Around the water cooler: Jenner & Block lawyer takes on committee duties

At the recent annual meeting of DRI, an international organization of attorneys defending the interests of business and individuals in civil litigation, Jenner & Block partner Lise T. Spacapan was named chair of DRI’s Toxic Torts and Environmental Law Committee.

DRI describes itself as “The Voice of the Defense Bar.” And the primary objective of the Toxic Torts and Environmental Law Committee, according to DRI, is to provide members with the most current and reliable scientific, medical and legal information available.

The committee tries to fulfill this role through its annual seminar, an expert witness information network, an electronic newsletter, a dedicated issue of For The Defense and by connecting practitioners with a vast network of accomplished defense attorneys.

Spacapan, chair of Jenner & Block’s products liability and mass tort defense practice, said she wants to help the committee provide education, and informal networking and seminars where people can come together to understand the latest developments in defending toxic torts cases.

“We have to stay on top of science, and work with scientists as well as have a more traditional understanding about the legal theories and types of cases the plaintiffs bar might be bringing,” Spacapan said.

She said she’d like the committee to help get the word out about DRI to the business community and those with corporate interests who might not know about the organization.

By getting companies involved in DRI, she said, “They can help us by planning and shaping what these thousands of defense lawyers are going to focus on both at their meetings, in their publications, and their practices generally. And we welcome corporate input as to what they think are the important issues.”

Spacapan said the DRI Toxic Tort and Environmental Law Committee will hold its annual seminar on March 19-20 at the Arizona Biltmore in Phoenix.

Chicago Lawyer’s 2008 Person of the Year: Dan Webb

By Maria Kantzavelos

In his corner office on the 46th floor of the downtown skyscraper that houses Winston & Strawn, Dan K. Webb, who usually arrives for work by 7 a.m., emerges from a desk covered with the case files of multiple clients, files stacked in growing piles.

Speaking in a slightly folksy fashion and a voice that offers a hint of his rural, west-central Illinois roots, the big-firm chairman is known as one of the most sought-after lawyers in the country. On a Monday evening in late October, his hand is smudged with ink as he leafs through the pages of his date book.

Days before one of his clients, longtime Republican power broker William Cellini, was indicted in the Operation Board Games probe of corruption in state government, the famed litigator’s workweek was to play out something like this:

A day in Chicago to prep a witness for an upcoming trial in California, sandwiched between two days in New York to meet with a client and attend a bar association event. Then more meetings back in Chicago on Friday.

”That’s my life this week,” Webb said, matter-of-factly.

It’s no wonder Webb says he doesn’t keep count of his cases.

”At any given time I may have … 20 to 30 client matters going on at the same time. They’re not all popping at the same time every day, but I have a fairly heavy caseload,” he said.

But it is when Webb is on the brink of trial or in the midst of the courtroom contest — putting in 15- to 18-hour work days with his mind focused intensely on the ins and outs of that one case — that he steps into a world he relishes most.

”I love trying cases. It’s what drives me. It gets my cork a bobbin’ and I love it,” Webb said. ”I like pressure. I like stress. And, I like moving. I thrive in that world.”

Now 63, Webb rose to prominence in Chicago in the early 1980s as the U.S. attorney who oversaw the landmark Operation Greylord probe of judicial corruption. He went on to successfully prosecute Iran-Contra operator John Poindexter, and has spent the last two decades in private practice defending corporations like Philip Morris, Microsoft, and General Electric, and a host of politicians, including former U.S. Rep. Dan Rostenkowski and former Illinois Gov. George H. Ryan.

It is Webb’s enormous preparation, his willingness to take tough cases and his down-home, ”winning way” with juries and judges that sets him apart from other excellent trial lawyers, said former Illinois Gov. James R. Thompson, who stepped down from Winston’s top leadership post in 2006, when Webb became its chairman.

”He’s No. 1,” proclaimed Thompson, a close friend and mentor of Webb’s since the early 1970s, when Webb was cutting his teeth as an assistant U.S. attorney in the Northern District of Illinois, where Thompson held the top spot as U.S. attorney. ”He just exudes sincerity. No court or juror would ever think that Dan was telling them something that wasn’t so.”

Described as a true ”generalist trial lawyer” who eagerly takes on caseloads that are impressive because of their volume, variety, and complexity, Webb is ”one of the more formidable courtroom lawyers in America today,” said prominent Washington, D.C., attorney Brendan Sullivan of Williams & Connolly, who has opposed Webb in several high-profile cases.

”He doesn’t pick the cases he can win and just try those. He steps into the arena and fights the good fight for his client, whether he’s the underdog or the favored,” Sullivan said. ”In this day and age, where you have so many so-called trial lawyers who don’t ever get to court, or if they do it’s once every 10 years — they’re the great pretenders. But Dan is the real thing.”

In recognition of an illustrious career that is rooted in Chicago, his resilience and doggedness as a trial lawyer who has long maintained his standing at the top echelon of his profession, with a reputation that extends beyond the United States, Webb has been selected Chicago Lawyer’s 2008 Person of the Year.

A passion for action

If the rule of thumb in real estate is location, location, location, Webb has one that sums up his passion for trial work.

”Action, action, action. I like the action,” he said, with a wide-eyed, kid-in-a-candy-store enthusiasm. ”I like the pure excitement of constantly being on stage, on trial, where you’ve got to get up and cross-examine a witness, you’ve got to give a closing argument, you’ve got to live by your wits.”

Webb’s genuine love of trying cases comes across clearly to his friends and colleagues.

”He is driven to be an extraordinary trial lawyer,” said 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Joel M. Flaum, who has known Webb since the early 1970s, when Flaum served as a top assistant in the U.S. attorney’s office. ”He’s not a very materialistic guy. He’s not a guy that needs to have the most expensive watch, or car, or clothes. It’s just the love of trying cases.”

