Chicago

The Chicago office of Duane Morris provides a broad array of services to organizations in a wide range of industries, with a client base that includes Fortune 500 companies, privately held middle-market companies, emerging growth companies and entrepreneurs. The intensity and experience of the senior attorneys in the Chicago office, much of it enhanced by prior positions with city, state and federal legal departments and as corporate counsel to large companies, help fuel the energetic atmosphere that sets the firm apart in the highly competitive Chicago legal arena.

Range of Services

Complex Litigation and Alternative Dispute Resolution

Members of the Trial Practice Group in the Chicago office have been involved in litigation in an array of areas, including securities and commercial disputes, professional liability and intellectual property, products liability and real estate controversies. Duane Morris' litigators often represent insurance companies and work closely with the firm's corporate and bankruptcy lawyers in the representation of financial institutions. In addition to representing clients in U.S. forums and before international tribunals, Duane Morris attorneys also provide counsel on settling disputes without conventional litigation by using alternative dispute resolution and advise on methods to anticipate and avoid litigation.

Corporate, Securities, Mergers and Acquisitions

Duane Morris corporate law attorneys advise early-stage and mature companies on a wide variety of corporate and securities matters. Members of the Corporate Practice Group are experienced with mergers and acquisitions, including negotiated acquisitions and divestitures, hostile acquisitions and defense against takeover attempts. The firm's attorneys regularly represent international clients in both domestic and transnational transactions. They are experienced with venture capital and private equity transactions and work with the firm's entrepreneurial clients in developing and implementing creative strategies to accomplish their corporate finance and acquisition objectives. Duane Morris also represents clients in a range of securities offerings and advises public companies on compliance with ongoing reporting obligations and other securities laws.

Complex Financial Transactions

Duane Morris attorneys represent clients in numerous types of transactions covering nearly every aspect of municipal, project and structured finance transactions. The firm's lawyers have extensive experience with financings involving corporations and financial institutions on a regional, national and international level. Duane Morris public finance attorneys represent national and regional investment banking firms underwriting tax-exempt and taxable state and local government debt, act as bond counsel and special tax counsel for issuers and represent domestic and foreign institutions providing credit enhancement for tax-exempt financing. The firm's project and structured finance attorneys represent clients in securitized and syndicated loans, participating and convertible loans, mezzanine and other hybrid loans and credit lease, synthetic lease and government lease financings.

Banking and Financial Services

Duane Morris attorneys have represented banks, savings associations and their holding companies in jurisdictions across the U.S. and around the world. The firm's lawyers also have represented other providers of financial services, including investment banking and brokerage firms, commercial finance companies, insurance companies and credit unions in a broad range of regulatory, legislative and business law areas. The media has recognized that Duane Morris lawyers in Chicago are "renowned for real estate finance and secured and unsecured lender work." The firm serves as counsel in a wide range of expansion and restructuring transactions, including domestic and international mergers and acquisitions, strategic divestitures, merger/conversion transactions, purchases and sales of branches and branch systems, product development, the pursuit of new powers, and antitrust counseling and litigation.

Financial Markets

Attorneys in the Financial Markets Practice Group work with the Trial and Corporate practices to represent securities, futures and derivatives firms, and professionals in these industries. Duane Morris attorneys provide start-up services, assisting clients in registration and formation. Duane Morris attorneys also counsel clients regarding regulatory compliance and enforcement, criminal investigations and related arbitration and litigation. The firm focuses on problem prevention, including comprehensive reviews of clients' existing policies and procedures and regulatory-style examinations to detect inappropriate practices and help clients prepare for compliance audits.

Construction Group

Duane Morris' Construction Group has extensive experience in handling both transaction and litigation issues that arise in the design, development, financing, performance, management and close-out of major private, public and public-private partnership construction projects. The firm's representations include public and private owners and developers, construction managers, prime contractors, subcontractors, equipment suppliers, architects, engineers and other design professionals as well as sureties on a multitude of project segments (industrial, utility, energy, commercial and green building/sustainable projects) and a wide range of delivery systems (design-bid-build, design-build, CM and PPP) and on emerging technologies, such as BIM.

Real Estate

Duane Morris' real estate attorneys represent a broad range of high-profile institutional and individual clients in all aspects of real estate transactions and related matters. The Real Estate Practice Group handles real estate acquisitions and dispositions, financings, workouts and restructurings, development and leasing, land use and zoning issues.

Business Reorganization and Financial Restructuring

Lawyers in the Business Reorganization and Financial Restructuring Practice Group work in tandem with each client, whether debtor, trustee, lender or other creditor, to determine the best strategy for deriving maximum value from a troubled entity while simultaneously seeking to meet each client's goals. Clients draw on the firm's extensive reorganization experience as one of the most active bankruptcy practices in the United States with a national team of dozens of Duane Morris bankruptcy lawyers in numerous jurisdictions.

