Most important to Rogers, though, are the letters he still occasionally gets from those who have appeared before him as defendants. "[In 1991] I stood before you a scared teenager " read one letter received just last year. "You looked at me with compassion and said, 'I don't know why, but I am not going to give you time.' My point in writing this note is to thank you for your confidence in me. It changed my life."

For Rogers, the commitment to justice in the context of society began at the Law School. After flying more than 100 combat missions in World War Two with the renowned 99th Fighter Squadron, also known as the Tuskegee Airmen, he entered the Law School, graduating in 1948.

"I always knew I wanted to be a lawyer," he says. "Every lawyer I talked to told me that the University of Chicago was one of the best. I found the faculty to be top-notch, and found the curriculum and classes to require serious and focused study. The Law School taught me how to think and showed me the value of the Socratic Method. It taught me to look with an objective eye at the evidence, and let the evidence lead you to the conclusion. I can think of no better approach for someone on the bench."

Following Law School, Rogers went into private practice by working on cases in exchange for office space. He jokes that it didn't take long to decide that "I'd rather work for fees and pay my own rent."

After a decade of solo practice, he would team up with his former wife Jewel Stradford Rogers and lifelong friend Earl Strayhorn, who would become a presiding judge in the 1st Municipal District in Chicago, to found the firm of Rogers, Rogers, Strayhorn & Harth. The firm had a general practice and would also become a Who's Who of the Chicago political and legal community, providing career starts for attorneys such as John Stroger, now Chairman of the Cook County Board and James Montgomery, former corporation counsel for the City of Chicago.

Rogers has also served on the Metropolitan Sanitary District Board from 1970-76, and he was appointed associate judge in 1977, and he was elected circuit judge in 1980. He retired as supervising judge in the Juvenile Justice Delinquency Section in 1998. Rogers has served on a number of non-profit community organizations, including working on the Legal Redress Committee of the NAACP to achieve landmark school desegregation rulings in the 1970s. He is a member of the Chicago Urban League and past vice president of the Ariel Foundation, a Chicago non-profit started by his son, John Rogers, Jr., that focuses on educational issues.

"I have been extremely fortunate in my life," says Rogers. "My greatest fortune is to have been able to make a difference in the lives of others." He and his wife, Gwendolyn Laroche Rogers, also a University of Chicago graduate, currently reside in Hyde Park. Our students enjoyed a visit from both at a recent Deans Lunch at the Law School.—C.A.