Beyond his skills as a ‘’stunningly good trial lawyer,” Webb embodies the traditional values of the profession, said Jenner & Block chairman Anton R. Valukas, a former U.S. attorney.

”He represents part of the old school — lawyers who can brilliantly try a case and then go out afterwards and share a glass with their opponent, knowing that both of them tried to their best,” Valukas said. ”It’s not about the money, it’s about the challenge.”

For Webb — who is said to consistently work more than 3,000 hours per year in a practice that mixes complex commercial litigation and white-collar criminal defense — 2008 has been especially busy.

This year he faced the likelihood of at least six trials, including the widely publicized defense of Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, who recently entered a plea bargain agreement and was sentenced to four months in prison.

In a victory last year, Webb led a Winston trial team to a $58 million jury verdict for his client, Verizon Communications, in a patent infringement case in an Alexandria, Va., federal court against Internet phone company Vonage.

This year, while facing the prospect of about a half-dozen trials, Webb also served as chair of the Chicago Bar Foundation’s 2008 Campaign for Justice, which raised more than $1 million, a record-breaking amount for a citywide effort aimed at increasing the compensation of Chicago’s legal aid attorneys.

On a Webb trial team

At Winston & Strawn, the most sought-after assignments are to work with Webb, said managing partner Thomas P. Fitzgerald.

Being on a trial team with one of the best known trial lawyers in the country is never a ”’Mr. Webb’ thing — it’s ‘Dan,”’ said Thomas J. Frederick, a Winston partner who chairs the firm’s litigation department.

”Dan is a very even-keeled guy; very easy to work with. But he’s never happier than being on trial,” said Frederick, who has worked with Webb since 1989. ”There’s a real esprit de corps that breeds around a Webb trial team.”

In his dealings with people, from support staff to associates, partners and clients, ”there is no aspect of the prima donna to Dan — none,” said Bradley E. Lerman, a Winston litigation partner who works with Webb on major matters. ”He demands a high level of performance from everybody, but he’s as approachable and as ordinary as anybody, in terms of just a genuine, good person, dealing with people.”

Being on a Webb trial team also means its leader is the hardest worker of them all.

”People who think that the skill and the excellence they see in the courtroom is, somehow, the work of inspiration and not perspiration are missing the essential feature of Webb, which is, he simply outworks everybody,” Lerman said.

During his occasional downtime, Webb might catch a Cubs game at Wrigley Field, square off in a tennis match, or take a chance on some horseracing at the track or at a few rounds of poker or blackjack (”I was just in Las Vegas trying a case in Reno, and I taught everyone on my team how to play blackjack,” he said).

Around the water cooler: Q & A with Michael P. Kornak

Today we talk with Michael P. Kornak, a partner in Freeborn & Peters’ commercial litigation group, who has been practicing law for 12 years.

1. What do you find the most interesting about your practice?

I do not sub-specialize in one particular area of litigation, so each case that I work on offers the opportunity to explore new factual and legal issues. This diversity, coupled with the wide range of individuals that I meet while handling a case, is what makes the practice of law so interesting.

2. What makes a good lawyer?

Many lawyers possess the basic technical and analytical skills necessary to succeed.  But a “good” lawyer listens well, inspires trust, demonstrates empathy, and takes the time necessary to truly understand his or her clients’ business. With these traits, an attorney can move beyond the role of advocate and become a true counselor or advisor.

3. What is the biggest legal news right now, and what is its impact?

I think it is a combination of two events:  (1) the recent developments in the world’s economy, and (2) the dawn of a new presidential administration.  The first event has permeated nearly all aspects of our lives, from business to personal, and has led to rapid and sometimes unanticipated change. The second event, regardless of which candidate is elected president, promises to do the same. Given this environment, both lawyers and law firms must be able to adapt quickly and offer creative solutions to the myriad issues their clients will face.

Bringing social workers and lawyers to the same table

By Olivia Clarke

Law school didn’t teach Carol Casey how to best communicate with a 4-year-old, or how to reach out to a teen who won’t talk to her.

But that doesn’t mean she doesn’t deal with those types of situations as courtroom supervisor for the Juvenile Division of the Cook County public guardian’s office.

But to best address these issues, she often works with or gets input from non-legal professionals, like social workers, who can see the case from a different perspective.

Casey’s office practices an interdisciplinary approach where lawyers, social workers, a staff nurse, and a psychologist often work together to assess clients’ cases.

”Listening to other people’s points of view, and other people’s insights really helps you approach the cases more holistically,” Casey said. ”A kid is something more than a legal problem or more than a case. You need a rounded view of what’s going on.”

Her office never stops being a law office, she said, but this approach helps them address their clients’ needs more thoroughly. And while every person on the team does not always work on every case, the non-legal professionals are involved as necessary.

Many legal agencies and offices bring social workers and lawyers together to more thoroughly meet clients’ needs. Different models exist concerning how they work together, and whether they operate under the same privileges as lawyers.

But regardless of the model, those who believe in this interdisciplinary approach say that if a client’s social problems are not addressed, they may continue to face the same legal problems — like a cycle that cannot be broken.

”You feel more confidence in the representation you’re providing your clients,” Casey said. ”I’m a decent lawyer. I don’t always think of everything. I need social workers and other professionals to say, ‘That doesn’t make sense,’ or, ‘Have you viewed it from this perspective?’ ”

Not alone

Beginning in 2007, a group of lawyers and social workers started meeting together every two or three months to talk about the interdisciplinary relationships they have in their legal offices, said Andrya Soprych, a social worker working at the Legal Assistance Foundation of Metropolitan Chicago.

They talk about such topics as identifying the client, locating community resources, and how social and legal issues connect, said Soprych, the meeting’s facilitator. About 10 different organizations have participated, and they do not all handle the social worker-lawyer relationship the same.

”A lot of it is about how having a social worker and an attorney working together can better serve our clients,” she said. ”Hopefully what’s coming out of this is, we are learning how to better do our jobs. And we’re learning from each other, and learning with each other about how to better provide social work and legal services within a legal services organization.”

