LEGAL BRIEFS
L
ife is getting crazy for
Catherine De Orio (JD ‘01).
Since May, when
De Orio was announced
as the new host of the
cult-favorite Chicago public television
program
Check Please!,
her image
has been plastered on a billboard
on the corner of Lake Street and
Halsted Avenue, she’s been profiled
in the
Chicago Tribune
and a host of
other publications, and she’s been
recognized in some of the strangest
places. And that’s all before the first
of the 12 episodes she filmed for the
season aired in October.
“But you won’t hear any
complaints out of me,” says De Orio.
After all, hosting
Check Please!
has been De Orio’s dream job
since the program began in 2001,
the year she graduated from the
School of Law.
The show, which has spawned
five spinoffs, has a simple premise: A
host—De Orio is the third to preside
over the show, following celebrity
chef Wolfgang Puck’s former sister-
in-law, former restaurateur Amanda
Puck, and master sommelier Alpana
Singh—talks to three “regular people”
about three local restaurants, each
of which was chosen by one of the
guests; the guests and host eat at all
three of the restaurants and discuss
their dining experiences on the show.
While hosting a food-centric
public television show might seem
an odd career aspiration for an
attorney fresh out of law school,
cuisine is just one of the creative
arts that have always interested De
Orio. She entered the School of Law
with the goal of finding work in an
arts-focused practice where, in an
ideal world, she’d be handling cases
dealing with repatriation of artworks
fromWorldWar II or structuring deals
between museums and collectors.
After graduation, she did find
work with an organization that
handled legal matters for people
in the arts. But the job was less
glamorous than it seemed. Cases
often involved situations such as
studio artists dealing with tenant
issues, and that sort of work wasn’t
what she was after.
De Orio left for a job at a
downtown Chicago firm where
she dealt with insurance litigation
issues. “It was fine, but I wasn’t
happy,” she says.
What did make her happy, she
realized, was cooking and eating out
and, when she wasn’t cooking or
eating out, researching what to cook
and where to eat. She developed a
routine where she’d stop at a grocery
store on her way home from the
office, then prepare complex dinners.
She also began hosting elaborate
dinner parties.
At one of these gatherings, a
friend joked that she should leave her
law career to become a caterer. “That
could work,” she thought to herself.
Soon after, she enrolled in culinary
school, taking classes at night and on
weekends while continuing to work
in the law firm. Her plan was to open
a catering business that targeted
law firm events to develop some
steady business before moving into
private parties.
But instead of launching her
catering business, De Orio became
a Sara Lee corporate spokesperson.
The role evolved into work as a media
personality and culinary consultant,
making TV and radio appearances
and developing recipes.
The food world, De Orio found,
was the perfect place to apply the
skills she learned in the School of
Law. “In law school you learn to speak
in front of people, to articulate a
point, to speak clearly,” she says. “I
found I could do those same things
while talking about food.”
And food had another
appeal—everyone gets it. “Everyone
has to eat,” she says. “There’s something
very democratic about it. Everyone
has an opinion on food; it’s kind of like
sports. It doesn’t matter who you are,
we can have a discussion about it.”
And that’s exactly what she’ll
be doing as host of
Check Please!
Having appeared on the
Today
show and
The Rachael Ray Show
and written about food trends and
local restaurants, De Orio was well
positioned for the job when she was
one of more than 900 people who
sent in audition videos. Her video was
a
Law & Order
parody in which De Orio
was sworn in on a copy of Julia Child’s
Mastering the Art of French Cooking
before responding to a prosecutor’s
questions about her background.
She discussed how she grew up in
an Italian-Lithuanian family where
“refusing food was not an option”
and how as a young girl she
developed “a healthy appetite and
a very adventurous palate.”
That background, like her
years at Loyola, will serve her well
in her new role.
■
Cooking up a newTV career
AN ALUMOUTSIDE THE BOX
Catherine De Orio is the new host of the television program
Check Please!
