Meet Greg Cerulo, partner with Quinn, Johnston, Henderson, Pretorius & Cerulo
I grew up in North Suburban St. Louis. My father was a public information manager for Union Electric whose job it was to deal with the radio and print media on issues in the news. My mom was an office manager for an independent insurance agency. Both worked hard, but were always around if you needed them. I have an older brother Mike who lives in Erie, PA and a younger sister Barbara who lives on Long Island, NY. My family is very important to me. Barb and I have been married nearly 33 years now, and we've been in Peoria since 1979. We're both native St. Louisans. Barb has several pans in the fire, including doing some work brokering logo sportswear for a company marketing to Illinois secondary schools. We have three children. Erica, the oldest at 26, is a magazine editor and free lance writer and lives and works in NYC. Rob is 24, and lives and works in Charlotte, NC. He has worked for the Charlotte Bobcats, the NBA team in Charlotte, since June 2005. Ed is 22 and he lives and works in NYC too. He graduated from the U of I with a business degree and now works for the MLBPA (Major League Baseball Players Association).
Some things you may not know about me:
• I love food/cooking, travel, spectator sports and a little golf.
• My early influence toward the law was a neighbor, Joe Howlett, who was a criminal defense/divorce litigator. He was a real one of a kind, from Southeast Missouri but as streetwise as they came.
• I went to law school because...I couldn't become a commercial pilot. I had a lawn mower accident when I was 15 and lost of couple of toes. I was not eligible for the armed services as a result so my only alternative was a flight technology degree and possible entry into the commercial airlines that way. Of course in the early 70's, there were plenty of pilots coming out of the Navy and Air Force so it would be a tough road. It was made easy for me when, after a year at Purdue in aeronautical engineering, I was not accepted to transfer into their air flight technology school. I decided to go back home and attend University of Missouri, with no thought to do anything but go to law school and become a lawyer.
• My mentor at the firm was Dick Quinn. I think why from his perspective was because I just picked up anything he gave me and ran with it. He was the type of person that would give you entire matters to handle, not just assignments, and it worked for me too. From my perspective, he was a very admirable man whom many people saw as an excellent role model. Before people wanted to be like Mike (Michael Jordan), people wanted to be like Dick.
• My main interests are my family, the organization in which I work, and staying clean and sober for 28+ years.
If I had to choose a career path again...
If back in the day, I'd go to Culinary School and have a restaurant or two in a big city somewhere. If today, I'd try and figure out a way to make a living as a food/culture blogger.
What I love about the law
What I love about what I do is the chance to continue to be a knowledge seeker, and also to be a part of a bit of unfolding human drama on occasion. A lot of the cases I get involve engineering, scientific or medical issues, and are never really repetitive. As for the human drama, there's nothing like living and working through a trial to remind you that Shakespeare was on to something when he wrote that "All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players:"What I can't stand about the law is the ever present encounter with agendas that the people presenting them know, in their heart of hearts, are without much in the way of genuine basis. The agendas generally dissolve when reckoning time comes, but not without the cost of a lot of wasted time and expense. It's the difference between being real and getting real.