Daniel J. Bolin
Partner
Chicago Office
140 S. Dearborn Street, 6th Floor
Chicago, IL 60603
Direct Phone: 312.604.9178
Fax: 312.782.0943
Email: dbolin@ancelglink.com
Dan represents public entities and property owners in wide-ranging local government, land use, and election matters across Illinois.
Dan has counseled local governments at Ancel Glink for nearly 20 years, regularly advising clients at board and commission meetings and managing land use and development matters. Dan’s creative strategies for the repair and demolition of blighted, vacant, and abandoned properties helped his client earn a Lake County Municipal League Innovation Award. Dan prosecutes local ordinance violations and defends local laws involving controversial land uses and novel civil rights challenges.
Dan is an accomplished election attorney appearing before, serving on, and counseling local electoral boards on challenges to candidate nominating petitions. He is a past chair of the Chicago Bar Association Election Law Committee. Before attending law school, Dan worked for legislators across the state as a policy analyst in the Illinois General Assembly, and worked on municipal, county, legislative, judicial and other political campaigns.
Dan regularly speaks at state and national conferences regarding controversial land uses and emerging municipal law topics. As an award-winning podcaster, Dan often discusses legal issues affecting local governments as host of Ancel Glink’s Quorum Forum podcast and as co-host of GovLove, the nation’s leading local government podcast presented by the Engaging Local Government Leaders Network (ELGL).
Dan earned his B.A. from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Dan graduated magna cum laude from the University of Illinois College of Law, where he served as an associate editor on the University of Illinois Law Review and earned a CALI Award in Real Estate Development.
Highlights of Dan’s recent practice include:
- Regularly drafting ordinances, agreements, and other transactional documents for cities, villages, park districts, libraries, townships, and other units of local government.
- Comprehensive rewrites of zoning, subdivision, sign, and other development regulations.
- Local responses to recreational cannabis, including business regulations, prosecutions, taxation, and employment matters.
- Developing an efficient municipal demolition program, successfully remediating more than 19 open, vacant, and hazardous structures.
- Successfully defending a lawsuit challenging authority of local building official under annexation agreement.
- Defeating billboard company’s challenge to local building and zoning decisions in consecutive lawsuits.
- Managing real estate transactions for local governments, including multimillion-dollar sale of surplus property.
- Advising and training local zoning boards and municipalities on all manner of controversial land use applications, from short-term rentals to firing ranges, and defending village in novel Second Amendment challenge to gun shop regulations.
Awards/Professional Recognitions/Memberships
- Engaging Local Government Leaders, Top 100 Local Government Influencer
- American Planning Association, Planning and Law Division, Education Committee Chair
- Chicago Bar Association, Election Law Committee (Past Chair)
- Lake County Municipal League, Innovation Award
- GovLove Podcast, Govie Lovie Award
- CALI Award, Real Estate Development
Presentations and Pulications
Dan is a frequent speaker on a variety of local government and land use issues on podcasts and at conferences, including:
- GovLove, a Podcast about Local Government, Co-Host (2021-Present), with episodes including “Troubling Signs at the Supreme Court” and “Zoning Reform”
- Ancel Glink’s Quorum Forum Podcast, Host (2018-Present), 85 episodes including “Local Government Law Careers,” and “Parliamentary Procedures for Newly Elected Officials”
- American Planning Association, Illinois Chapter, Plan Commissioner Training, including Plainfield (2024); Alsip, Lynwood, West Chicago (2023); Peotone, Ogle County (2022); Lisle (2021)
- American Planning Association, Illinois Chapter State Conference, “Air P.U.D Planning Law Session” (2023) and “The Wedding Planner Planning Law Session” (2022)
- American Planning Association, Chicago Metro Section, “Bar Exam! Planning Law Session” (2015-Present)
- Illinois Association of Park Districts/Illinois Parks and Recreation Association, Soaring to New Heights Conference, “Not in my Park! Regulating Controversial Park Activities” (2022)
Dan’s writing on important local government and land use issues is included in many publications, including:
- “Subdivisions,” IICLE Municipal Law Series Handbook, co-author (2024)
- Municipal Minute, regular contributions including “Illinois Liquor Control Commission Issues Guidance on Liquor Delivery,” “More Detail on Governor’s Most Recent Disaster Declaration & Remote Meetings,” and “Liquor Laws to Know for Phase 5 and Beyond” (2021)
- Engaging Local Government Leaders, “Supreme Court Decision Affects Local Governments on Social Media” (2017)
- ILCMA Magazine, “Sharing with Care: Regulations for Responsible Short-Term Rentals” (2017)
- “Land Use Law: Zoning in the 21st Century,” Law Journal Press (2015), “Second Amendment and Zoning” and “Urban Agriculture” book chapters
- “Urban Agriculture: Policy, Law, Strategy, and Implementation,” American Bar Association (2015), “Stockyards to Backyards: Local Food Production in Chicago’s Urban Jungle” book chapter
Hobbies
Running, Podcasts, and Fighting Illini Athletics.
For nearly 100 years, Ancel Glink has built and modernized the practice of local governmental law in Illinois. Allow Our Experience To Help You.
Client Reviews
