Goldberg Kohn Principal Appointed to CASA Board of Directors

September 24, 2004

CHICAGO—Matthew Zapf, a principal at Goldberg Kohn Bell Black Rosenbloom & Moritz Ltd., has been elected to the board of directors for the Illinois Association of Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA).  Illinois CASA facilitates the training and administration of volunteers to represent children's interests during court proceedings involving abuse and neglect.  It is a member of the National CASA network.

National CASA has 900 programs in operation, with 70,000 men and women serving as volunteers.  In the United States, more than .5 million children are in foster care because they cannot safely live with their families; CASA volunteers serve approximately 280,000 of those abused or neglected children every year.  The organization was founded by a Seattle judge who sought to use trained community volunteers to speak for the best interests of these children in court, and ultimately spread across the country.  Since 1985, the U.S. Department of Justice has supported CASA through its Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.  For more information, visit www.nationalcasa.org and www.illinoiscasa.org.

Mr. Zapf represents clients in complex commercial, product liability and intellectual property litigation in his practice at Goldberg Kohn.  He is head of the firm’s Product Liability & Toxic Tort practice group.  He is also an adjunct professor at Northwestern University School of Law, where he teaches trial advocacy.

Mr. Zapf graduated magna cum laude with a B.A. in 1984 from the University of Notre Dame.  He received his J.D. in 1987 from Northwestern University.