Illinois
Search Illinois
Use the form below to search for lawyers or firms in Illinois.
Illinois In Brief
Illinois In Brief
Who’s Who Legal Illinois has identified more than 500 of the state’s finest practitioners in 22 practice areas, with the overwhelming majority based in Chicago. Our findings include individuals from boutique firms, national firms and large international players.Several ingredients create the vitality in Illinois’s legal market. Twenty-seven Fortune 500 companies are headquartered there, making it attractive and prosperous for the local legal market and an increasingly important city in the global legal market. Firms are attracted by the possibility of drawing talent from a pool of respected law schools, many of them ranked among the highest in the US. Many of the lawyers featured in this book graduated from and teach at Northwestern University, the University of Chicago Law School, Loyola University Chicago School of Law or DePaul University College of Law.
Associate compensation is another reason many firms recruit and retain talent in Illinois. Although escalation in the ‘salary wars’ may have provoked many of Chicago’s largest firms to match the increases of New York and Los Angeles competitors, mid-sized firms have not bought into wage inflation en masse. According to our research, Chicago remains an “eminently liveable city” where lower costs, greater convenience, good local government and a thriving cultural and arts scene combine to attract employers such as law firms.
Chicago is also a significant market for insurance and reinsurance work. Insurers played a vital role in rebuilding the city after the catastrophic fire of 1871 and in financing the exponential growth of the city and protecting its industries throughout the twentieth century into the present. Two Fortune 500 insurers are based in the Chicago area: Aon Corporation and the Allstate Insurance Company. Insurance companies support around a tenth of the state’s workforce, making it one of the most important local industries. With 40 lawyers from 21 firms, insurance and reinsurance is the largest chapter in Who’s Who Legal: Illinois.
In the legal context, investment funds constitute perhaps Chicago’s greatest and most fashionable export. One Chicago attorney is credited by many in the industry as being the “godfather of private equity law”: Kirkland & Ellis’ Jack Levin. As a young lawyer, Levin took charge of the firm’s single venture capital client back in the early 1970s; the industry has since grown and diversified beyond expectations, with several hundred billion dollars invested in the US market alone. Although it may have been eclipsed by offshore jurisdictions, Chicago is home to a thriving investment fund market – second only to New York in the US. Firms continue to expand their capabilities in this area, joining the well-established practices to compete for a slice of the action.
In recent years, change in the Chicago legal market has occurred at a pace. Some firms have sought to expand their client bases through so-called ‘mega-mergers’ – acquiring global reach and ready-made practices in a single move; others have made strategic acquisitions of boutiques or engaged in volumes of lateral hires, so adding international reach. At the same time national firms headquartered outside Illinois have wanted to build in Chicago through key lateral hires and ‘natural’ internal promotion. Using the 22 practice areas we studied as a lens, it is possible to say certain firms stand out. We will look in detail at those firms here.
Editorial
Editorial: Illinois
Editorial: Arbitration in Illinois
Commercial arbitration is now established as a popular mechanism for dispute resolution in the United States. It is one of the first ports of call for a range of industries, and arbitration clauses are often written into contracts. This chapter identifies 25 practitioners in the state who are leaders in this field, without distinguishing between those who act as counsel or arbitrator, or those whose experience lies in domestic as opposed to international disputes. The list includes former judges and litigators, as well as lawyers that include commercial arbitration as part of their dispute resolution services.
Editorial: Aviation in Illinois
The lawyers featured in this chapter are, according to our research, the most respected in the state for work relating to the aviation industry. Their practices differ considerably from firm to firm. For example, one might focus on the commercial side, offering advice on areas such as aircraft purchase, sale, leasing and financing, alliances and joint ventures, and airline start-ups. Another may, however, specialise in contentious liability matters such as those arising from major accidents.
Editorial: Banking in Illinois
Illinois is home to a significant pool of regional and local banking institutions, supplying the city’s mid-sized and large law firms with the full range of regional and international transactions. In 2004, JPMorgan Chase acquired Bank One, the largest financial institution headquartered in Chicago and the sixth largest in the US, leading to fears that the newly formed mega-bank would relocate to New York, creating a vacuum in the local market for investment and small business lending. Yet Bank One Chase remained faithful to its Chicago roots, to some extent allaying concerns about overconsolidation in the industry.
