Partner & Head of Litigation, Hale & Mercer LLP · Former Cook County public defender
Chicago · Hale & Mercer LLP · 911+ connections
I lead the litigation group at Hale & Mercer. Before that I spent six years at the Cook County Public Defender's office and tried more than sixty cases to verdict, which is the best training a trial lawyer can get and the hardest thing I have ever done.
I handle employment disputes, whistleblower claims, business torts and the occasional case nobody else wants to try. I am calm in court because the work was done weeks earlier.
Off duty I coach the Jackson Park Rovers U12s, lose rated chess games on Thursdays, and run an offset smoker that will not be rushed.
Deposition prep for a nervous witness, in one sentence: your only job is to answer the question that was actually asked, truthfully, and then stop talking. Everything else is my job.
Rovers U12s opened the season 2–0. Nobody cried, including the coach. The parents remain my most challenging opposing counsel.
Request the parents in writing. Works in discovery, might work on the touchline.
Ten years ago this month a warehouse supervisor walked into my office with a two-week-old termination letter and a safety complaint he had filed two weeks before that. The jury took under two hours. Whistleblower cases turn on timelines. Keep your emails.
Lead a group of eleven litigators. Employment, whistleblower and commercial trials.
Joined after the 2015 wrongful-termination verdict. Built the employment-disputes practice.
Sixty-plus jury and bench trials. Felony trial division from 2010.
Watched my father negotiate with suppliers in three languages. Learned who the quiet person in the room is.
University of Chicago Law School, J.D., 2007
Rice University, B.A. History, 2004
The 'and then stop talking' part is 80% of it.