Former Women in Public Finance President Elizabeth Fleming Weber passed away Feb. 9. She was 75.
The Illinois Finance Authority general counsel and former partner at Katten Muchin Rosenman LLP left a legacy of thoughtfulness, collaboration and attention to detail, according to former colleagues.
"She always treated everyone with great care," said IFA Managing Director Brad Fletcher. "She was a class act all the way through."
Janet Hoffman, senior counsel and pro bono counsel at Katten Muchin and a friend for decades, said Weber was active on the WPF board for a long time, including during the critical period after it launched in Chicago and began creating chapters in other cities.
For years, Weber was also the pro bono counsel for the Chicago Children's Advocacy Center, a nonprofit that coordinates the work of child protection staff, law enforcement, family advocates, medical experts and mental health clinicians on child abuse cases.
"She was just that kind of person," Hoffman said.
A mentor to many, including Fletcher, who said he watched "how she meticulously and thoroughly reviewed documentation and considered the best path forward for our conduit borrowers," Weber created pathways for women in public finance while also mentoring younger public finance attorneys.
"Elizabeth was an incredibly accomplished and respected bond lawyer, but I will remember her primarily as a kind and caring person," said Julie Seymour, partner at Nixon Peabody. "Through her professional network and her participation in Women in Public Finance, she served as an informal mentor and role model to many younger professionals and always made time to connect. She will be missed greatly."
"She would always endeavor to get it right," Hoffman said. "She was very detail-oriented and careful about her practice, but in a collaborative way."
Hoffman said friends used to joke that Weber, who wrote in an easy-to-read but tiny font, "could write an indenture on a Post-It."
A generalist who had a wide-ranging career, Weber was happiest in her professional life when collaborating. While most attorneys specialize in a particular area, "Elizabeth's practice spanned virtually everything in public finance," Hoffman said.
Weber earned her B.A. from the University of Illinois and her J.D. from Boston University. Her early career included a stint clerking for the first woman appointed to the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts before she moved back to her home state of Illinois to work for Katten Muchin.
Later elected to serve as a fellow in the American College of Bond Counsel, she also served on its board of directors. She was named one of the top ten public finance lawyers in Illinois by the Leading Lawyers Network in 2014.
Over her career, Weber worked on deals for Midway and O'Hare airports, the city of Chicago, the Illinois State Toll Highway Authority and the University of Illinois. She helped some not-for-profits, such as the Franciscan Sisters, with senior living community financings. She also worked on some student loan bonds, Hoffman said.
Among the Chicago-area nonprofits Weber worked with were the Museum of Science and Industry, the Museum of Contemporary Art and the Art Institute of Chicago.
"It is one of the things that I think made her an especially good candidate to be general counsel to the IFA, because she came in with such a breadth of experience on super big transactions," Hoffman said.
With the IFA's day-to-day transactions in the private-activity space, Weber "played everything on the straight and narrow," Fletcher said. And her willingness to listen earned the respect of higher education and healthcare conduit borrowers throughout the state, he said.
Weber also developed a special expertise in the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency's state revolving fund bond programs, and her institutional knowledge there will be missed, Fletcher noted.
"She was instrumental in each of those bond issues, so that's a great loss," Fletcher said.
For all her professional achievements, "family always came first for Elizabeth," Fletcher said, a point Hoffman also underscored.
"Really, her core was her family," she said.
Weber's colleagues heard a great deal about her son Michael, her niece and the rest of her family.
The youngest of three, "she was kind of the go-to to solve family problems," Hoffman said. When Weber's father, an attorney, passed on, it fell to Weber to sort through the law papers he saved. She insisted on reading each before deciding whether to keep or toss it, Hoffman said.
Weber also made it a point to be there for her colleagues' families.
"I have a 16-month-old daughter, and Elizabeth was the proudest family member who wasn't a family member," Fletcher said. "Elizabeth bought my daughter her first teddy bear. And to this moment, that teddy bear from Elizabeth is still in my daughter's crib."
Personally, Weber was a reserved and private person and a stoic when illness struck. Hoffman said Weber loved to go to the Chicago Botanic Garden; she collected antiques and always had fresh flowers around her home.
At work, her ability to bring people together extended not just to transaction participants, but to the wider economic development community, Fletcher said.
"No decision was ever made in a silo ... [or] without consideration of how it would affect a law firm, a conduit borrower, an underwriter, a dealer, a transaction participant," he said. "And that's important. As the public finance industry faces some headwinds on the national front, Elizabeth's legacy attests to the fact that this truly is a community, a community that is all working toward one goal."
"She was invested in others' learning and their success," Hoffman said. Weber always cared about what type of environment was created for people, Hoffman added, "and excellence. She was meticulous."
At the IFA — where she leaves an agency more focused on its customers and on delivering the best outcomes possible — Fletcher said Weber's absence will be keenly felt.
"On behalf of all IFA employees, and more specifically the public finance group," he said, "she will be always missed."
Weber is survived by her son and daughter-in-law, Michael David Spelman Weber and Molly Weber; stepsons, Thomas E.F. (Jess) Weber and Jonathan (Ashley) Weber; nieces Debra Russell, Jackie Rusell, Melissa (Russell) Morrow and Danielle Clemens and nephew Justin Clemens; grandson Tommy Weber and granddaughters Alex, Madeline, Avery, and Aubrey Weber; and grandnephews Lysander Olson and Aidan Ersan and grandniece Tallulah Olson.
Visitation was held Monday. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the Chicago Botanic Garden in her honor.
