Philip Baim, a 1929 graduate of The John Marshall Law School and a member of its Board of Trustees for the past 20 years, has given the Law School a one-million dollar gift to endow the Edith and Philip Baim Scholarship Fund, which will provide scholarships to John Marshall students who have high academic credentials and a financial need. In recognition of his generosity, The John Marshall Law School will name its ceremonial courtroom in honor of Edith and Philip Baim.
Baim’s donation caps 64 years of outstanding service to the law, the administration of justice, his Law School and his country and was reflective of lessons learned from his mother, who instilled in her children a belief in the value of education. “In that spirit,” Baim said, “this gift will help provide the scholarship recipients with the opportunity to realize their dreams.”
He was born in 1905, the son of a homesteader, and lived with his family on a cattle ranch in a region of northwestern Nebraska known as the Sand Hills. He attended school with Sioux Indians and remembers gathering cow chips to be burned as fuel during the harsh winters. He was a founding member of the Decalogue Society of Lawyers in 1934 and served as a member of its Board of Managers and its Foundation Board of Directors. In 1935, he was appointed attorney for the Select Committee on Investigation of Real Estate Bondholders Reorganizations in Chicago for the House of Representatives of the 74th Congress. Hearings were held throughout the country and the outgrowth of the
Committee’s findings brought about the establishment of the Securities and Exchange Commission.
During World War Two, at the age of 38, he obtained a waiver from the U.S. Army and volunteered for service, seeing active combat duty, landing at Utah Beach under the command of General George S. Patton. He was assigned to the Third Army Corps of Engineers from 1943-45 and received three Battle Stars after campaigns in the European, African and Middle Eastern Theaters, the Ardennes (The Battle of the Bulge) and the Rhineland and Central Europe.
Baim’s career has been as a general practitioner specializing in chancery, probate, and real estate law, as well as general litigation. He was a member of the Board of Directors of the John Marshall Alumni Association from 1956-64 and was president of the association from 1965-66. In 1967 he received a Citation of Merit from The John Marshall Law School. He is the past president of the Edward T. Lee Foundation (named in honor of one of the founders of the Law School and the man who served as its dean from 1909-1944), serving from 1969-73, and is a lifetime member of its board.
He was also designated as a senior counselor by the Illinois State Bar Association in 1980.
His gift represents the largest single donation by an individual in the Law School’s history.