Organizations use different models to bring social workers and lawyers together, she said.

Sometimes social work and legal services operate in the same building, but they operate as separate programs. Not everyone who receives legal assistance receives social work help, and vice versa, Soprych said.

Other organizations consider providing legal services to be their primary function, but they also employ a social worker, she said. This social worker may provide therapeutic services, and there may be a more formal division between legal and social work.

While other offices have the social worker and lawyer work as a team, she said.

People often have questions about client confidentiality within any of these models, Soprych said.

Lawyers must protect the attorney-client privilege, and social workers are mandated to report child neglect or abuse. But in some models, social workers employed in legal settings have the same privileges as lawyers.

”I think [confidentiality] is an issue. I think it’s the one that people regularly fall back on as the reason why you can’t have social workers and attorneys working together,” she said. ”I would disagree with that though. I don’t think that is a reason why attorneys and social workers can’t work together. I think that can be resolved within individual agencies.”

Casey’s office, for example, considers its non-legal professionals, such as its social workers, to have the same confidentiality duties and ethics as the attorneys in the office because it’s a legal office. But her office hasn’t run into any real problems in this arena.

Soprych said the meetings she facilitates help social workers and lawyers see that they are not alone in forging these partnerships.

”It’s nice to get to know the other people working in other agencies so that when you have questions or things come up you feel comfortable talking to them,” she said. ”It’s about getting the community together, and supporting each other in our jobs.”

Within the agency

Executive Director Robert B. Acton said Cabrini Green Legal Aid (CGLA) aspires to help its clients transform their lives. CGLA tries to address the underlying causes that led their clients to seek legal help, Acton said.

It sees about 5,000 people a year, and it litigated 532 cases last year. CGLA has a full-time social worker, and a full-time client specialist.

Having a social worker assist clients helps the lawyers devote their time to the legal side of clients’ matters, Acton said.

”In so many instances a client’s case is strengthened by addressing life’s challenges,” he said. ”By way of example, our social worker, on any given day, may help a client prepare a resume, look for jobs in the community, and help find affordable daycare. ”

CGLA faced challenges early on in getting the attorneys to fully buy into this interdisciplinary model, he said.

”Attorneys by nature are quite protective of the clients they serve,” he said. ”Frankly, at CGLA it didn’t take long before attorneys became true believers in this model. They realized there were some real gaps that could be filled by a social worker that they were not able to get to.”

Identifying who the client is can be challenging in a social worker-lawyer relationship because it may differ for social workers and lawyers, said Linda Coon, a lawyer and project director of the Families’ and Children’s AIDS Network (FCAN). A social worker may consider a whole family to be a client, while the lawyer may consider one person to be the client.

FCAN helps families with such things as establishing a legal back-up plan for child custody in the event that a family member is incapacitated or dies. But with that comes many social and personal issues, including how to handle death and grief, she said.

When Coon first started working with these plans, she said, ”I frequently saw them falling apart because the social issues were not dealt with upfront. Really, those things need to be assessed upfront and those issues need to be dealt with by the family when making the choice of who should be a caretaker.”

Meeting with a social worker can also help alleviate a family’s fears of the court system, she said. The family may then feel more comfortable with the process.

”The families that we deal with are dealing with a life-threatening illness,” Coon said. ”They are dealing with very profound issues that most people don’t face on a day-to-day basis. Those issues present challenges to families when they are trying to plan for a child’s best interests in the future.”

Deputy Cook County Public Guardian Charles Golbert, who supervises the adult guardianship division, said his office provides guardianship to about 850 adults with disabilities. In his division, about 20 lawyers, and about 20 case managers with clinical and social work backgrounds work together.

”Our responsibilities are very interdisciplinary, so having an interdisciplinary approach with attorneys and social workers and clinical people is critical to providing the best care for our wards,” Golbert said. ”We’ve always done it this way, but I think we were ahead of the curve.

”It’s important to look at the client as a whole person, and to look at their issues harmoniously instead of isolating legal problems in a vacuum.”

Upon getting a client’s case, the office will meet as a team and discuss the immediate issues, as well as the long-term plans. They try to ensure that the legal, clinical, and financial plans are consistent with each other, but team members sometimes disagree.

”I think sometimes lawyers approach the problems with a different emphasis than social workers do,” Golbert said. ”But the team brainstorms all the issues and comes to what is in the best interest of the ward. The supervisor may step in and make a decision. The team comes to a consensus at least 90 percent of the time.”

Under one roof

The Center for Law and Social Work is a non-profit organization that provides legal and social work services jointly on issues related to children and families. It works with individuals, families, practitioners, and agencies.

Genie Miller Gillespie and Dana L. Corman founded the center in 2004, and today it has three full-time social workers, one full-time lawyer, and two part-time lawyers.

They handle such areas as backup planning for older and ill caregivers, which may include short-term guardianship, standby guardianship, or standby adoption plans.

When they started talking about what issues could come out of creating the center, Gillespie said they recognized that they needed to decide who the client is in each case.

Confidentiality hasn’t become an issue yet, but they constantly talk with their clients about the different relationships they will have with their social worker and their lawyer. The center also has clients sign conflict waiver forms so they understand what was explained to them about the difference in confidentiality between the lawyer and the client, and the social worker and the client, she said.

The training that social workers and lawyers receive is very different, Gillespie said.

Lawyers tend to be very analytical, and focused on the immediate problem, whereas social workers may meet with a client about one problem, but then identify other issues that must also be addressed, she said.

”For me, I get to practice law, but I get to sort of keep my hands in the social work world without a degree,” Gillespie said. ”I get to be part of the whole plan, and not just the legal piece of it. I get to see how I make a difference in these people’s lives beyond the small little legal piece I’m doing, which I think is kind of cool.”

