leaves us and the greater Chicago legal community better for his having been an active part of the practice of law in Chicago for many years.

Tom was a person who I have known since 1979 as a fellow attorney, mentor, law partner and friend.  He was a help to so many over so many years.  We will all miss him.

Tom had many interests and loved poetry. He would often regale us with a reading of Robert Frost, one of his favorite poets whom he saw share his poetry when Tom was an undergraduate at Princeton University. It seems fitting that we remember him with this poem:

Tom indeed did not take the easy well-traveled road in life, but blazed the road less traveled in service to others.  May we follow his example in our service to our clients and to this world we live in.

Tom is survived by his beloved wife Beata, four children and numerous grandchildren.

May God rest his soul and give comfort to his family and friends with the memory and legacy he has left us.

– Al Domanskis and all of us at Boodell & Domanskis, LLC

A memorial service will be held Monday, Sept 25, 2pm at The Hermitage Richmond, 1600 Westwood Avenue, Richmond, VA followed by a funeral Mass Monday, Oct 2, 11am at St. Thomas the Apostle Church, 5472 South Kimbark Avenue, Chicago, IL. You can read Tom’s obituary here.