Did You Know?

When people call us for a referral and say they want the “best” attorney in Chicago (or any other area of the state), we tell them that we agree with their high standards but we have an even better approach. In our experience, there isn’t a “best” attorney out there. There are thousands of attorneys […]

In any legal case, it’s important to know the statute of limitations.  In plain English, that means the time limit that you have to bring a lawsuit. The answer varies based on the type of case that you have. For example, in most injury cases it’s two years.  In most contract cases it’s ten years.  […]

The Family Medical Leave Act, or FMLA, allows you to take time off of work for serious illness or the birth or adoption of a child. The serious illness can be your own, or something affecting a close family member. So you can take the leave for yourself, or to care for a spouse, minor […]

A whistle blower is someone who alerts the government to fraud. The term often gets used in a broad sense to describe someone exposing the unethical or illegal behavior of a corporation. Actual whistle blowing, however, is exposing fraud against the government. If your employer is cheating customers, encouraging sexual harassment in the workplace, or […]

The Illinois Dead Man’s Act is a law about evidence. It essentially protects someone who isn’t able to testify, either because they are dead or because they are incapacitated and mentally incompetent to testify. The other side is not allowed to testify about conversations they had with the deceased. The idea is that they would […]

  Nobody really wants to hire a lawyer.  If you have to it usually means that something bad has happened or you are planning for something bad such as drawing up a will.  We are necessary evils that help people, but I don’t blame you for never having wanted to work with an attorney. The […]

A lawsuit isn’t necessarily the right answer every time you are wronged. For example, if the harm is minor, it’s not always worth it. Lawsuits are time consuming and expensive. The frustrating part of this is that the wrongdoer seems to get away with what they did and escape responsibility. One answer is a class […]

When I started this service in 2001, any time the phone rang I would have my secretary answer it.  We get a high volume of calls every day, so usually I’d be sitting at my desk, just waiting for the call to be transferred.  I did this for no other reason than it was my […]

  Imagine that you are driving down the road, obeying the speed limit, staying in the right lane because traffic is slower there and generally being as safe as you can be.  Then imagine that you get pulled over for driving in that right lane and finding out that you can lose your Illinois driver’s […]

Although discrimination in the work place happens every day, being able to prove it is another thing.  Winning those lawsuits has always been very hard and usually when someone comes to us with a case, we recommend that they start at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission as that is typically the first step in investigating […]

I get told many times a week from people calling me for a lawyer referral that they don’t want to drive in to the City.  They live in the burbs and want the perfect lawyer in their area. Often this is possible for cases like divorce, DUI, criminal defense, estate planning and minor civil litigation.  […]

If you are in a profession that requires a license in order to make a living in that profession, you hope that your license is never called into question. If it is, you should handle the situation with a better-safe-than-sorry approach. For example, even if you are completely innocent of any wrongdoing, we don’t recommend […]

Lawyers behaving badly – Attorney Warren Danz suspended for 30 days When your lawyer gets disciplined by the ARDC (state ethics board), it is not only a bad reflection on them, but in my opinion, it can look bad on their future clients when they get reinstated. A Peoria workers’ compensation attorney, Warren Danz, was […]

Honestly, we don’t really know, because it doesn’t really matter. What matters most is whether your attorney is able to help you meet your goals. We aren’t saying that winning never matters. The point is that winning means something different for every client. A good example is a criminal case. There is a range of […]

Most people aren’t aware of their employer’s policy on what happens to their benefits when they quit or get fired. But when one of these things happens, it’s important to be clear on what you’re entitled to. If your boss tells you that you lose your vacation time at termination, it’s definitely something you should […]

The fact that you receive a salary rather than hourly pay doesn’t automatically disqualify you from getting overtime. However, certain employees are disqualified based on their job description and it just so happens that many of these jobs (skilled, professional positions) tend to be salaried positions. The point is that you need to look at […]

Class actions are civil lawsuits based on personal injury, and attorney fees follow the general formula that you see in injury lawsuits – contingency fees. The attorney only gets paid if they win the case. If they win, they get take their fee out of the amount they were able to get for their client […]

Looking for an attorney in Illinois that will take a case where they receive a percentage of a recovery is a common request. This is called working on a contingency basis. We just got a call from someone looking for a Chicago contingency law firm so I thought I’d write about how to get one. […]