Brendan A. Maher, 37

By Mary Erpenbach

Once upon a time, Brendan Maher intended to live far, far away from Rockford.

“I had a friend who lived in Arizona in themid-1990s,” he recalls, “which was, at that time, a destination spot for young professionals.”Maher, a lifelong Rockfordian who was then a scholarship student at Valparaiso University School of Law in Indiana, very much intended to become a young professional. Especially in the Southwest.

The first part of his story came true—Maher graduated at the top of his class and embarked on a distinguished career as a litigation attorney with a prestigious firm. But fate and luck intervened when it came to location.

“I met my wife at law school; her family was from the Waukesha [Wis.] area, we started looking at our plans for life, and it made a lot more sense to stay a little closer to home,” he explains.

Arizona’s loss has been Rockford’s gain. Since returning to Rockford to take a position with WilliamsMcCarthy, Maher’s community service has included serving on boards for Hunger Connection Food Bank, the Winnebago County Zoning Board of Appeals, the metropolitan Chicago Easter Seals, and more.

He has volunteered for the YMCA Partners With Youth Campaign and the Muldoon-Boylan-Thomas Alumni Association. Since 2006 he has served as secretary and legal counsel for the Rockford Board of Fire & Police Commissioners. He’s become recognized as an expert in the fields of both litigation and mediation, and was recently named a leading lawyer in the area of commercial litigation by Martindale-Hubbell.

Not bad for a self-described late bloomer. “My life is really kind of a story of things happening for the right reasons at the right time,” he says, smiling.