The center’s staff often make home visits, which can be a very ‘’social work thing” to do, said Corman, the center’s executive director. And, during a home visit, it is not unusual to bring many family members and friends to the table if they are important to the discussion.

”To me, I was a social worker first, but I always wanted to be a lawyer and I always wanted to set up this center for law and social work because I always felt there was an intersection,” said Corman, who is an attorney and licensed clinical social worker. ”My belief was there was a way to bring the two together and service individuals and families in a joint manner without crossing ethical lines.”

Maria Nanos, a licensed clinical social worker and associate director of the law center, said this collaboration provides more opportunities for helping people. Topics like adoption, guardianship, and advanced planning for death can affect an entire family.

”You couldn’t do it alone,” she said about social workers and lawyers. ”Our connection makes us that much stronger.

”We work together, parallel, side-by-side, versus a hand-off. It’s not a foreign case to Genie by the time it gets handed to her.”

In education

Helen Kim earned an undergraduate degree in social work from Loyola University Chicago. She then earned her master’s degree in social work and her JD at the same time, through a dual-degree program at Loyola.

Kim decided to obtain the dual degree because at the time she saw law and social work as separate, potential career paths that she wanted to keep open. But she today uses that dual degree on a daily basis as a staff attorney for the Federal Defender Program.

She said she sees how social problems are often linked to the crimes her clients are accused of. Recognizing that connection helps her understand, and define her client beyond his or her legal situation. She can see how society and different systems might have affected the client.

Her social work degree helped her develop strong interviewing techniques, and assists her when reaching out to a client’s family, and when collecting data.

”I think there’s plenty of lawyers who don’t have dual degrees, and they have no interest in obtaining the two,” Kim said. ”At the same time, I have found that it’s helped my ability to describe my clients in more human terms, and my ability to do the collection of all the facts.

”I’ve found that most judges are not only open to hearing those things about the client, but some of them are moved enough by it to where I’d like to think it makes a difference in their case or during the sentencing.”

Criminal defendants are often not viewed as people by society, and their human side never gets brought into a case, she said. Kim will do things like provide family photos of the client to show his life beyond the accusations.

Some lawyers do not have the resources, or do not know whom to reach out to for social work support, so they do not make that connection, Kim said. While others are just not inclined to even think of connecting social work and law.

Other lawyers, she said, are more reluctant because they believe ”that it won’t make a difference, and the judges won’t be moved or touched or likely to do something different so they don’t take that risk or hire that social worker or get the training themselves.

”Then, I think there are those people who do see the usefulness, who will often say it makes perfect sense for the lawyer and social worker to go hand-in-hand when working with individuals.”

Anita Weinberg, a clinical professor at Loyola University Chicago School of Law who oversees the dual-degree program that Kim participated in, said students can earn their JD and their master’s degree in social work in four years. Both areas overlap so much, and both types of skills benefit each other, she said.

A lawyer with this dual degree learns how to better interact with people, how to interview, and how to develop more insight; and the social worker with this dual degree learns greater critical skills, said Weinberg, who is also director of the ChildLaw Policy Institute.

”Being a lawyer, you don’t necessarily see the bigger picture of what’s going on in people’s lives,” she said. ”Social work places individuals within the bigger setting — whether it’s in their family, whether in the community, whether in society — and does a good job helping [others] understand who that person is, and figuring out many ways to be of assistance beyond fixing a law problem. Fixing that legal problem is helpful to them, but it may not turn their lives around.”

Michelle Geller, a licensed clinical social worker and staff social worker at the University of Chicago Law School’s Mandel Legal Aid Clinic, said there is a growing trend for law school legal clinics to hire social workers to work collaboratively with law students.

”Over time more and more people are seeing the value of having social workers in their settings, and that seems to outweigh the potential conflicts or problems or barriers that there may be,” Geller said. ”So much of it depends not so much on the professions, but on the people who are doing this, the personalities of the people.”

In the law school’s Criminal and Juvenile Justice Project, social workers help tell the client’s story by putting together social histories about the person.

This type of information is usually not uncovered during a regular legal interview, but can be critical to developing a theory in the case, she said.

Social workers are part of the legal team, which means they are covered by the same attorney-client privileges as the lawyers, Geller said.

”I think that as social workers they’re actually very focused on the process,” she said. ”I think lawyers are more focused on the end result. Our ultimate goal is to help clients to reach their broader goals, and to learn to make better judgments so they don’t find themselves in situations where they need to rely on lawyers to help them get out of criminal matters.”

Monica Mahan, assistant clinical professor at Northwestern University School of Law, has spent the last 15 years working with attorneys in the law school’s Bluhm Legal Clinic, and is a supervising social worker.

Mahan and between six to eight social work students work with about 150 law students in the clinic. She helps teach collaboration and the social work-law model.

In general, lawyers and social workers both interview clients, gather information, assess that information, counsel clients, and develop a relationship with those clients, Mahan said. But the focus of the interviewing and counseling can vary, she said.

What often gets missed in a legal case is defining who the client is as a person, she said. While a lawyer will handle a case, she and her social work students can be there to assess what kind of support system the client has in place, and what resources they need to move forward.

”When a social worker is part of the legal team, it really enhances the work,” Mahan said. ”We’d like to see it more and more. With budget cuts, people are looking at what they have to do. I also think, particularly in a teaching setting, it’s really important for lawyers to realize that there are good social workers, and for social workers to realize that there are excellent lawyers.

”Oftentimes our image of the social worker is that of an under-trained person who doesn’t really know what they are doing, or they’re called ‘bleeding heart liberals,”’ she said.

”Conversely of lawyers, [people think] they want to win at all costs. And none of that is true. Lawyers are compassionate about their work, and about their clients, and both [social workers and lawyers] really care about what’s going to happen.”

