Illinois Lawyer Blog

Saw an interesting article online the other day – involving a VERY large wrongful discharge verdict out of California. The verdict was against Regus the nationwide office space provider. Denise Steffens, sued back in 2010. Steffens was a long-time manager for Regus. She claimed that she had a meeting with Regus management personnel and complained that Re… Read More

Lots of guys have walked into bars with nothing but the best intentions – have a few drinks; watch a game; shoot a little pool – when some buffoon with a bad case of beer muscles starts trouble. I was recently hired by a young guy who was badly injured after a bar fight that may have started in the bar and resumed outside in the parking lot. Still… Read More

The Illinois Appellate Court issued an opinion last week that dramatically impacted an employer’s ability to keep former employees from going to work for competitors, or even potentially disseminating corporate information. In Premier v. Fifield, Eric Fifield was in employment negotiations with Premier Dealer Services[“Premier], a developer and mar… Read More

Eric Turkewitz writes a great blog on trial work entitled New York Injury Law Blog. He had a great post yesterday detailing the ugly underside of the “independent medical exam”[“IME”] that insurance lawyers often arrange in order to dispute the severity of the injuries claimed by plaintiffs in personal injury cases. Illinois law allows… Read More

On Thursday evening, a federal court jury in Chicago returned a Not Guilty verdict in a civil lawsuit that featured some ugly allegations made by an ex-wife against her former husband. Kimberly O’Brien alleged that her former husband, Kevin Anderson, had forced her to walk around their homes wearing only heels and address him as “Master”. O&#… Read More

In addition to the personal injury work my firm handles, I also handle some hourly litigation matters. Consequently, I have to track my time on those matters. Not good. Dating back to my early days as an insurance defense lawyer, I was never any good at billing. And they made it easy for me. The billing sheets were right there on my desk. Neatly divided into l… Read More

Couple of weeks ago, I was asked by a colleague if I was interested in playing on his Over Fifty 16 Inch Softball team. I was flattered, certain that he had heard of my athletic prowess. Sadly no. As he explained, “You are the only guy I know who is over 50 and still healthy enough to play.” Oh. I haven’t played 16 inch softball since college… Read More

Saw an article about this on Jonathan Turley’s blog. The West Fertilizer plant in West, Texas stored extremely dangerous chemicals on site. Tons of them. And, in light of the lack of any meaningful zoning laws in Texas, the plant was situated close to an elementary school; a nursing home and private residences. Finally, there have been reports of repeate… Read More