Cook County State’s Attorney Kimberly M. Foxx announced on Monday the appointment of four new bureau chiefs as well as an incoming reorganization of the state’s attorney’s office.

In a phone interview, the county’s top legal official, six weeks into her term, also reiterated a commitment to priorities she campaigned on, including elevating the role of her office’s Civil Actions Bureau and starting a unit to address gun violence. But that takes time, she said. 
As part of her efforts to bolster the county’s civil legal team, Foxx named Chaka M. Patterson, a Chicago-based partner at Jones Day, as the Civil Actions Bureau’s chief. Patterson will take over sometime next month, Foxx said.

That group within the state’s attorney’s office, which handles litigation and other civil matters on the county’s behalf, consisted of 83 assistant state’s attorneys according to the fiscal year 2017 county budget.

Patterson has experience practicing law in both the public and private sectors — a quality that made him stand out, Foxx said. His experience also includes a five-year stint at Exelon Corp. and five years between Jones Day and Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom LLP. That background, Foxx said, allows him to bring “the best practices of both universes together in our civil bureau.”

But it was Patterson’s government work that could serve as a guidepost for the future of the bureau under Foxx’s watch. From 2003 to 2006, Patterson served as the chief of the Illinois attorney general’s special litigation bureau. The litigation this bureau pursued “brought in hundreds of millions of dollars in resources to the state,” Foxx said.

Read more at Chicago Daily Law Bulletin