Editor’s Note

By Robert Yates

Aside from the opportunity to amass extraordinary wealth, the best thing about being a journalist is that you get to follow your curiosity. So, something strikes you as interesting, and you think, hey, I’d like to learn about that, so, I guess I’ll write a story about that. And you can. It’s great fun.

This doesn’t occur in a vacuum of course. There are those people called ”readers” who really give direction to our curiosity, which is why our merry band of journalists here talk to lawyers all the time. If we’re doing our jobs properly, we listen to what interests you and find a kernel that piques our curiosity, and then we start talking to people about that kernel, shaping and re-shaping it until we have something that piques your interest when you read the story.

And so, in pursuit of curiosity, we sit down the Monday after the latest issue has been sent to the printer and figure out what on earth we’re going to do next month. This month in particular, the stories were driven by the writers’ interests in the corners of broad subjects.

Our cover story, which examines how criminal defense attorneys establish a relationship with their clients, came from assistant editor Olivia Clarke’s asking a simple question: How do criminal lawyers get their clients — who, shall we say, may not be predisposed to trust anyone — to trust them? The result, after lengthy, fascinating, and occasionally hilarious interviews with many of the top criminal attorneys in town, is ”The Importance of Trust.” In the process of interviewing academics about the issue, Olivia discovered that this was something that has not been written about much, if at all. I’m hedging the bet there, but you can read it here first.

John Rooney, a longtime Chicago Daily Law Bulletin reporter, takes a look at the priest abuse scandals of recent years, but from a different angle: the emotional and spiritual impact that these cases have on the lawyers — most of whom are practicing Catholics. John’s story is ”Lawyers Negotiate Emotional Minefields.”

Jeffrey Steinback, who represented Conrad Black in the sentencing phase of his trial, seems to pop up at the sentencing phase in a lot of high-profile trials — which brought him to the attention of staff writer Maria Kantzavelos. It turns out that his practice consists exclusively of representing clients before indictment, and at the plea-bargaining or post-verdict sentencing phase — possibly the only lawyer in the country with that practice. Both Maria and Steinback were college gymnasts, so, after comparing injuries and surgical scars, they sat down for a number of interviews, and the result is a really interesting profile of Steinback.

Maria also writes this month about the ”Cindy Bischof Law,” a recently enacted law that will give judges the power to order a potential domestic abuser to wear a GPS tracking device to monitor his whereabouts. The law was pushed by Bischof’s brother, following her murder by her former boyfriend in the parking lot outside her real estate office. If he had been required to wear the GPS device, it’s possible she would have been warned in advance that he was waiting for her. As with any new law, there are questions about its implementation and costs. Maria’s story is ”GPS law gives offenders little latitude.”

In this month’s ”Climbing the Ladder” column, Shermin Kruse, a senior litigation associate at Barack Ferrazzano, talks about working with your assistant as a partner on the team, not as someone a step down in the hierarchy.

It seems that the simplest method for payment of a lawyer’s services is to take your fees in dollars, or maybe euros, but this month we have two columns that discuss more, um, creative approaches to the issue of fees.

David Heilmann, a partner at Clausen Miller, writes about the problems associated with the barter system. The recent case of the Illinois lawyer who took nude dances in his office in exchange for his legal service is, oddly, perhaps a harbinger of things to come in these tough economic times. David did some serious research on other barter methods for his column.

And Tom McGarry and Tom Sukowicz, partners at Hinshaw & Culberston, discuss the ethical issues in taking a deed from a client as a lien for legal fees, in ”Ethics.”

Closing Argument: Virtues of a small firm

By Ronald S. Miller
Miller Shakman & Beem

My 47 years with our small but well-known law firm, Miller Shakman & Beem, has provided me with the opportunity to represent such diverse clients as the Latin School of Chicago, Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America, Chicago Board of Education, Playboy Enterprises, and the Chicago Transit Authority.

Early on, and with the encouragement of my then-senior partners Carl Devoe, Milton Shadur, and Abner Mikva, I had the rewarding opportunity to participate in a broad range of legal and assorted pro bono areas. These activities have helped the elderly, the poor, needy legal students, the incarcerated, and persons who have been deprived of equal housing opportunities, civil rights, civil liberties, or international human rights. It has been a great and varied small-firm experience and I think it useful to explain how these opportunities came about.

In 1955 I graduated from the University of Illinois College of Law. Back in Chicago, after two years in the Army, I sought the advice of Rubin Cohn, my former law professor, whose judgment I greatly respected. This outstanding man had also been active in high-profile and bipartisan civic endeavors. He encouraged me to find a relatively small firm, where I would have exposure to a wider variety of matters, but one with a first-class practice and a dedication to pro bono involvement.

He worked closely on civic issues with former Democratic Gov. Adlai Stevenson and with Samuel Witwer, a Republican, who at a later date became president of the 1970 Illinois Constitutional Convention. Letters of recommendation went to Gov. Stevenson and Mr. Witwer, senior partner in the small but prestigious firm of Wilkinson, Witwer & Moran.

Gov. Stevenson told me his small law firm was not then hiring. I had better luck with Samuel Witwer, who, in 1956, had been chairman of Illinois Citizens for Eisenhower. Mr. Witwer knew I was an ardent Democrat, but nevertheless offered me an associate position. I readily accepted.

About two years later, I delivered merger documents to a New York lawyer-entrepreneur who offered me a job in New York City. As an adventurous single person, I took advantage of this opportunity and spent almost three exciting years as a ”twenty-something” Manhattanite, passing the New York bar exam in the process.

My New York career ended unexpectedly in 1960 when my father’s sudden premature death necessitated my return to Chicago. Fortunately, a law school friend was an associate with my present firm, then known as Goldberg, Devoe, Shadur & Mikva. The firm offered me an associate position. Despite several other offers (some at a significantly higher salary), the outstanding lawyers and excellent overall reputation of this small firm impressed me.

Also, the diversity of clients and the firm’s obvious dedication to public interest matched the advice I originally received from my former law professor.