J
ohn Duffy (JD ’94, left), Jim Faught
(JD ’76), Eryk Spytek (JD ’94), and Jim
Kopecky (JD ’94) re-created the Beatles’ famous
walk across Abbey Road during the 1994
London Comparative Advocacy Program.
Today, Duffy is a partner at the Chicago law
firm Donohue Brown. He is married to alumna
Cristin McDonald Duffy (JD ’96). Faught is
associate dean at the School of Law and
continues to direct its London program, now in
its 25th year. Spytek is vice president, deputy
general counsel, and assistant secretary at
Mead Johnson Nutrition Co. Kopecky is a
name partner in the Chicago law firm Kopecky
Schumacher Bleakley Rosenburg PC.
F O R M O R E I N F O R M A T I O N O N T H E C O M M U N I T Y L A W C E N T E R C L I N I C , V I S I T
L U C . E D U / L A W / C O M M U N I T Y L A W C E N T E R .
DEPARTMENT UPDATE: COMMUNITY LAW CENTER
»
O
n their first day in Loyola’s
Community Law Center Clinic,
Director Theresa Ceko tells her
students that her goal is twofold:
“First, to give them the practical
skills they need to be good lawyers,
and second, to fulfill Loyola’s Jesuit
mission to help others,” she says.
The Community Law Center
Clinic, the first of the School of Law’s
clinics, has been effectively meeting
both objectives since its founding in
1981. The clinic serves clients whose
main source of income is public
assistance or Social Security, as well
as those classified as the “working
poor”—people “struggling to meet
their obligations even though they
have jobs,” Ceko says.
Cases handled by the clinic—
nearly 4,000 since its inception—
focus on family issues, landlord-
tenant conflicts, and collections cases.
When Ceko and her students
aren’t able to take on a case, “We
never leave that person hanging; we
make a referral to another source of
legal assistance,” says Ceko, who picks
up cases her students weren’t able to
complete and even takes up others
over summer and winter breaks.
Juggling between two and three
cases per semester, students in the
clinic handle all facets of representing
clients, from the initial interview
through any necessary courtroom
appearances. Right now, under a
partnership with the Probate
Division of the Circuit Court of
Cook County, clinic students act as
guardians ad litem to children in
contested cases in the division. Each
student has at least one guardian ad
litem case and takes on another case
or two of a different type.
Though Ceko is the only full-time
supervising attorney at the clinic,
her efforts are boosted by the clinic’s
fellows program. “Over the past
several years, we’ve been lucky to
be able to employ recent law school
grads who have taken the bar exam
and are actively seeking full-time
employment,” Ceko says. The current
fellow, Lindsey Johnson (BA ’09,
JD ’12), “has, like her predecessors,
been a tremendous help to me.”
Students gain so much from
the experience that they keep
coming back for more, making for
a very busy spring semester. “We
typically have 10 students in the
fall, but almost all elect to come back
in the spring, so we can have
up to 20 then,” Ceko explains.
Many students stay on because
they want to complete ongoing
cases for which they feel a strong
responsibility. In a recent case, the
clinic represented a 15-year-old boy
who ran away from home. Against the
mother’s opposition, another relative
petitioned the court to be appointed
guardian of the boy, who is a good
student and talented musician. The
Loyola law student handling the
case talked to the mother, potential
guardian, and school guidance
counselor, and represented the child
at a contested hearing. She even
found a therapist for the child and
convinced his new school to enroll
him in band prior to the relative
gaining guardianship. “She did
everything possible to get the child
situated in his new environment,”
Ceko says. “His guardian now sends us
updates on his progress every month.
“Our students go above and
beyond; they’re very passionate
about their work here,” she continues.
“In the first class, I tell them, ‘You will
make a difference in your clients’ lives.’
In the last class, I say, ‘You have made
a difference.’ And they always have.”
■
Director Theresa Ceko
“You have made
a difference”
Loyolans then and now
FALL 2013
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LOYOLA LAW
