The Irish Echo, America's oldest Irish-American newspaper, has named Patrick Fitzgerald, the US attorney who has taken on terrorists, crooked politicians and corrupt business barons, as its Irish American of the Year.
The US attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, a jurisdiction that includes Chicago, is described as "having a fearless commitment to the truth and an unpartisan pursuit of criminals who exemplifies the very best of American jurisprudence and Irish-American values".
A statement from the Echosaid Mr Fitzgerald's successful prosecution this March of Lewis "Scooter" Libby in the so-called Plamegate affair "demonstrated a conviction that no one, especially those in high office, are above the law." In July he successfully prosecuted media mogul Conrad Black for using investors' funds to bankroll his lavish lifestyle.
The son of immigrants from Co Clare who made their home in Brooklyn's blue-collar, Irish-American Flatbush area, Mr Fitzgerald made his way to the top the hard way. He first passed the entrance exam to the Jesuit Regis High School. After graduation, he studied at Amherst and from there he moved to Harvard Law School.