Arthur Goldberg was about to become President Kennedy’s first Secretary of Labor; Abner Mikva, chair of the Illinois House Judiciary Committee, was a highly respected rising star; and the other attorneys were also involved in diverse pro bono areas.

The opportunity to be associated with such role models was irresistible. I readily accepted — a decision I have always treasured.

Now, many years later, I look back at the excellent opportunities our firm has provided. I have served as counsel to many corporations and several hotel chains, been lead counsel for several initial public offerings, and principal counsel for the underwriters of other offerings. I have been developer-counsel in a number of federally subsidized housing developments as well as counsel to the recipient of the Illinois Housing Development Authority’s initial mortgage loan.

In the early days I was a part-time litigator, but found that my interests really did not lie in that area.

This is an anomaly, since the firm is well known for its litigators. Many of my former partners have ascended to the federal judiciary, and today the firm is a highly regarded litigation firm. The attorneys, judges and executive directors of the organizations with whom I have been associated are among the finest people I have ever known.

Our firm remains vibrant and prosperous in an era where many other small firms have succumbed to mergers they might have wished to avoid.

I attribute our success to the outstanding credentials of our attorneys, attracted by our manageable small size, our quality practice, and the encouragement of pro bono involvement.

We have demonstrated that a small, versatile firm with high-quality attorneys dedicated equally to outstanding client service and significant pro bono involvement can prosper and succeed.

This is quite an accomplishment in an era of ever-larger mega-firms. By resisting that trend, our attorneys experience both camaraderie and professional fulfillment. For me, it has been a rewarding adventure.

Diversity in Practice: Shifting Our Thinking

By Arin N. Reeves, J.D., Ph.D.
The Athens Group

Breaking news: The search for work/life balance is over!

No, the search is not over because someone has found the formula for balancing work and life. The search is over because evidence is mounting that there is actually no such thing as work/life balance.

The search for work/life balance began in the late 1960s when employers first encountered waves of women entering pink-collar and white-collar jobs and realized that managing this new category of employees, “working mothers,” required a radical change in traditional workplace infrastructure.

Between the 1960s and 1980s, the federal government contributed to advancing work/ life balance for working mothers through programs, legislation, and benchmarks (the Presidential Conference on Families, the Pregnancy Discrimination Act, the Quality of Employment Survey).

In the 1990s, most workplaces had some form of work/life balance programs in place, and there was a feverish proliferation of work/ life balance books, conferences, consultants, and employee assistance programs. By 2000, work/life balance had evolved to include men and individuals who weren’t parents.

If you do a Google search for “work life balance” today, the search will net you roughly six million hits. Many sites and articles explore how difficult it is to achieve this balance; others offer advice on how to better search for this elusive objective. Examples of success are rare.

If you connect the six million dots, a mosaic of generational perspectives, technological changes, and quality of life expectations meld together to suggest that people are no longer trying to seek work/life balance. They see their lives holistically, and they have accepted imbalance on their journeys to integrate their work into their lives.

The paradigm of work/life balance has always been flawed with the presumption that one’s work was separate from one’s life, instead of being a part of one’s life. Work/life balance places an individual on the middle of a constantly teetering seesaw with work and life as the weighted ends that bounce up and down as they compete for the sole attention of the balancer who has to fight to remain standing in that precarious middle.

Work and life as separate and competing aspects of one’s waking hours not only sets up balance as an elusive and exhausting endeavor, but it also paints an inaccurate depiction of how people actually live their lives.

Each of us is given 24 hours every day to work, to play, to rest, to pursue our interests, to tend to our families, to learn, to grow, and to do a myriad of other things that together comprise our individual lives. The search for work/life balance has revealed that it has never been about work vs. life. It has always been about the freedom and flexibility to live our lives in ways that make sense to us.

In order for workplaces to shift from accommodating work/life balance to providing the flexibility for people to integrate work into their lives, they need to fundamentally shift from“work is where you go” to “work is what you do.”

Best Buy is one innovative example of abandoning the search for work/life balance, and initiating the freedom and flexibility to integrate work into life. Best Buy’s radical new approach, ROWE (Results-Only Work Environment), revises the traditional notions of office space,work days, and mandatory meetings, and institutes performance objectives driven by results instead of process. What you accomplish matters. How and when you accomplish it does not matter. Interestingly, when employees fit their work into their lives, they report being busier than ever, yet they are happier, more loyal to the company and more productive.

I can hear the screams of resistance from lawyers as they read this column. “But, that’s not how lawyers work!” “That may work at Best Buy, but my firm doesn’t run like that.” “We are in a service industry. We can’t decide our hours.”

The reality is that many lawyers have already abandoned the search forwork/life balance, and have begun focusing on integrating work into their lives. Parents leave work to attend a soccer game or school play, return to work, then go home to spend time with their families and log back on to complete assignments. People call in to meetings while on vacation or conduct their banking online while they are at work.

The challenge is that our workplaces have not yet caught up with our lives. We are creating part-time policies instead of reducing the need for face time. We are discussing compensation structures for partnership alternatives instead of realigning partnership tracks to correlate with results achieved instead of hours billed. And, we are losing too many talented people that prefer a ROWE to a seesaw.

I am not suggesting that our profession is ready or able to immediately transition to a ROWE, but I do believe that we have to recalibrate our vocabularies and our expectations to our realities.
The search for work/life balance is over. The hard work of shifting our thinking has just begun.

Clifford’s Notes: Don’t jump on the bandwagon

By Robert A. Clifford
Clifford Law Offices

I attended the American Bar Association’s annual meeting this year in New York and I thought I caught most of the highlights — but apparently not.

What created quite a stir is a booth in the exposition area that reportedly was manned by attractive models in short, tight nurses’ outfits and red high heels. And, oh, by the way, there also was an overflowing toilet at the booth.

An offer was made to the first 500 attorneys who signed up for the product to get in on it free. After that, it would cost $1,000 annually. What was it?

