Allen S. Goldberg is a retired American judge who served on the Circuit Court of Cook County, Illinois for 20 years. He headed the creation of a court-annexed mediation program in the Circuit court, and also served as a business court judge in the Law Division's Commercial Calendar.

Judicial service

Goldberg was elected as a judge to the

Circuit Court of Cook County The Circuit Court of Cook County is the largest of the 25 Illinois circuit courts, circuit courts (trial courts of original jurisdiction, original and general jurisdiction) in the judiciary of Illinois as well as one of the largest unified cour ...

Chicago Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. It borders on Lake Michigan to its northeast, the Mississippi River to its west, and the Wabash River, Wabash and Ohio River, Ohio rivers to its ...

in 1992, and reelected in 1998, 2004, and 2010. He retired in 2013. The Circuit Court of Cook County is a state trial level court of general jurisdiction. Goldberg served in the circuit court's Domestic Relations Division for seven years. He spent 10 years as a Commercial Calendar judge, and in his final years on the bench, he handled jury trials in the circuit court's Law Division. Goldberg was succeeded by Jerry Esrig. The Commercial Calendar is a specialized

business court Business courts, sometimes referred to as commercial courts, are specialized courts for legal cases involving commercial law, internal business disputes, and other matters affecting businesses. In the US, they are trial courts that primarily or ...

within the circuit court's Law Division, with a

jurisdiction Jurisdiction (from Latin 'law' and 'speech' or 'declaration') is the legal term for the legal authority granted to a legal entity to enact justice. In federations like the United States, the concept of jurisdiction applies at multiple level ...

focused solely on commercial disputes. It is one of the oldest business court programs in the United States, having first become operational in 1993. Goldberg served as a Commercial Calendar judge from 2000 to 2011. Nationally, Goldberg is a past president of the American College of Business Court Judges, and in 2005 he participated in the first meeting of the American College of Business Court Judges, co-sponsored by the

Brookings Institution The Brookings Institution, often stylized as Brookings, is an American think tank that conducts research and education in the social sciences, primarily in economics (and tax policy), metropolitan policy, governance, foreign policy, global econo ...

and

American Enterprise Institute The American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, known simply as the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), is a center-right think tank based in Washington, D.C., that researches government, politics, economics, and social welfare ...

.American College of Business Court Judges, AEI-Brookings Joint Center for Regulatory Studies, Judicial Education Program, Washington, D.C., Advanced Law and Economics Institute, October 30 - November 1, 2005, Judicial Participant List He served as a Business Court Representative to the

American Bar Association The American Bar Association (ABA) is a voluntary association, voluntary bar association of lawyers and law students in the United States; national in scope, it is not specific to any single jurisdiction. Founded in 1878, the ABA's stated acti ...

's Business Law Section. A court-annexed civil mediation program was created in the Cook County Circuit court's Law Division in 2004. Goldberg "led a 60-member committee that spent more than nine months drafting rules governing mediation." In 2005, Circuit court Judge Michael S. Jordan, chair of the

Illinois State Bar Association The Illinois State Bar Association (ISBA) is among the largest voluntary state bar associations in the United States. Approximately 28,000 lawyers are members of the ISBA. Unlike some state bar associations, in which membership is mandatory, ISB ...

's Section on Alternative Dispute Resolutions, stated that the court-annexed mediation program was under Goldberg's supervision and responsibility. That program still exists (as of August 2024), and is made available to a variety of different case types actionable in the Law Division, providing the litigants with an "opportunity to explore settlement alternatives with a highly trained and experienced mediator." Among examples of notable cases in which Goldberg presided as judge: a suit by singer

James Brown James Joseph Brown (May 3, 1933 – December 25, 2006) was an American singer, songwriter, dancer, musician, and record producer. The central progenitor of funk music and a major figure of 20th-century music, he is referred to by Honorific nick ...

against Corbis Corp., a company founded by

Bill Gates William Henry Gates III (born October 28, 1955) is an American businessman and philanthropist. A pioneer of the microcomputer revolution of the 1970s and 1980s, he co-founded the software company Microsoft in 1975 with his childhood friend ...

, over the use of Brown's photos on the internet, an election fraud dispute brought by Jesse L. Jackson, Jr., a dispute between Archipelago Holdings Inc. founder and Chief Executive Gerald Putnam and Fane Lozman, a suit between the

Chicago Transit Authority The Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) is the operator of public transport, mass transit in Chicago, Illinois, United States, and some of its suburbs, including the trains of the Chicago "L" and List of Chicago Transit Authority bus routes, CTA bu ...

and American Bus Industries, Inc. over the sale of hundreds of allegedly defective buses, and a retaliatory discharge suit by Paul Liska against Motorola, Inc.

Legal practice

After graduating law school, Goldberg spent a short time in private legal practice before joining the Legal Aid Bureau of the Office of Economic Development until 1970. He next went to work for the Cook County Public Defender's Office, where he spent 21 years. He eventually became chief of its felony trial division. As head of the felony division, he supervised 150 lawyers.

Education

Goldberg received a

Bachelor of Science A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, B.S., B.Sc., SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree that is awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Scienc ...

degree from the

University of Illinois The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC, U of I, Illinois, or University of Illinois) is a public university, public land-grant university, land-grant research university in the Champaign–Urbana metropolitan area, Illinois, United ...

in 1964, and a

Juris Doctor A Juris Doctor, Doctor of Jurisprudence, or Doctor of Law (JD) is a graduate-entry professional degree that primarily prepares individuals to practice law. In the United States and the Philippines, it is the only qualifying law degree. Other j ...

degree from

DePaul University College of Law DePaul University College of Law is the law school of DePaul University, a private Catholic research university in Chicago, Illinois. It employs more than 125 full- and part-time faculty members and enrolls more than 500 students in its Juri ...

in 1967.

Positions and honors

Goldberg has served in the following positions or received the following honors, among others; * President, American College of Business Court Judges * Chair, Civil Practice and Procedure Section Council, Illinois State Bar Association * President, North Suburban Bar Association * Business Court Representative, American Bar Association Business Law Section * Member, Section Council, Illinois State Bar Association Section on Alternative Dispute Resolution * L. Sanford Blustin Award, North Suburban Bar Association

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Goldberg, Allen S. Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Place of birth missing (living people) University of Illinois alumni DePaul University College of Law alumni Judges of the Circuit Court of Cook County 21st-century American judges Mediation