What We Do

In our fields of experience, we resolve legal disputes–often in the midst of a crisis--and reduce future risks.

We have 14 fields of experience:

1. Banking: Disputes pertaining to loan agreements, mortgages, guarantees, foreclosures, and mechanics liens.

2. Commercial Contracts: Breach of contract disputes of all types--franchise, distributorship, consulting, brokerage, and the other types of contracts listed separately on this page. We have a huge inventory of briefs, pleadings, discovery questions, and jury instructions already drafted.

3. Construction: Faulty construction and breach of all types of construction contracts--

"One case required proof of 1,000 change orders..."

fixed price, cost plus, or time and material agreements, with issues of contract modifications, extra work orders, field changes, and delay damage claims. One case required proof of 1,200 change orders and the defense of 2 years of construction delays by close study of the PERT schedule.

4. Corporate, Partnership, and LLC Issues: Shareholder agreements, securities offerings, the conduct of corporate officers or partners, the scope of the Limited Liability Company Act and operating agreements created pursuant to that Act, and partnership agreements.

5. Defamation or Product Disparagement: False statements about a company, product, or individual.

"Emergency Litigation: Other lawyers often request our help in this field..."

6. Emergency Litigation: Temporary restraining orders, preliminary and permanent injunction actions; and declaratory judgments. Other lawyers frequently request our help in this field because fast action is required and there is no time to learn the principles for the first time.

7. Employment: Restrictive covenants; age, disability, race, and sex discrimination; retaliatory discharge; tortious interference with employment relationships; theft of trade secrets; breach of employment contract; COBRA issues; and ERISA questions.

8. Insurance and Contractual Indemnity: Declaratory judgment and injunction actions to determine the meaning of CGL, E & O, D & O, and SIR insurance policies; counseling on whether, when and how to tender defenses; auditing the work of other lawyers on behalf of excess carriers; and protecting the interests of insurers against competing interests of other actual or potential insurers for the same claim. Bad faith claims. Indemnity contracts and other risk shifting contract provisions.

9. Intellectual Property/ Technology: Trademark, copyright, trade secret, and patent cases. Development, licensing, and buy/sell agreements.

10. Personal Injury: Negligence actions involving automobile and trucking collisions, construction site injuries, landlord-tenant, and premises liability. Product liability actions involving asbestos, automobiles, ammunition, bread making machines, corn packing machines, firearms, holsters, ladders, prescription drugs, and tear gas.

11. Professional Negligence: Negligence actions against banking and corporate directors, accountants, architects, engineers, and lawyers.

12. Real Estate: Development contracts; management, buy/sell, and financing agreements; restaurant and hotel leases and management contracts; brokerage commissions; building defects; and commercial leases. In one case, 56 separate agreements related to a single hotel development project.

13. Sale of Goods: Breach of warranty disputes relating to heating and air-conditioning units; industrial valves; a hot batch glass tempering system; and others.

14. Unfair Competition: Antitrust; breach of fiduciary duty; consumer fraud; RICO; and theft of trade secrets.

Our Services

Our legal services consist of counseling, transactions, and dispute resolution.

Counseling is important before contracts are signed, to decide whether to sue, and to plot business and personal strategies in order to eliminate or reduce adverse risks. Transactions refer to the negotiation and crafting of business contracts, corporations, partnerships, limited liability companies, agreements related to those business entities, estate plans, trusts, leases, reports, and required filings. Methods of dispute resolution include negotiation, mediation, arbitration, or litigation.

We consider assignments holistically, so that, for example, if we are retained to assist with a lawsuit, we also advise how to reduce the risk of future lawsuits.

In a crisis we work fast and are familiar with emergency remedies. One of our trademarks: the business lawyers to call in a crisis.

In this website, it is impossible to give legal advice, define an engagement, set expectations, or explain what steps we would take for any particular assignment. We provide such information only after we have together reviewed your facts in detail, and we review your facts in detail only after we have determined that we can ethically do so. (Send us confidential information only after we have determined that we lack any conflicts of interest–something we can usually tell you at once.)

Our initial consultation is confidential and free.

Where We Work

We work in state and federal court in Chicago and in the counties of Lake, DuPage, and Will. Mr. Patterson has also litigated cases in California, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, New York, Pennsylvania, Vermont, and Washington, D.C.

We generally decline the following assignments, and refer clients to other firms:

Adoptions
Criminal Law
Customs
Divorce
Immigration
Initial Public Offerings

Juvenile rights
Military court cases
Patent applications
Secretary of State proceedings
Tax return preparation
Workers' compensation