A new website called www.WhoCanISue .com, developed by an attorney, Curtis Wolfe, who says that his goal is to match up potential clients with lawyers.

Visit the website and you’ll see a man in a suit carrying a briefcase slipping on a banana peel. He also advises lawyers, ”Stop throwing money down the toilet on other forms of legal marketing.”

Is this for real? Is the profession that desperate? Do attorneys really think that the public is so clueless or just plain dumb that they are unable to find a competent lawyer without visiting a site called ”Who Can I Sue”?

Wolfe, a graduate of the University of Iowa College of Law, apparently decided to leave a partnership at a Miami law firm and serve a different purpose in the profession. He says his website differs from other legal matchmakers because it allows users to instant-message a lawyer or immediately contact those who advertise on the site. He says that it is a useful service because it may discourage ”frivolous lawsuits.” Although I disagree with his premise. What is the price to the profession, not to mention to consumers who might take this seriously?

Wolfe launched the site in September, a new career he publicly attributes to one of his wife’s friends who had difficulty in locating a divorce lawyer. In an interview with Lawyers Weekly USA, Wolfe said, ”If you’re a common person, I don’t know how you ever find an attorney other than by going to the Yellow Pages, looking at someone’s ad, dialing and hoping.”

Although it has garnered quite a bit of publicity — from Time magazine to CNN — it also has had its share of critics. Legal bloggers are having a field day in questioning the founder’s ethics — and rightfully so.

James Grogan, deputy administrator and chief counsel of the Illinois Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission, said the site is merely another legal directory but it could potentially present ethics issues if there is sharing of legal fees with someone who merely recommends a lawyer’s services. Illinois Supreme Court Rule 7.2(b), which deals with the payment of advertising may come into play.

More importantly, though, Grogan is concerned with potential clients who may reveal confidential information about a potential case and then later find that their attorney-client privilege is waived because they posted it on a website where non-lawyers, including employees managing the website, may have viewed it.

Wolfe undertakes a legal matchmaking service by having consumers answer a series of questions about their grievances. Lawyers who have signed onto this service then bid on ad placements on the website directed at the consumers who are asking the questions. The consumer is then referred to five local attorneys, customers of Wolfe’s, and the higher the attorneys have bid, the more prominent is the placement of their ad on the site.

I ask: What makes these lawyers any more competent than any others if the consumer did find them in a prominent Yellow Pages ad? There is no screening, no credentials; no experience in the practice area is even necessary. Just join and bid.

Frankly, the whole process is not only scary, it is bound to give the public a rancid taste in their mouths about the profession, not to mention the despicable commercials on the website showing people in wheelchairs and neck braces, ambulances with men in briefcases running after them, and a ”lawyer” from ”Dewey Cheatum & Howe” who needs to ”join the revolution.”

Although, as Grogan points out, the rules across the country may be liberal in allowing law firms to market and get their names out in the public, I find that most people find competent lawyers through referrals. Whether it be through a friend, co-worker or a lawyer who might have handled their will or real estate closing, people know how to seek out a lawyer.

And most people certainly know how to search the Internet to readily locate many reputable firms with sophisticated and easily navigable websites that catalog not only their accomplishments and experience, but also the practice areas and curriculum vitae of its attorneys.

I am ashamed for Wolfe and for those who feel they have a need for his services. And even though he may be getting some publicity about his brainstorm, I hope lawyers will make the right decision not to jump on his marketing bandwagon.

Around the water cooler: Law firm launches pro bono project

Wildman, Harrold, Allen & Dixon recently announced that it will serve as the pilot law firm in helping to launch a pro bono initiative aimed at providing legal assistance and community support to Illinois National Guard Units.

Established by the Illinois Attorney General’s Office of Veterans Rights, the goals of the program, called Adopt A Guard Unit, are: to maintain correspondence with service members and their communities, showing support for their sacrifices; and secondly, to provide legal assistance to soldiers and their families, thereby serving them while they serve us.

The Illinois Attorney General’s Office, the Illinois State Bar Association, and the Commission on Professionalism of the Illinois Supreme Court are attempting to build a statewide network that will support the service members and their families in their local communities.

The citizen service support aspect of the program will involve Wildman Harrold’s attorneys and staff corresponding with service members from their adopted unit, and donating items for care packages, such as newspapers, books, CDs, magazines, puzzles, and board games. Wildman Harrold volunteers will also communicate with the deployed service members’ families to help stay abreast of the unit’s needs.

The legal service component of the program will address the common legal issues that arise in conjunction with the deployment of service members, and which can often be resolved simply by educating the service-member, his or her dependents, and the other party involved in the issue.

Matthew Garrett, a partner in Wildman Harrold’s litigation department and the firm’s liaison for the Adopt A Guard Unit Program, said the firm hopes to help those deployed, as well as their families, learn about their legal rights and help them take advantage of those rights.

“I think a lot of deployed service members and their families don’t know they have the protection of a lot of statutes out there,” Garrett said.

“Beyond the well wishes that go with [sending care packages], they serve as a reminder that we are here and we can help them, rather than a one-time announcement …” he said.

Garrett said he hopes lawyers take advantage of this pro bono opportunity. This type of pro bono work is manageable because the time commitment is not too much, which will allow lawyers to help more people, he said.

Requests for legal assistance will be fielded by David Askew, the firm’s director of pro bono and community services, and legal aid will be available from the day a service member receives his or her deployment orders until 90 days after return from the deployment.

Service members typically have 90 days following release from active duty to request reinstatement to their civilian job under the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act. By providing pro bono services for 90 days after active duty, Wildman Harrold can help to resolve reemployment request issues along with the majority of other legal issues that arise, including matters related to the Family Medical Leave Act; the Service Member’s Employment Tenure Act; the Illinois Patriot Act Plan; the Line of Duty Compensation Act; the Illinois Human Rights Act; and the Service Members Civil Relief Act, among others.

