Nahrstadt to address graduates at Monmouth's 169th Commencement
Hats worn by 1989 alum include successful attorney, national fraternity president, author
Monmouth, Ill. (02/11/2026) — A Monmouth College graduate who's paired an extremely successful legal career with shaping his world through service and leadership will deliver the keynote address at his alma mater's 169th Commencement Exercises.
Retired attorney Brad Nahrstadt '89, who's served on the Monmouth College Board of Trustees for nearly a quarter-century, will address the Class of 2026 at noon May 17 on Wallace Hall Plaza.
"I've known Brad since my previous time on Monmouth's faculty," said President Particia Draves. "I love working with him on the Board of Trustees, and what I so appreciate about him is his deep commitment to our mission and the way he works directly with students, faculty and administration to make sure our students are getting more opportunities."
After graduating from Monmouth summa cum laude with degrees in English and political science - also, as one of the first four students to complete the Monmouth College Distinction Program - Nahrstadt earned his juris doctorate, cum laude, from the University of Illinois College of Law in 1992.
He began his legal career as an associate at Williams Montgomery & John and was named a partner in the firm in 2001. Five years later, he was the youngest member of the firm ever elected to equity partnership. In 2012, Nahrstadt became one of the five founding partners of Lipe Lyons Murphy Nahrstadt & Pontikis, Ltd., which he served for seven years as the president and managing partner. The following two years, he served as the chief operating officer of Donohue Brown Mathewson & Smyth, retiring in 2021 after 30 years in the legal field.
His client list read like a who's who of corporate America, including Quest Diagnostics, General Electric, Bausch & Lomb, Dow Corning, Black & Decker, Borg-Warner Corporation, Costco Wholesale Corporation, CBS Corporation and insurance companies such as Progressive and GEICO.
In 2006, Nahrstadt was selected from more than 900 nominees as one of the 40 Illinois Attorneys under Forty to Watch by the Chicago Daily Law Bulletin. From 2008 to 2019, he was named a Leading Lawyer in the areas of medical malpractice defense law and products liability defense law. Less than 5% of the licensed lawyers in the state of Illinois are so recognized.
During that time, he earned a pair of even more highly selective memberships - in the American Law Institute, the leading independent organization in the U.S. producing scholarly work to clarify, modernize and improve the law, and in the Litigation Counsel of America, a trial lawyer honorary society whose membership is limited to less than one-half of one percent of American lawyers.
As a Monmouth student, Nahrstadt was selected as the Blue Key Senior Man of the Year, in part due to his active membership in Sigma Phi Epsilon, including two years as the fraternity chapter's president. He took that love of SigEp into his post-graduate life, serving in various leadership roles that prepared him for being elected grand president of the fraternity in 2023. Last year, he received the Paul B. Slater Award for distinguished service on SigEp's national board of directors and, that same month, he was inducted into the Order of the Golden Heart, the highest honor the fraternity can confer upon a member.
Through that affiliation, Nahrstadt has frequently returned to his alma mater to present anti-hazing programs to Monmouth's Greek life community. He also returns annually as one of the leading advocates for Monmouth's distinctive moot court competition, which provides a rare opportunity for undergraduates to argue real legal cases before members of the legal community and select faculty.
Monmouth College has honored him as both its Young Alumnus Award recipient (2000) and its Distinguished Alumnus Award recipient (2014). The following year, he was one of the three inaugural inductees into the college's Order of Omega Fraternity and Sorority Hall of Fame.
As an attorney, Nahrstadt was the author or co-author of more than 90 articles that have appeared in some of the leading legal publications in the country. He was also the author or co-author of 40 book chapters on all manner of discovery and trial practice. Judge Allen Sharp, a judge on the United States District Court for the Northern District of Indiana, said his article on jury selection should be "required reading for people who actually try civil and criminal jury cases."
Since retiring, Nahrstadt has continued to write, authoring four books, three of them on early 20th-century politics, including the first full-length biography of Alton B. Parker, the 1904 Democratic nominee for president. His latest book, The Men in the Arena: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft and the Political Convention that Reshaped the Republican Party, is scheduled for publication by Bloomsbury Press in December.
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