Known throughout the community by his nickname “Bob”, K. S. Galhotra is serving his third two-year term as president of the Cook County Public Defenders Associaton. His prior union Executive Board service includes service as President, Vice President and Chief Steward under the late Jack Carey. Bob also served as Executive- at-large and local trustee. He has been on the bargaining committee for the last four contracts, having headed the committee in the last two contract cycles.
He is also the Vice Chair of AFSCME Council 31′s PAC, PEOPLE for Area 1, which encompasses Cook County. The PEOPLE committee makes endorsements in political races affecting union members.
Bob clerked for the office in the misdemeanor jury room at the 13th and Michigan location for the Circuit Court of Cook County following his graduation from Chicago Kent College of Law in 1990. After passing the bar that year he was assigned to the then Juvenile Division where he defended children charged with crimes in the Delinquency calenders and helped unify familes by representing parents charged with abuse, neglect and dependency in the Civil Child Protection calenders. For two years, he handled the suburban Cook County juvenile delinquency courts in Markham, Rolling Meadows, Skokie, Maywood and Bridgeview. Yearning to try juries, in 1996 he transfered to the Felony Trial Division. In 2003 he was promoted to the Homicide Task Force after trying nearly 40 juries to verdict. Today he represents people charged in Homicide cases. Though the death penalty was repealed in 2011, he was a member of the Capital Litigation Trial Bar since 2002 and also served several terms as a member of the Illinois Supreme Court’s screening committee for the trial bar.
Bob served for five years on the ISBA’s Juvenile Justice Section Council and is the author of numerous articles including a Survey of Juvenile Delinquency Law published in the SIU Law Journal, Vol. 28, 847 (2003). He is a member fo the Illinois State Bar Association and also serves on the Advisory Council of the Indian American Bar Association.
