BRETT AUGUST Pattishall, McAuliffe Newbury Hilliard & Geraldson, LLP
Brett is an AV-rated lawyer who focuses on advising and litigating in the areas of trademark law, Internet law, false advertising and other forms of unfair competition, copyright law and international intellectual property law. Illinois attorneys selected him a "Leading Lawyer" in intellectual property law in a survey conducted by the Law Bulletin Publishing Company; and he has been named an Illinois "Super Lawyer" for every year from 2005-2008.
Brett is active in bar associations and other professional organizations, having chaired both the ABA Subcommittee on Foreign Trademark law and the Internet Committee of the Intellectual Property Law Association of Chicago, an organization he has also served as a Board member. He is the U.S. delegate to the Trademark Harmonization Committee of the Association Internationale pour la Protection de la Propriété Intellectuelle ("AIPPI"), and he serves on the Organizing Committee for AIPPI's 2008 Congress in Boston.
Brett served for five years as an Adjunct Professor at DePaul University School of Law, has been a guest lecturer at both Northwestern University School of Law and the IIT-Kent School of Law, and has been a featured speaker at numerous bar association meetings. He has published in Trademark World and the Northwestern Journal of Technology and Intellectual Property, has testified in federal litigation as an expert witness on trademark matters, and has acted as a court-appointed mediator.
In 2005 Mayor Richard M. Daley appointed Brett to Chair the Chicago-Paris Sister Cities Committee, and he is a founder and Immediate Past President of the French-American Chamber of Commerce in Chicago. He is also Vice President of the Executive Committee of Yale Law School and Chairman of the Yale Law School Association in Chicago. He has handled pro bono adoptions of abandoned children and served as an officer of the Lincoln Park Advisory Council. He founded and operates the Chicago Chapter of l'Ordre des Canardiers, a gastronomic society headquartered in Rouen, France, and is fluent in both spoken and written French.
Education: Brett graduated Bronze Tablet (top 3% of his class) from the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign with two Bachelor of Arts degrees (B.A. Political Science 1974; B.A. French Linguistics 1974; magna cum laude; Phi Beta Kappa). During his Junior year he studied in France at the University of Rouen (awarded 2nd and 3rd Degrees of higher education, with honors). Brett then attended Yale Law School (J.D. 1977; Associate Editor, Yale Studies in World Public Order; President, Yale Association of International Law).
An avid skier, sailor and classical pianist, Brett lives in the Lincoln Park neighborhood of Chicago with his wife, Carey, a physician at Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center. Their daughter, Hillary, a 2007 graduate of Yale College, lives and work in Paris.
