Experience 

Robert Helman has practiced law for more than 50 years and has been a partner in Mayer Brown for more than 40 years.  He served as Chairman of the firm’s Management Committee from 1984 to 1998.

Bob’s present practice is primarily in the fields of corporate governance and the legal aspects of strategic corporate issues and transactions.  Chambers USA has observed that he “continues to attract accolades as ‘hugely prominent - he has always been a business generator and is extremely well respected in the legal and business community.’”   He has served as a director of 10 publicly owned companies, including Northern Trust Corporation (1986-2006).  

Reflecting his high professional standing, Bob has received the Justice John Paul Stevens Award of the Chicago Bar Association (2001), and the Learned Hand Human Relations Award of the American Jewish Committee (1989).  In his honor, the firm has established the Mayer Brown/Robert A. Helman Professorship at Northwestern University School of Law.  Since 2005 Bob has been Class of 1974 Lecturer in Law at the University of Chicago Law School, where he teaches seminars on corporate law and national security issues.  He has also been a member or trustee of numerous civic and professional organizations, including ones of such national prominence as The Brookings Institution, the Council on Foreign Relations, and the Aspen Institute.

Education 

Northwestern University School of Law, LLB, 1956; Order of the Coif; Associate Editor, Northwestern University Law Review • Northwestern University, BSL, 1954 • University of Illinois, 1951-1953

Admitted

• Supreme Court of the United States, 1963
• Illinois, 1956