Editorial: Business Crime in Illinois
White-collar crime has a strong historical link with the state of Illinois. Edwin Sutherland, who earned his doctorate and worked as a research professor at the University of Chicago, coined the term; and from its roots in criminology, whitecollar criminal defence has become a thriving legal practice area. The Federal Bureau of Investigation has noted that with significant growth in the securities and commodities markets comes a marked rise in intentional corporate fraud and misconduct. In an appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee in June 2006 an official from the Department of Justice’s criminal division confirmed that despite statistical drops in the level of business crime prosecutions, white-collar crime remains a priority for the Department of Justice and owing to the numerous high-profile cases of recent years, the market for legal advice in this area shows no signs of slowing down. It is therefore a dynamic area in which to work in Illinois.
Editorial: Capital Markets in Illinois
The 24 lawyers in this chapter have a proven track record in representing and advising issuers, underwriters, investment banks, funds, REITs and other market participants on all aspects of equity and debt transactions, both locally and around the world. Many have experience of advising on IPOs, secondary offerings and other equity issuances, as well as debt offerings, structured products, repackagings,derivatives and securitisations. Furthermore, many are able to give clients the benefit of in-depth knowledge of the compliance and regulatory obligations of market participants.
Profiled Firms
Firm Profiles: Illinois
Sidley Austin LLP
Sidley Austin LLP won several accolades during our survey of the most respected firms in the Illinois market. And with 52 lawyers listed in this book, it boasts the highest complement of attorneys.
Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom LLP
There are 16 highly regarded practitioners listed from Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom LLP.
Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal LLP
Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal LLP has a total of 19 individuals listed on the following pages.
Winston & Strawn LLP
Winston & Strawn LLP is one of the most respected firms in Illinois and attracted admiring comment throughout our research; one interviewee described the firm as “great to do business with, they offer workable and inventive solutions and have quality right through the ranks”, and this was typical of the responses we received. With 25 listings the firm is the fourth most heavily represented in the following pages, and its presence in 14 separate chapters is similarly impressive.
Focus On Corporate Counsel
Corporate Counsel Q&A: Illinois
Illinois Corporate Counsel: Cameron Findlay
Executive vice president and general counsel, Aon Corporation
Founded in 1919 and headquartered in Chicago, Aon Corporation is one of the world’s largest providers of insurance brokerage, risk management and human capital consulting, with 46,000 employees working in 500 offices in 120 countries. In the past 20 years, acquisition and internal development have catapulted Aon to its current position of market dominance, beginning in 1982 with the acquisition of the merged entity comprising Ryan Insurance Group and Combined International, followed by Hudig Langeveldt, Rollins Burdick Hunter, Miller Mason & Dickenson and Alexander & Alexander (among others).
Illinois Corporate Counsel: Marschall Smith
Vice president, general counsel, corporate secretary and director of legal, Brunswick
Swiss immigrant John Brunswick began manufacturing billiard tables in 1845. Today, the company that bears his name retains its core billiard table division, but has achieved wider recognition in the prestige leisure products market. Technological innovations have played a large part in the success of the business: Brunswick is responsible for the first mineralite bowling ball, marketed in 1906, and the development of the revolutionary Brunswick Automatic Pinsetting device in 1956. Since then, Brunswick has grown to become one of the world’s leading manufacturers of pleasure boats, marine engines, GPS and navigation technology, and bowling and fitness equipment. It is a Fortune 500 company with headquarters in Lake Forest, Illinois.
Illinois Corporate Counsel: Paul Lovejoy
Senior vice president, general counsel and secretary, United Airlines
Founded in 1926 as Boeing Air Transport, United Airlines is one of the largest international carriers based in the US, operating thousands of domestic and international routes daily from its hubs in Los Angeles, Denver, Chicago, San Francisco and Washington, DC. February 2006 marked an important milestone for the company, which emerged from chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, in the longest and largest airline bankruptcy case in history (filed on 9 December 2002 in the aftermath of losses incurred following the September 11 terrorist attacks). It has a fleet of 460 aircraft, with global air rights in Asia-Pacific, Europe and Latin America.