Chicago, Illinois, May 1: Civil protest in Downtown Chicago against the restrictions placed upon the citizens by Gov. J.B. Pritzker in front of the James R. Thompson Center. Photo: Kevin Kipper/Shutterstock

The southern Illinois lawyer who successfully sued Gov. J.B. Pritzker over his stay-at-home order says he really doesn't care for all the attention it's gotten him.

"I live on a farm in a town of 600 people," said Thomas DeVore, the owner of DeVore Law Offices and of counsel to Silver Lake Group. He'd rather be out in the fields than "take on a fight with Gov. Pritzker," he said.

But DeVore is going to have that fight—he's now representing two more Republican members of the Illinois House of Representatives who are questioning the constitutionality of Pritzker's orders that have shuttered or reduced the operations of nonessential businesses. Clay County Circuit Judge Michael McHaney on April 27 held that Pritzker's stay-at-home order does not apply to Louisville, Illinois-based Rep. Darren Bailey.

"I believe the good people of Chicago need different measures than the good people of Clay County," DeVore said.

Bailey's lawsuit—and the subsequent court order—applied only to Bailey individually. DeVore's second client, Rep. John Cabello of Loves Park, Illinois, filed a lawsuit Wednesday on behalf of himself and everyone else in the state.

The legal situation is moving quickly in Illinois. Shortly after Cabello's lawsuit was filed, a church in northwestern Illinois represented by the Thomas More Society, a conservative public interest law firm, challenged the Democratic governor's order in federal court; a judge dismissed that challenge May 2.

Meanwhile, the state appealed McHaney's ruling to the Illinois Supreme Court. But then DeVore and Bailey asked the Illinois Fifth District Appellate Court to dismiss McHaney's ruling and remand the case back to Clay County, saying they had new information showing Pritzker overstepped his authority.

DeVore does not specialize in constitutional law. His practice, which includes real estate, banking, local government representation, criminal defense and family law, is his second career. He was initially an accountant, graduating from Lindenwood University, a private university in Saint Charles, Missouri, in 1997. In 2011, he obtained his law degree from Saint Louis University School of Law.

"Honestly, I went to law school because accounting was an exercise in futility," DeVore said. "I always wanted to protect people who couldn't defend themselves."

Like his clients, DeVore said his firm—which consists of 13 lawyers and professional staff—has also seen a slowdown in business. DeVore, whose billing rates are $275 an hour, indicated he has enough money to pay his staff by himself. Bailey, who gave DeVore permission to discuss their billing arrangements, will pay for DeVore's fees out of his own pocket; DeVore said he hasn't billed Bailey yet. DeVore declined to comment on his fee arrangement with Cabello.

Even with his firm's success, DeVore said the downturn they've seen was enough for him to apply for a small business loan under the Paycheck Protection Program, which a number of small law firms and sole practitioners have done. DeVore said they've gotten a small amount of money from it.

"It was certainly helpful," DeVore said.

DeVore said his successful representation of Bailey has led to him getting calls from lawyers and would-be clients across the country, including California, Kansas, Maine, West Virginia and Wisconsin.

DeVore generated local headlines in January 2017, when he criticized a group of students who gave him incorrect change at a concession stand. In a Facebook post, DeVore repeatedly called each of the students a "special child (that's politically correct for window licker)."

"Lord help us with the window lickers, I mean special children," DeVore wrote.

At the time, he was a candidate for the Montgomery County School Board, but he quit the race about a month later. He said his comments were taken out of context in describing DeVore as criticizing "special needs children for their inability to count." He filed a libel lawsuit over the episode in early 2017.

DeVore said that while he believes he had an easy case to prove, he decided not to pursue it after dropping out of the race. He said both the defendant and the community realized he wasn't insulting children with developmental disabilities. He said the case has been administratively closed for two years, but he was filling paperwork to have it dismissed.

Although he doesn't consider himself "a political person," DeVore is a Republican. His single term on the Bond County Board, he said, was "the worst two years of my life." He's donated money to Republican politicians seeking state and federal offices. His co-counsel, Erik Hyam, unsuccessfully ran for Montgomery County state's attorney as a Republican in 2016, and has also donated to Republican politicians.

"I know the governor means well. I don't believe he has ill intentions," DeVore said of Pritzker. "But with all due respect to the office, I don't see any facts" that support his stay-at-home orders.

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