<![CDATA[ <a href="index.html">Home</a><br>
<a href="over.html">Overture</a><br>
<a href="who/home.html">Who We Are</a><br>
<a href="what/home2.html">What We Do</a><br>
<a href="ourwork/home2.html">Our Work</a><br>
<a href="intelligence/home.html">Intelligence</a><br>
<a href="forlawyers/home.html">For Lawyers Only</a><br>
<a href="jobs.html">Jobs With The Patterson Law Firm</a><br>
<a href="contact/contact.html">Contact Us</a><br>
<br>
<table align="left" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" border="0" width="450">
<tr>
<td> </td>
<td align="right" valign="top" colspan="2"> <font size="2"><A href="mailto:tep@pattersonlawfirm.com"><b>?</b></A></font></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top" width="50"> </td>
<td colspan=2> <a name="ser">
<h5>In our fields of experience, we resolve legal disputes–often in the
midst of a crisis--and reduce future risks.</h5>
Our legal services consist of counseling, transactions, and dispute resolution.<br>
<br>
<img src="../images/logo5.jpg" width="175" height="175" border="0" alt="" align="right" hspace=10>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.<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
In a crisis we work fast and are familiar with emergency remedies. One of
our trademarks: the business lawyers to call in a crisis.<br>
<br>
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.)<br>
<br>
Our initial consultation is confidential and free.</a> <br>
<br>
<HR width="300" align="center">
<br>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top" width="50" class="side"> </td>
<td colspan=2> <a name="location">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.</a><br>
<br>
<HR width="300" align="center">
<br>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top" width="50" class="side"> </td>
<td colspan=2> <a name="exp"></a> <b>We have 14 fields of experience:</b><br>
<br>
<a name="1"></a><b>1. Banking:</b> Disputes pertaining to loan agreements,
mortgages, guarantees, foreclosures, and mechanics liens.<br>
<br>
<a name="2"><b>2. Commercial Contracts:</b> Issues have been as numerous
and diverse as the number of businesses and their agreements. These include,
for example, franchising agreements, distributorship contracts, shareholder
agreements, and partnership agreements, just to name a few.<br>
</a> </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="50" valign="top"> </td>
<td> <a name="3"><b>3. Construction:</b> Faulty construction and breach of
all types of construction contracts--fixed price, cost plus, or time and
material agreements, with issues of contract modifications, extra work orders,
field changes, and delay damage claims. <em>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.</em></a></td>
<td>
<table width="100">
<tr>
<td>
<div class="box"> <b>"One case required proof of 1,200 change orders
. . ."</b></div>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> </td>
<td colspan="2"> <a name="4"></a><b>4. Corporate, Partnership, and LLC Issues:</b>
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.<br>
<br>
<a name="5"><b>5. Defamation or Product Disparagement:</b> False statements
about a company, product, or individual.<br>
</a> </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> </td>
<td valign="top"> <a name="6"><b>6. Emergency Litigation:</b> 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.</a>
</td>
<td>
<table width="150">
<tr>
<td>
<div class="box"> <b>"Emergency Litigation: .... Other lawyers frequently
request our help in this field...." </b></div>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="50" valign="top"> </td>
<td colspan="2"> <a name="7"><b>7. Employment:</b> 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.<br>
</a> </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> </td>
<td colspan="2"> <a name="8"></a><b>8. Insurance and Contractual Indemnity:</b>
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.<br>
<br>
<a name="9"></a><b>9. Intellectual Property/ Technology:</b> Trademark,
copyright, trade secret, and patent cases. Development, licensing, and buy/sell
agreements.<br>
<br>
<a name="10"></a><b>10. Personal Injury:</b> 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.<br>
<br>
<a name="11"></a><b>11. Professional Negligence:</b> Negligence actions
against banking and corporate directors, accountants, architects, engineers,
and lawyers.<br>
<br>
<a name="12"></a><b>12. Real Estate:</b> Development contracts; management,
buy/sell, and financing agreements; restaurant and hotel leases and management
contracts; brokerage commissions; building defects; and commercial leases.
<em>In one case, 56 separate agreements related to a single hotel development
project.</em><br>
<br>
<a name="13"></a><b>13. Sale of Goods:</b> Breach of warranty disputes relating
to heating and air-conditioning units; industrial valves; a hot batch glass
tempering system; and others.<br>
<br>
<a name="14"><b>14. Unfair Competition:</b> Antitrust; breach of fiduciary
duty; consumer fraud; RICO; and theft of trade secrets.</a> </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td colspan="3" height="20"> </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="50"> </td>
<td colspan="2"> <a name="dec"></a>
<h5>We generally decline the following assignments, and refer clients to
other firms:</h5>
<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0">
<tr>
<td valign="top">
<UL>
<li>Adoptions
<li>Criminal Law
<li>Customs
<li>Divorce
<li>Immigration
<li>Initial Public Offerings</li>
</UL>
</td>
<td valign="top">
<UL>
<li>Juvenile rights
<li>Military court cases
<li>Patent applications
<li>Secretary of State proceedings
<li>Tax return preparation
<li>Workers' compensation
<UL>
</UL>
</li>
</UL>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td colspan="3" align="right" class="copy"> © 2001, Thomas E. Patterson </td>
</tr>
</table>
]]>