A former top deputy of Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx who resigned from the office this spring has landed as a partner at a large, international law firm.
Eric Sussman, who served as Foxx’s first assistant state’s attorney before leaving the office in May, has joined Reed Smith as a partner in the “Global Regulatory Enforcement Practice,” according to a press release from the firm.
Reed Smith, founded in Pittsburgh and with offices in Chicago and across the U.S., Europe and Asia, is among the 50 largest law firms in the world.
Sussman, a former federal prosecutor, left private practice to join Foxx’s administration in 2016, serving as Foxx’s No. 2 as the office implemented reforms around bond reform, wrongful conviction cases and charging decisions for non-violent crimes.
Sussman frequently inserted himself onto the front lines of those efforts, as when he sparred angrily with Judge Nicholas Ford last year over the fate of Karen Padilla, a 25-year-old woman who Ford had locked up for probation violations while she was pregnant. Padilla would go into labor while at the Cook County Jail.
Sussman accused Ford of placing Padilla –– who had failed to make restitution payments in connection with a 2015 theft conviction and then accumulated several traffic offenses while on probation –– in “debtor’s prison.”
Sussman also made the controversial decision to offer use immunity to retired Chicago Police Det. Reynaldo Guevara, who was accused of framing Gabriel Solache and Arturo DeLeon-Reyes in a 1998 double-murder.
The immunity offer forced Guevara –– who for years invoked the Fifth Amendment in refusing to answer questions about his old cases –– to take the stand in what Sussman said was a last-ditch effort to sustain a legitimate conviction. But Guevara refused to answer questions about the abuse allegations, prompting a scathing ruling from Judge James Obbish that the detective lied on the stand. Obbish tossed the convictions, and the State’s Attorney’s Office dropped charges, allowing Solache and DeLeon-Reyes to go free after nearly two decades in prison.
Before joining Foxx’s administration, Sussman had worked in white-collar defense at the Paul Hastings law firm. He spent nine years with the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Chicago, serving as head of the Financial Crimes and Special Prosecutions Unit.
A resident of the north suburbs, Sussman is married to Cook County Judge Carrie Hamilton.