The first unit to be adopted by Wildman Harrold will be the 33D Brigade Combat Team’s Headquarters Unit, consisting of about 200 soldiers and their families, headquartered in Urbana. This unit is currently serving in Afghanistan.

Big Deals // Verdicts // Settlements

Big Deals

Mayer Brown is representing the City of Chicago in a $2.52 billion bid to privatize Midway Airport. The lead partners for Mayer Brown are John Schmidt, David Narefsky, and Joseph Seliga; associates Michael A. Serafini and Bobby L. Owens are also working on the deal.

The group seeking to purchase Midway is Midway Investment and Development Company, a consortium of Citi Infrastructure Investors from New York; YVR Airport Services, a Vancouver, Canada, company; and John Hancock Life Insurance Co., from Boston.

Under the terms of the 99-year lease, MIDCo will pay the entire purchase price — $2.521 billion — in upfront rent to the city at closing and will then have the right to operate the airport, subject to the terms of the lease. Both the city and the airlines will have the right to take action for any failure of the operator to meet the standards of the lease. The lease requires MIDCo to assume a 25-year use agreement with the airlines; airline rates and charges are capped at a level below 2008 charges and will remain frozen for six years.

The transaction is enabled by the FAA’s Airport Privatization Pilot Program, which, by statute, allows as many as five airports in the country to be privatized.

The transaction needs the approval of the FAA and the Transportation Security Administration, and is also subject to the approval of the Chicago City Council.

Shefsky & Froelich served as counsel to U.S. Equities Realty in closing the first phase of its $42 million retail and restaurant development, MetraMarket at the Ogilvie Transportation Center. Jack Guthman, Anthony R. Licata, and Paul Kelley worked on the transaction.

Verdicts

Much Shelist announced that the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals confirmed an arbitration award of $20.7 million to a former senior executive of both Enterprise Rent-A-Car and its parent company, the Crawford Group.

William F. Holekamp became an employee of Crawford in 1976, and was named executive vice president of Enterprise in 1992. After retiring at the end of 2000, he served the company as a consultant for five years.

In 1999, Crawford began compensating its senior employees with stock instead of entirely in cash. In 2004, Crawford informed Holekamp that the company intended to repurchase stock that had been given to him. The company tendered payment in the amount of $11.4 million based on a $25.32 share price that was derived from an appraisal utilizing methodology different than that used when the stock was originally given to employees.

In response, Holekamp filed a demand for arbitration, alleging that Crawford’s call and valuation of the stock breached the original stock award and shareholder agreement issued in 2000.

Crawford responded by filing suit in Missouri state court requesting specific performance of the repurchase provisions of the agreement. The court granted Crawford specific performance of the repurchase provisions and, in regard to the share price issue, concluded that the dispute was to be determined by arbitration.

Following a three-day hearing in March 2006, an arbitration panel entered an award based upon the same method of valuation used when the stock was originally issued. This set the purchase price of Holekamp’s stock at $45.90 a share, resulting in an award of $20.7 million — $9.3 million higher than Crawford’s original payment. Crawford then challenged the award, but the district court confirmed it. The 8th Circuit’s decision affirmed the order issued by the district court.

Settlements

The estate for a baby who was not properly treated for jaundice settled his case against the hospital and doctors for $7.75 million.

Luca Vaia was born in July 2000 at Elmhurst Hospital after a normal delivery; two days later, a nurse noted that he was slightly jaundiced, but when he was released to his parents, they were not told of his condition. Two days after his discharge, Luca was not nursing or sleeping well, and his parents brought him to the hospital emergency room, where he was found to be jaundiced and lethargic. He underwent an exchange transfusion at Loyola Hospital, but, according to the plaintiff’s attorneys, the transfusion took place too late to avoid injuries. The child now suffers from delayed development, hearing loss, cerebral palsy, and spastic quadriplegia.

The family was represented by Barry R. Chavetz, Shawn S. Kasserman, and Margaret Power of Corboy & Demetrio. The defendants were represented by Shawn P. Clifford of Hinshaw & Culbertson; David C. Hall of Hall Prangle & Schoonveld; William F. Cunningham of Cunningham, Meyer & Vedrine; and Ruth Enright and Robert Baker of Baker & Enright.

A motorcyclist whose right leg was amputated following a collision with a pickup truck settled his case for $3.75 million.

David Rodriguez, then 46, was driving on his motorcycle on Route 30 in New Lenox, when he was struck by a pickup truck who had pulled out from a stop sign.

The pickup driver said his view of Rodriguez was obstructed by an SUV driving in front of Rodriguez.

Rodriguez suffered tissue damage and fractures to his right leg so severe that his leg was amputated below the knee. He also suffered hip and pelvis fractures.

Rodriguez was represented by Philip Harnett Corboy Jr. and Thomas F. Boleky of Corboy & Demetrio. The defendants were represented by Laura Maul of Chilton Yambert Porter & Young; William P. McElligott of Leahy, Eisenberg & Fraenkel; Margaret E. Daniele and Judith Anne Gleason of Gleason & Schroeder; and Douglas J. Esp of Esp, Kreuzer, Cores & McLaughlin (Wheaton).

A man whose wife and baby died during childbirth has settled his suit against the hospital for $3.25 million.

In September 2004, Tosha Lunford-Mondesit, 29, was admitted to South Suburban Hospital in Hazel Crest for the delivery of a daughter. The next day, her fetal heart rate monitor and vitals began to show significant fetal distress. The obstetrician tried to deliver the baby by vacuum extraction and forceps. The baby was delivered vaginally, and the mother died that day as a result of an amniotic fluid embolism. The baby died several days later.

The husband and father was represented by Donald R. McGarrah of Salvi, Schostok & Pritchard. The hospital was represented by Patricia J. Barker and Jennifer M. Suttle of Barker & Castro.

—Robert Yates

Next Page »