Employment and Labor Law

Duane Morris' lawyers represent employers of all sizes in a broad spectrum of labor and employment matters, including equal employment opportunity compliance and litigation, statutory compliance and litigation defense and employment termination. The firm's attorneys provide a full range of labor relations services, representing clients in union-organizing campaigns, proceedings before the National Labor Relations Board, negotiations of labor contracts and disputes over labor contract provisions. The group assists employers in protecting their proprietary information and in enforcing noncompetition and nonsolicitation agreements. Duane Morris lawyers emphasize policies to prevent employment problems through problem prevention programs and services, including seminars and workshops, customized training programs and employment practice audits.

Health Law

Duane Morris' Healthcare Practice Group represents a wide range of healthcare providers in regulatory, transactional and litigation matters. The firm's clients include providers such as hospitals, nursing facilities, assisted living centers, ambulatory surgery facilities and physician groups, as well as ancillary practice providers such as physical therapists, occupational therapists, massage therapists and dentists. Duane Morris lawyers provide a full range of legal services to the operators of health facilities and providers of healthcare in all phases of their operations. The firm also represents nonprofit corporations providing healthcare advisement and related services.

Intellectual Property

Duane Morris' intellectual property (IP) lawyers recognize the importance of clients' intellectual capital to the success of their businesses and understand how to uphold IP rights to increase opportunities for clients to enhance market share. Members of the firm's IP practice have played pivotal roles in the development of IP law, and their ranks include highly trained patent attorneys with backgrounds in biosciences, pharmaceuticals, chemicals, healthcare, electronics and telecommunications. Their experience includes trademarks and copyrights, patents, licensing agreements and brand protection in domestic and international markets.

Several IP lawyers in the Chicago office focus their practice on the representation of global pharmaceutical manufacturers in their quest to enter the U.S. market with new products. They have significant experience representing pharmaceutical manufacturers in litigation related to abbreviated new drug applications (ANDAs) filed under the Hatch-Waxman law, as well as generation of non-infringement, invalidity and freedom-to-operate opinions with respect to patents listed in the Orange Book. Duane Morris has one of the largest Hatch-Waxman practice groups in the United States.

Insurance and Reinsurance Law

Duane Morris attorneys in the Insurance and Reinsurance Practice Group have been engaged in representations of insurance industry interests for many years, having served as counsel to numerous property/casualty insurance companies, life insurance companies, reinsurance companies, HMOs and PPOs, rating bureaus, captive insurers offshore, and alternative market entities and guaranty associations. The firm has also represented underwriters of public offerings of insurance securities.

Duane Morris' background in the industry contributes to the firm's ability to address client concerns effectively. Duane Morris attorneys have an in-depth understanding of actuarial, underwriting and policy coverage matters affecting the business and legal issues of insurance industry clients. The firm has handled matters affecting financial examinations, market conduct examinations and other regulatory issues as well as general corporate matters.

Tax

Members of the Duane Morris Tax Practice Group are an integral part of the firm's transactional practice. Tax attorneys work closely with the firm's corporate and finance lawyers to structure and effectuate complex transactions from a tax perspective. Duane Morris represent business enterprises operating as corporations, partnerships or limited liability companies, advising both foreign-owned and U.S.-based multinationals on international and domestic acquisitions and reorganizations, as well as providing federal, state and local tax counsel. Many of the firm's lawyers are frequently sought out to publish and speak to groups of professionals and laypersons alike and serve as consultants in their fields to other professional advisors.

Private Client Services

Duane Morris' Private Client Services Practice Group represents a broad range of closely held business owners and other high net worth individuals with respect to their personal and professional planning. The firm provides estates, trusts, asset planning and related litigation services to individuals, business owners, charitable organizations and fiduciaries. The Private Client Services attorneys have significant experience in the settlement of decedents' estates, fiduciary income tax matters, administration of trusts and counseling on family matters. Throughout each relationship with clients, Duane Morris attorneys work to minimize tax exposure and implement creative strategies to preserve capital and transfer resources within the client's family and to next generations. The firm also provides all aspects of fiduciary litigation services related to probate, trust and guardianship administration.

Energy, Environment and Resources

Duane Morris energy attorneys assist clients with advisory, regulatory, litigation and legislative matters involving water, natural resources, energy and environmental issues. These attorneys are frequently called upon to counsel clients with respect to their interactions with federal, state and municipal authorities as well as with industry participants. Often the firm's energy lawyers work in tandem with Duane Morris Government Strategies to seek solutions for clients. To better focus the firm's energy industry experience, the firm has established national groups concentrating on Nuclear as well as Renewable Energy and Sustainability. The groups include lawyers throughout the country in a cross-cutting team with the ability to represent the firm's clients from the inception of a project, including intellectual property; in the permitting stage, often by addressing construction claims; and in later stages regarding matters of a corporate nature. The firm's attorneys also address ongoing O&M issues that arise post-start-up, including, ultimately, relicensing.

Information Technology and Telecommunications

Duane Morris has assembled a dedicated group of attorneys possessing specific industry knowledge and interdisciplinary skills to address the transactional, finance, regulatory and dispute resolution aspects of structuring and implementing a wide range of information technologies and telecommunications projects.

For More Information

For more information, please contact Neville M. Bilimoria or any of the lawyers referenced in the Attorney Listing.