Attorney Biography

James Shellow founded a law firm in Milwaukee in 1961 and has practiced criminal defense law in that firm ever since. His first partner was his wife, Gilda; his later partners included Bill Coffey, Stephen Glynn and Dean Strang.

James Shellow graduated from Shorewood High School and grew up on the USS New York. After he was discharged from the Navy, he entered the University of Chicago where his father had obtained a graduate degree in economics. James Shellow was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and received an undergraduate degree with majors in science and mathematics. He was admitted to the University’s graduate Department of Psychology and prepared for a Ph.D. in a field which later would be called cybernetics. He was appointed Divisional Honor Scholar of the University and University Research Fellow. Cybernetics required further study in closed loop control systems. The University had no engineering school so he took a job as a servo engineer designing aircraft fire control systems at a division of IT&T in Fort Wayne.

He then passed his doctoral prelims, but decided that he needed more experience designing control systems and was hired as Senior Systems Engineer of a guided missile development at Chance Vought Aircraft in Dallas. He briefly returned to the University to outline his dissertation, taught Instrumentation Design at Illinois Tech and was employed as an operations analyst by the Institute for Air Weapons Research which was housed in Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry. He then accepted a job with the nuclear energy subsidiary of Standard Oil of California at its Livermore Laboratory and after a while decided that a life designing advanced weapons systems was not his thing, although years later he was appointed to Delta Force of the Strategic Studies Institute of the Army War College at Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

James Shellow returned to Milwaukee, joined his father’s accounting firm, passed his C.P.A. examination and decided that a life as an accountant was not his thing either. He remains a member of the Wisconsin Institute of Certified Public Accountants and was appointed as the representative of the American Bar Association to the National Conference of Lawyers and C.P.A.s.

While working for his father, he decided that he really wanted to be a criminal defense lawyer, attended Marquette Law School, was elected to its Law Review, and, upon graduation, embarked on the practice of criminal defense law. The following year Gilda Shellow graduated from law school and they formed the firm of Shellow & Shellow.