Hugh Totten

BA 1980, Political Science
Attorney/Partner, Valorem Law Group

Totten just recently started at Valorem, a new law firm in Chicago with a focus on corporate litigation. He explained that they are working to alter the traditional law model that revolves around billable hours. They work to be more collaborative than most lawyers tend to be.

Early in his career he led the recruiting effort for a law firm reviewing thousands of resumes. In college he worked as a reporter, city editor and ultimately as a member of the publishing board of a newspaper that had 30,000 daily readers. He was one of several lawyers who worked on the Denver International Airport baggage system, one of the most spectacular project failures of the 1990s.  Hugh was admitted to the bars of United States Courts of Appeal for the Seventh and Ninth Circuits; United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois; State of Illinois. He is President of the Board of Trustees for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, Chicago Chapter. He is a board member, executive committee, co-chair, Annual Benefit, Constitutional Rights Foundation of Chicago, and was the Editor-in-Chief of the Northwestern Journal of International Law & Business, 1984-1985. In October 2009 he attended the Exponent reunion and watched the Purdue vs. IL game from Bill Moreau’s suite.