Richard Wilson is a Partner with the law firm of Grund & Leavitt, P.C.

Prior to joining Grund & Leavitt, Mr Wilson had his own firm for a number of years.

Mr Wilson has practiced exclusively in the field of family and matrimonial law for over eighteen years, with special emphasis on negotiation, litigation and appellate practice in dissolution and related matters, including custody and visitation, complex valuation and division of marital and non-marital assets and interests, pre- and post-nuptial agreements, and domestic violence. Mr Wilson’s practice has particular concentration in the area of same-sex domestic relations law, where he has long and uniquely distinguished himself, with particular emphasis on nontraditional family law and the rights and interests of persons in same-sex relationships, including marriage and its equivalents, dissolution, custody, visitation and access to children, parentage, and domestic partnerships, and recognition of such relationships from one jurisdiction to the other. Mr Wilson has frequently spoken and lectured on these issues both in the US and Canada. He is currently an Adjunct Professor at IIT/Chicago-Kent College of Law, where he teaches in the LLM program on the law of nontraditional families.

Mr Wilson is a member of and holds or has held leadership positions in the National LGBT Law Association, which he chaired from 2006-2008, the American Bar Association’s AIDS Coordinating Committee, by appointment from 2003 to date and which he currently serves as Vice-Chair; the Illinois State Bar Association’s Standing Committee on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity, by appointment from its inception in 2002 and which he chaired from 2006-2007; the Illinois State Bar Association’s Human Rights Section Council, by appointment; the Chicago Bar Association’s Committee on the Legal Rights of Lesbians and Gay Men, which he chaired from 2003-2004 and 2004-2005; the Board of Directors of the AIDS Legal Council of Chicago; the American Bar Association’s Family Law Section and Committee on Alternative Families; the Illinois State Bar Association’s Family Law Section and its LGBT Committee; the Lesbian and Gay Bar Association of Chicago; and the Illinois State Bar Association’s Special Committee on Electronic Research Services, also by appointment from its inception in 2005, and again from 2010 to present. Mr Wilson is a founding, appointed member of the National Family Law Advisory Council, a roundtable of lawyers who practice same-sex Domestic Relations law, established in 2003 by the National Center for Lesbian Rights in San Francisco. In April, 2007, Mr Wilson was appointed to the LGBT Policy Committee for Obama for America 2008, which he served on through the election. He was also a member of the coalition that worked to propose legislation in Illinois recognizing the rights of same-sex couples, which ultimately led to the passage of the Illinois Religious Freedom Protection and Civil Union Act in December, 2010. He was a founding member of the Board of Editors of the Same Sex Law Reporter, in 2004. Mr Wilson serves on the board of WSMRCA/Austin Special, a non-profit, grassroots, community-based social service agency that provides residential services and developmental training to developmentally disabled individuals, working particularly with its Arts Program, which provides comprehensive art training and services to its members, and is a charter member of the Mies van der Rohe Society at Illinois Institute of Technology.

Mr Wilson is a Fellow of the International Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers (IAML).

Mr Wilson received his Juris Doctor from Loyola University Chicago Law School in 1992; and his B.A., cum laude, from Loyola University Chicago in January,1982. He did post-graduate work at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago from 1985-1988, prior to attending law school.

Recent publications include A Guide to the New Illinois Civil Unions Law, 99 Ill Bar J 232 (May, 2011); The State of the Law of Protecting and Securing the Rights of Same-Sex Partners in Illinois Without Benefit of Statutory Rights Accorded Heterosexual Couples, 38 Loy U Chi Law J 323 (2007); Illinois Passes Elusive Anti-Discrimination Law, Same Sex Law Reporter, Vol 1, No 3 (May 2005); and The Changing and Conflicting State of Same-Sex Marriage, Matrimonial Strategist, Vol 22, No 10 (Nov 2004).