Long-time Civic Federation Director Theodore M. Swain was awarded the 2009 Abel E. Berland Award for Exemplary and Outstanding Service to the Civic Federation of Chicago at the Federation’s 115th Annual Meeting on Thursday, November 12, 2009.

Ted Swain, a thirty-year Civic Federation Board member, is the foremost expert on property tax law in Illinois and has a distinguished half-century of extraordinary service to the legal profession, of which he has spent decades in practice at Gould & Ratner LLP. He has also served the public as Judge in the Circuit Court of Cook County, Chief Deputy Assessor for Cook County, and Principal Property Tax Attorney in the Civil Division of the Cook County State’s Attorney’s office. Ted’s greatest achievement at the Civic Federation was as Chairman of the Civic Federation Task Force on Reform of the Cook County Property Tax Appeals Process. The Task Force quarterbacked one of the most influential accomplishments in the Civic Federation’s 115-year history: the drafting and enactment between 1994 and 1998 of historic legislation to reform the Cook County assessment appeals process. The law made it easier for taxpayers to successfully appeal incorrect assessments, a major victory for property owners across Cook County.

John F. Ward, Jr., a past Chairman of the Civic Federation, presented the Berland Award to Mr. Swain, saying “On behalf of your fellow Board members, I thank you for your years of service to the residents of Cook County and Illinois and, above all, to the Civic Federation.”

(L to R) Former Civic Federation Chairman John F. Ward, Jr.; Civic Federation President Laurence Msall; Ted Swain, recipient of the Abel E. Berland Award; and former Civic Federation President William Cowhey.