Scott L. Kilburg, who was chief marketing officer at Sidley Austin, died last week at the age of 51, according to an online notice that did not say what caused his death.
Kilburg worked at Sidley for eight years, six of those as CMO. He is from Oak Park, Illinois. He was also CMO at Foley & Lardner before.
“We are very sad to hear about the death of our friend and coworker Scott Kilburg.” “So many people at the firm who worked with him over the years will miss him a lot,” Sidley said in a statement this week. “Our thoughts and prayers are with Scott’s family and everyone who knew and loved him.”
In a statement this week, the Legal Marketing Association also told his friends, family, and coworkers that it felt “deepest condolences.”
“The sudden death of Scott has made all of us very sad.” “His contributions to the field of legal marketing and to the people who knew him will never be forgotten, and his absence will be felt deeply,” the group said. “During this hard time, our thoughts are with everyone who has been affected by this loss.”
His friends and coworkers recognized him as skilled, family-oriented, and a real leader who put others before himself.
Barry Solomon, who used to work for Kilburg as CMO at Sidley and is now vice president of mergers and acquisitions integration at legal software startup Litera, said of Kilburg, “He was smart, honest, and very focused on the client.” “I think he was very good at building businesses.” I think that was his strength—being able to understand tactics. “He was also a nice person.”
Sidley Austin LLP Chief Marketing Officer Scott L. Kilburg died last week, the firm has confirmed. He was 51. https://t.co/HfO8ZJjpIE
— Law360 (@Law360) April 24, 2024
Robert Randolph, a former coworker at Sidley, said that Kilburg was very thoughtful about the needs of his team and the firm as a whole. This was especially true after the pandemic when many law firms and businesses, in general, had trouble figuring out when and how to get people back to work.
Randolph became friends with Kilburg after he left the company and started his own consulting business. The two would often meet for lunch in downtown Chicago and go to Cubs games together.
He said Kilburg would talk out loud, in real-time, about how hard it was to manage work that needed to be done both in person and from home.
Randolph said in an interview Tuesday, “The people who worked for him were important to him.” He also said, “I always got the sense that he was thinking about other people first, like, ‘How can I help them?'” I think he was a great boss.
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His obituary says that Kilburg finished from Bellevue Marquette High School in Bellevue, Iowa, in 1991 and then went to Mount Mercy College. His wife, two children, and “many dear friends near and far” are among the people who will miss him.
Kilburg and Randolph did more than just go to baseball games and eat together. They also talked about retirement. For the next part of their lives, Randolph said that both were building their dream homes. His was in Park City, Utah, and Kilburg’s was back in Iowa. He said that Kilburg loved and was proud of his family.
“He talked about his wife and kids every time we talked,” Randolph said, adding that Kilburg had “really thoughtfully planned out his future for all of them.”
Another article in the Telegraph Herald in Dubuque, Iowa, says Kilburg died on April 17.
