Aurora N. Abella-Austriaco

Aurora Abella-Austriaco is a Shareholder at Valentine Austriaco and Bueschel P.C.(VAB), an all women owned law firm.  Prior to VAB, she was the sole shareholder of Austriaco and Associates Ltd. Austriaco has been in practice for 33 years and concentrates her practice in the areas of business transactions and litigation, commercial litigation, real estate transaction and litigation, mechanic’s liens, subrogation actions, guardianship litigation, defense of mortgage foreclosure, title insurance litigation, declaratory judgment actions, partition actions and other special chancery remedy cases. Her clients range from multinational corporations, state and federal credit unions, title insurance companies, hotel and restaurant owners, home health care agencies, lab testing companies, medium to small business owners and individual clients. Prior to owning her own firm, she worked as an associate at Harold I. Levine, Ltd.; as in house counsel for Attorneys’ Title Guaranty Fund; and subsequently as Of Counsel to Clark Hill PLC. 

Aurora currently serves as Board of Governor for the American Bar Association. She served as past President and first Asian President of the Chicago Bar Association, one of the largest and oldest metropolitan bar association in the country with over 22,000 attorney members. She served as Past President of the National Conference of Bar Presidents (NCBP), an organization that provides information and leadership training to state and local bar association leaders from 53 states and territories and served a two year term as President of the Lawyer’s Trust Fund of Illinois. Aurora served three terms as Illinois State Delegate to the American Bar Association (ABA) House of Delegates until her election to serve on the ABA Board of Governors. She was elected the first female and minority President of the Illinois Real Estate Lawyers’ Association (IRELA), served on the board of the Chicago Bar Foundation and the Center for Conflict Resolution (CCR). She is a founding board member of the Filipino American Bar Association (Chicago), past board member and current member of the Asian American Bar Association and past member of the ISBA Real Estate Section Council.  

Aurora is also the host of her own radio talk show entitled “Sundays with Aurora.”  

Aurora is fluent in Tagalog. She is married to Dr. Jerome Austriaco and they have two daughters, Danielle and Isabelle.