ROBERT H. BAUM

Current Responsibilities

Robert H. Baum has been with The Inland Real Estate Group, LLC and its affiliates since their inception and is one of the four founding principals. He is Chairman, Executive Vice President and General Counsel of The Inland Real Estate Group, LLC. In his capacity as General Counsel, Mr. Baum is responsible for the supervision of the legal activities of The Inland Real Estate Group, LLC and its affiliates. This responsibility includes the supervision of the Inland Law Department and serving as liaison with outside counsel.

Career Summary

Following his graduation from The Northwestern Pritzker School of Law in 1967, and while awaiting his bar examination results, Mr. Baum took a teaching position in the Chicago Public School System where he met three other teaching associates who together with him became the founding principals of Inland. In 1968, he began his practice of law with a private law firm in Chicago where he practiced labor and real estate law and served as Inland's outside counsel. In January 1973, Mr. Baum joined Inland on a full-time basis as its General Counsel, a position he has held since that time.

Mr. Baum has been admitted to practice before the Supreme Court of the United States, as well as the bars of several federal courts of appeals and federal district courts and the State of Illinois. He is also an Illinois licensed real estate broker. He has served as a director of American National Bank of DuPage and Inland Bank & Trust, and has served as General Counsel and a director of Inland Bancorp, Inc., a recently merged bank holding company.

Mr. Baum has served as a member of the North American Securities Administrators Association Real Estate Advisory Committee and as a member of the Securities Advisory Committee to the Secretary of State of Illinois. He is a member of the American Corporation Counsel Association and The Private Company General Counsel Group. He has also been a guest lecturer for the Illinois State Bar Association and The Northwestern Pritzker School of Law.

In 2019, Crain’s Chicago Business honored and recognized Mr. Baum in the publication’s first annual listing of Notable General Counsels.

In 2023, the Illinois Real Estate Journal awarded Mr. Baum with its Lifetime Achievement Award.

Public Service

Mr. Baum is a member of the Board of Trustees of Window to the World Communications, Inc., Chicago’s premier public media organization that creates and presents unique content for television (WTTW, Channel 11), radio (WFMT, 98.7 FM) and digital media.

Mr. Baum is also a Lifetime Trustee and has served as a member of the Board of Directors of Wellness House, a charitable organization that helps cancer patients and their families and close relationships improve the quality of their lives by providing programs emphasizing emotional support and information as a vital complement to medical treatment, all for no charge. He is also a Governing Member of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and has supported the CSO's Civic Orchestra of Chicago by underwriting scholarships for its keyboardist position. He is also a past member of the Men's Council of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago. In addition, Mr. Baum was named a Paul Harris Fellow by The Rotary Foundation of Rotary International, and he has recently become a Member of The Northwestern Pritzker School of Law's Dean's Circle.

Recreation

One of Bob’s hobbies as a teenager was film making -- movies. He acquired cameras, lighting, tripods and editing equipment and, of course, film. He would indulge family and friends into making films that would be fun to watch. When he joined Inland, Bob thought it would be a good idea to capture the theme of the inception of the company on film. So, in 1973, with the other founders as real actors, Bob produced “Odyssey of a Dream.” The movie was shown to all prospective investors in a conference room at the original Inland offices and today sits in the Inland photography archives waiting to be screened again for employees to have a visual perspective of the early history of Inland.

In the late 1970’s and during the 1980’s, Bob formed and managed a company softball team whose games were attended by employees during after-work hours. The Inland team won several corporate league championships and even got to play against its primary outside law firm at old Comiskey Park, the first home of the Chicago White Sox. That game was attended by employees of both sides and was also captured on video. They even used the ancient scoreboard which at the end of the game showed Inland as the big winner.

Finally, since he was very young, Bob had a musical bent as a piano player. At Inland, Bob formed a rock band -– IROCK! – made up of Inland employees. With Bob on keyboards, the IROCK! Band played at many Inland functions as well as concerts and parties outside of Inland. The band put together a DVD that is still available for anyone to view and listen to the musical talents of IROCK!