Thomas Anthony Durkin

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Thomas Anthony Durkin (September 3, 1946 – July 21, 2025) was a Chicago-based criminal defense attorney known for civil rights and national security cases. He defended detainees at Guantanamo Bay and taught law as a Distinguished Practitioner in Residence at Loyola University Chicago School of Law.

Durkin grew up on Chicago’s South Side, graduated from Leo Catholic High School, earned a BA from the University of Notre Dame in 1968, and a JD from the University of San Francisco School of Law in 1973. He worked as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Northern District of Illinois from 1978 to 1984. In 1984, he and his wife, Janis D. Roberts, started the law firm Durkin & Roberts. He later served as a panel attorney for the Federal Defender Program in Chicago and helped found Loyola’s National Security and Civil Rights Program.

Durkin was active in many professional groups and joined the John Adams Project in 2008 to defend Guantanamo detainees, including Ramzi bin al-Shibh. He also represented notable clients such as Jared Chase in the NATO 3 case (2014), and worked on a range of civil rights and security-related matters, including Occupy Chicago cases. He and Janis had six children and lived in Chicago.

Durkin died at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago after battling metastatic lung cancer.