Attorney dedicated to children's best interest

NICHOLAS STEVENSON - 1921-2010

Nicholas Stevenson was more than an attorney who handled adoption cases.

He was also an adoptive father and passionate child advocate who worked to modernize adoption laws so they incorporated "the best interest of children," his son, David Stevenson, said.

"He was instrumental in uniting many children with loving families," added Tom Jackson, a spokesman for the Sunny Ridge Family Center, a Bolingbrook adoption agency Mr. Stevenson worked with for decades.

Mr. Stevenson, a longtime partner with the law firm Mandel, Lipton and Stevenson Ltd., died Aug. 14 in Ohio after a brief decline in health, his family said.

The former Chicago and Glencoe resident was 89.

The son of Greek immigrants, Mr. Stevenson was born Nicholas Stavrianos in Vancouver on July 10, 1921.

He later changed his last name.

Mr. Stevenson attended Clark University in Worcester, Mass., where his undergraduate education was interrupted by World War II. He joined the U.S. Army and was stationed in Texas and Massachusetts. He completed his degree after the war and attended Northwestern University's law school.

After graduating in 1955, the same year he married the former Jane Barr, Mr. Stevenson began working with a classmate who introduced him to adoption law matters. He never strayed from the line of practice.

"He once told me he would have been miserable doing any other kind of law," said his daughter, Deborah Stevenson.

"He wanted to be a children's advocate."

Mr. Stevenson helped revise adoption law in the late 1950s with attorney Richard Mandel, whom he later partnered with, former Gov. Otto Kerner, a judge, and others.

Mandel said the revision Stevenson collaborated on was the breakup of a single proceeding determining whether a child should remain with birth parents into two separate hearings. Before, there was only a hearing where it would be decided if the child would go to his adoptive parents, and if not, who would adopt the child.

"This was a unique thing in adoptions," said Mandel.

Mr. Stevenson also successfully pushed for laws that would allow foster parents to adopt children in their care and not lose money given to them by the state, Mandel said.

Mr. Stevenson spent most of his career representing adoption agencies and advising families through adoption proceedings -- something he and his wife experienced firsthand. They were the parents of two adopted children.

"He was sympathetic and understood," said former partner Al Lipton.

"Work wasn't hard for him because he knew everything very well. Everyone he helped thought he was a pussycat, but he was as tough as could be."

Mr. Stevenson's wife died of cancer in 1977, and he raised his children in Glencoe.

He retired from practice in 1991 and moved to a retirement community in Ohio a few years later.

There he became involved in a reading program for children and senior citizens, and was known to many local kids as "Grandpa Nick," said his daughter.

"He was very interested in what it meant to be a parent," said his son.

"And he was a remarkable one."

Other than his son and daughter, Mr. Stevenson is survived by a sister.

A memorial has been held in Ohio.

Obituary of Nicholas Stevenson

Photo: Nicholas Stevenson was the dad of two adopted children.