Howard Ellis

Howard Ellis (1892–1968) was a prominent Chicago lawyer and one of the name partners of Kirkland & Ellis.

Howard Ellis was born in Washington Court House, Ohio on January 15, 1892. He was educated at the University of Chicago, receiving an LL.B. in 1914 and an LL.D. in 1915. He was admitted to the bar in 1915.

After law school, Ellis was hired by Weymouth Kirkland and, with Kirkland, joined the Chicago law firm of McCormick, Kirkland, Patterson & Fleming, the predecessor firm of Kirkland & Ellis. Eager to participate in World War I, in 1918, Ellis volunteered to serve in the United States Army but was rejected for physical deficiencies. He therefore went to France in April 1918 and served in the French Foreign Legion for the remainder of the war. After the war, Ellis returned to McCormick, Kirkland, Patterson & Fleming. There, Ellis became a close associate of Weymouth Kirkland and participated in some of Kirkland's most famous cases.

In 1919, Kirkland and Ellis defended Robert R. McCormick and the Chicago Tribune in a libel suit brought by Henry Ford. The Tribune had run an editorial in which it called Ford an anarchist for saying that any of his workers who volunteered to serve in the National Guard of the United States (which was then mobilized on the U.S. - Mexico border to prevent the Mexican Revolution from spilling into the United States) would be fired. At the three-month trial, Kirkland and Ellis argued that the Tribune's editorializing was fair comment. Ford ultimately prevailed in the case, but the jury awarded Ford only six cents in damages and six cents for costs. McCormick and the Tribune refused to pay the twelve cents, and Ford ultimately collected nothing.

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