If there's one regret attorney Tim Berkley has in a career that's included defending clients accused of the most heinous crimes, prosecuting juveniles as young as 10 and drafting appellate court rulings on a team of accomplished writers, it's that the man who threw him a lifeline during desperate times didn't live long enough to see him graduate law school.
It was the benevolence of John Ingold that kept Berkley from going under. At age 24, Berkley was immobilized and on crutches from a motorcycle accident, his wife was recovering from a complicated childbirth and his infant son was very sick and cried loudly.
They faced the prospect of being homeless after his mother, who was trying to run her business, asked them to leave her premises. Her basement had become their home after they were evicted from a trailer they rented, because the trailer park didn't allow renters, only owners.
Ingold, who had known Berkley's grandfather Ralph Hunt (owner of Hunt’s Hardware in Rosewood Heights), offered the struggling couple shelter in a little house Ingold owned in East Alton.
"I was on public aid, had no income, had a lien on my (personal injury) lawsuit and I needed a place to stay," Berkley said in an interview Oct. 13. "I told him, I will make sure you get every dime you are owed."
In the serious crash that incapacitated him, Berkley suffered a compound leg fracture after an elderly driver ran a stop sign and sideswiped him on March 29, 1986. He woke up in the hospital on Easter Sunday. He later sued the driver.
The incident had put a strain on his relationship with his mother who was mad at him for having bought a new motorcycle.
After his debts were paid off, and with what remained from his injury settlement, $2,500, it was off to the University of Tulsa Law School in 1987, albeit at the time with a less than enthusiastic wife Sherry, who didn’t want to move from the area. Student loans and some assistance from Berkley's parents would carry them through the three years that followed.
Let alone law school, Berkley was the first in his family to go to college.
He completed his undergraduate degree at SIU Edwardsville, after having first attended Lewis and Clark Community College and Sangamon State in Springfield. He paid his way by doing "fairly nasty" maintenance work at the Shell refinery in Wood River, where his father Louis Berkley had worked as a career pipefitter, and who later succumbed to mesothelioma. His mom Norma Berkley ran a dog grooming business, Norma's Poodle Palace, in Roxana.
His interest in law developed in high school, looking up to attorney Merle Bassett.
"I had three older brothers and when they needed a lawyer that's who they would go to," he said. "I thought, that is what I want to do. They are able to help people. They are people no one can get things over on, because they are smart and know the law.
"I knew back then when I was in high school, I told people back then that I'm going to be a lawyer. And they were like, yeah right."
Today, Berkley, 60, is seeking election to the Madison County circuit court vacancy of Chief Judge William Mudge who will retire in December.
Berkley said that becoming a judge has been an ambition for quite some time, and that if he did not seize the opportunity this time he would not again get the chance to run, given the way the judicial redistricting law was written.
Only voters living in the western portion of the county (Subcircuit 1) get to vote on three vacancies this year. It could be decades before another judicial vacancy occurs in Subcircuit 1.
"I always put becoming a judge as the level of success I wanted to achieve," he said.
Berkley grew up in Roxana, and also lived there following law school in a rental next door to his parents' home. In 1993, he and his wife bought a home in the Kendall Hill neighborhood of Wood River and have lived there ever since.
Law career
Berkley has spent the bulk of his career, 25 years, working as a public defender, a role that some can have a hard time understanding when a horrific crime devastates the community.
"We are professionals," he said. "When I represent someone who has killed a little kid, I have to stand up and do my best. Your credo is if you make it hard to convict someone, then (prosecutors) are less likely to charge an innocent person. The purpose is to restrain the state's attorney from possibly charging innocent people. It keeps the system honest."
He got his start in former State's Attorney Bill Haine's office fresh out of law school in 1990, as an assistant prosecutor with two first chair jury trials already under his belt, experience he gained as a legal intern in Oklahoma.
But a year into law, earning $30,000 while trying to pay down $65,000 in student loans at 10% interest, "I was not making enough money," Berkley said. "I could not survive."
Although he enjoyed his work as a prosecutor, struggling financially, Berkley got a call from then Chief Public Defender John Rekowski, who offered him a job that came with a $12,000 raise. He would work there for 25 years, but not always full time.
In the mid '90s he dropped down to part time and started a private practice with partner S. Russell Meyer, at Meyer & Berkley, P.C. in Alton He returned full-time to the public defender's office in March 1999.
"I've tried murder cases, handled thousands of felony cases, and I have represented people all over central and southern Illinois counties," he said.
Berkley even made national news when a client with AIDS spat in his face and eyes.
"I had to go through a year of HIV testing because I was unsure if he had spit any blood on me," Berkley said. "How's that for time in the trenches?"
In private practice he also achieved a positive result for the late Jim Henderson of Rosewood Heights, who had been ripped off of a Mercury Cougar after winning a putting contest at an SIUE basketball game. Henderson sunk a putt from free throw line to free throw line.
"They refused to give him the car because his name had been drawn at an earlier game and he had missed that putt," Berkley said. "After he won, they claimed he was disqualified because he had previously competed in the contest.” Berkley secured a confidential settlement for Henderson.
In 2017, Berkley retired as public defender to work as a senior law clerk for Appellate Court Justice John Barberis, which was the "best experience," helping draft opinions with a team of "brilliant writers" involving every aspect of law.
But he couldn't keep that job and seek election to the circuit court vacancy.
"I gave up a job I thoroughly enjoyed," he said when Mudge announced in March that he wouldn't seek retention. "I became unemployed for two weeks. I had no paycheck or health insurance. I used that two weeks to gather signatures."
In the meantime, he also gained employment with the Illinois Appellate Prosecutor's office, and is currently using his writing skills to draft "some pretty complex briefs."
Berkley is a patriot life member of the National Rifle Association, a life member of the Illinois State Rifle Association, and a member of the Edwardsville Gun Club.
He was reputed as such a good shot that former Madison County deputy sheriff Ray Botterbush asked him to compete on his pistol team, even though Berkley was a public defender and not a sheriff's deputy.
Berkley also has earned respect from his friend and fellow gun enthusiast Justice Barberis.
When others would tell Barberis they are a good shot, "John would hold up a soda can and say, 'you mean you can hit the can or the top of the straw in the can, because Berkley can hit the top of the straw,'" he said.
"It just comes from a lot of practice."
Berkley and his wife of 36 years, Sherry, are Roxana graduates. They have two sons and daughters-in-law and two granddaughters.