Overview
Myles D. Berman — known to many of his clients, colleagues, and friends as “Mush” — has provided clients with four decades of experience in corporate, real estate, and financial transactions; he also has represented clients before state, county, and local governments as well as regulatory and administrative agencies. Within the Foley organization, from 2012 to 2017 he served as the managing partner of the firm’s Chicago office; Myles also served as co-chair of the firm’s national Government & Public Policy Practice. He maintains affiliations with the firm’s Environmental Regulation Practice, Energy Industry Team, Manufacturing Sector, and the Environmental, Social, and Corporate Governance (ESG) Team. Myles is also a director of the firm’s Federal Political Action Committee.
Myles has counselled and provided legal services to utilities; private equity funds; U.S.-based global manufacturers; Tier I automotive suppliers; public companies and closely helds; multistate agricultural chemicals and inputs retailers; PPP projects, including the privatization of a major airport, airport concessions, and a toll road; and major banks and financial institutions.
Before joining Foley in 2003, Myles was group head of Altheimer & Gray’s Government Department, where he co-chaired the firm’s Government Affairs/Public Affairs practice.
Myles also has served as a distinguished neutral, as an arbitrator on the Dalkon Shield National Panel of Arbitrators, and as a mediator on the Piper Aviation Irrevocable Trust Panel of Mediators. He also has arbitrated matters for the American Arbitration Association. He has taught in the U.S. and internationally, having trained and certified the first panel of mediators in Poland, and he conducted a program on negotiations for an international group of lawyers in Blumau, Austria in 1999 as well as teaching during the preponderance of his career as an adjunct professor at Northwestern University’s Pritzker’s School of Law and an adjunct associate professor of Urban and Regional Planning at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Affiliations
Myles was a field associate for the Brookings Institution’s five-year study of the Community Development Block Grant Program, and he also was a research associate at Northwestern University’s Center for Urban Affairs and Policy Research.
Myles is a member of The Economic Club of Chicago and sat on the board of the Chicago Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, Inc. for 25 years (board chair 2002), and he continues to sit on the boards of the Public Interest Law Initiative (30 years and board president 2002–2004) and the board of Business and Professional People for the Public Interest (BPI). Myles is a member of the Bluhm Legal Clinic Advisory Board at Northwestern University’s Pritzker School of Law.
Recognition
A member of Foley’s National Pro Bono Committee and the Chicago office’s Pro Bono Committee, Myles has been named to Crain’s Chicago Business’ list of “Who’s Who in Chicago Business” in 2012–2015. He has been Peer Review Rated as AV® Preeminent™, the highest performance rating in Martindale-Hubbell’s peer review rating system. Additionally, Myles has been nominated by his peers to the 2005 and 2007–2012 and 2015–2022 lists of Illinois Super Lawyers®, where for a number of those years he was named as one of only two or three Illinois Super Lawyers in Government Relations. In April 2015 he was honored by Northwestern’s Pritzker School of Law’s Student-Funded Public Interest Fellowship Program for his outstanding contributions to public service and the legal community.*
Thought Leadership
A frequent lecturer and author, Myles has chaired several faculties on real estate-related matters for the Illinois Institute for Continuing Legal Education, and he has spoken at the American Bar Association’s National Meeting, the Law Education Institute’s National CLE Course, and conferences of the American Planning Association. Myles co-authored a chapter of the Attorney’s Practice Guide to Negotiations, 2nd Edition, (Clark Boardman & Callaghan, 1995).
Education
Myles received his law degree from Northwestern in 1983, his master’s degree in Urban and Regional Planning in 1979, and his bachelor’s degree, cum laude with college honors, in 1974 from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Professional Memberships and Admissions
Myles is a member of the American, Illinois State, and Chicago Bar Associations and the Chicago Council of Lawyers. He is admitted to practice in Illinois and before the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois and is a registered lobbyist pursuant to applicable state, county, and local laws.
*The Illinois Supreme Court does not recognize certifications of specialties in the practice of law, and no award or recognition is a requirement to practice law in Illinois.