With the caveat that there are exceptions to this, generally speaking in life, if you want to have an enforceable agreement with someone, you get it in writing and you both sign off on it. So if someone says they’ll sell you their car for $5,000 and you say sure, it’s not really an agreement. If push came to shove and they wanted to back out, they could, as could you.

A written contract shows a meeting of the minds. A well-written contract makes clear the rights and responsibilities of each party. It’s why so many housing contracts are really long.

When hiring an attorney, you can’t know for sure you’ve hired them or what they are getting paid without a written contract. In law terms, this is called a retainer agreement. No smart attorney would take on a client without one because it protects them and you. It will lay out what they are going to do for you and what they aren’t going to do for you. Most importantly it will make clear what their fees are. If it’s a contingency case it will tell you what percentage they will receive. If it’s an hourly fee, it should make clear what they can bill for, what it will cost if staff is doing the work, how often you will pay them, etc. It should also outline how expenses will be covered and reimbursed. For example, in Illinois medical malpractice lawsuits, costs can be in the six figures. You need to know upfront if you’ll be asked to pay for it if the case doesn’t succeed.

When agreements with a lawyer are only verbal, it leaves open to interpretation what the charges will be or what you are getting from them. In fact, it leaves open to whether they are even your lawyer at all. If an attorney won’t give you a fee agreement, it really would make me question if they know what they are doing or if they are the right fit for you.

These agreements, unlike housing contracts, don’t have to be long. Most are 1-3 pages and essentially the same no matter who the client is with just names and dates changed. In areas of law like workers’ compensation, the State of Illinois has actually created the agreements that every attorney must use.

One strange thing is that most lawyers aren’t taught how to create retainer agreements in law school. So if you are working with a young lawyer (or really anyone) you’d be wise to make sure it discusses fees or anything important to you.

Bonus tip. I know of one law firm in Chicago that implies in their retainer agreements that they can’t be fired. That is simply illegal and not enforceable. A retainer agreement is a contract, but I’ve never seen one that legally requires you to stick with your attorney if you think they are doing a bad job. And in the same way, a lawyer can also fire a client if they choose. Retainer agreements are contracts, but they only detail what will happen when each party wants to work together. It doesn’t bind you together forever.

Second bonus tip. Many lawyers say that if it’s not in writing, it didn’t happen. Having a retainer agreement should give you peace of mind and you should insist on one.

Generally speaking, police in Illinois do not have an obligation to do much. To “protect and serve” is a motto, but not usually a requirement. There are some exceptions to that and that includes victims of domestic violence. This is covered in the Illinois Domestic Violence Act.

Under that law, police officers in Illinois have a duty to protect victims of domestic abuse from their abusers. They are required to use all reasonable means to provide this protection. Whenever a law enforcement has reason to believe that a person has been abused, neglected, or exploited by a family or household member, the law requires them to: make an arrest if appropriate, discuss orders of protection, refer the victim to a social service agency and offer to take the victim to a shelter, among other things.

In a recent case, it was ruled that the Chicago Police failed in their duty when a 49 year old mother of five was killed by her abuser. Her estate was awarded $3 Million in damages.

In this case, the cops showed up and saw the abuser holding a Samurai sword and appearing to make Molotov cocktails. Officers took the man, who had been hearing voices and trying to start grease fires in the apartment to a hospital where they strapped him to a bed and then left him there.

He was released the next morning and ended up strangling the woman to death. The court found that “the officers’ failure to fulfill their duties under the (state’s Domestic Violence) Act was a substantial factor in bringing about the death.” They further stated that the police showed utter disregard for her safety.

Some of the steps they could have taken to protect her but didn’t include: informing her about orders of protection, referring her to a social service agency and taking her to a nearby domestic shelter. The Judge also faulted the officers for not ensuring the medical staff understood the dangerous behavior Thomas exhibited, which could have factored into the doctor’s decision to civilly commit him. They also didn’t arrest him despite her having a black eye and him resisting efforts to restrain him.

Worst of all, the Court suspected that the officers failed to act because they were at the end of their shifts. In other words, they couldn’t be bothered.

While these cases are rare, it’s not an isolated incident. In fact, the Village of Maywood was also successfully sued under a similar fact pattern. The cops can’t simply drop off an abuser at the hospital and then decide it’s not their problem any more.

If you or a loved one was a victim of domestic abuse and the police did not protect you/them in a way that led to your abuser coming back and doing worse, our lawyers would love to talk to you for free. Call us any time for help anywhere in Illinois.

Being an Illinois medical malpractice attorney, it’s easy to assume that the general public knows things that we assume are basic. This is our mistake and something we shouldn’t do.

One that comes to mind which I hear a lot from people who contact us has to do with legal terms. It’s not uncommon for a caller to say something like, “I’m looking for a lawyer to sue a doctor. I don’t know if it would be for malpractice or for negligence. Can you tell me the difference?” Or others when we say that we don’t think they have a good medical malpractice case that they’d like to sue for negligence then.

The reality is that these are essentially the same things. Medical malpractice is negligence by a health care provider. So when we file a medical malpractice lawsuit, we are suing them for being negligent.

The confusion comes in because people hear the term negligence a lot and don’t understand it. Most injury lawsuits are negligence lawsuits. It could be medical negligence, product liability negligence, car accident negligence, etc.

Negligence means “failure to take proper care when doing something.” So when we say a doctor is negligent, it means they didn’t follow the proper standards of care. That is the same definition as medical malpractice.

The other one we hear a lot is that people want to sue for medical malpractice or wrongful death? A medical error that leads to a death is a wrongful death lawsuit, but is filed under medical malpractice laws. In other words, it’s again essentially the same thing. You can have wrongful death lawsuits from car accidents, a product malfunctioning or other reasons. But the laws and the standards needed to bring and win a case don’t change.

I hope that this brings some clarification. My advice to people is to not get caught up in legal mumbo jumbo and worry about the goal which is to find out if you might have a case and if so, how to bring it and which is the best law firm to hire for your case. That is our goal when we speak to you and what we’ve done for over a half a million people since 2001.

If you’d like to talk with an attorney for free, we are happy to speak with you any time at 312-346-5320. All calls are free and confidential and we cover all of Illinois.

I’ve been a lawyer since 1997. There are some medical malpractice injuries that I’ve seen every week since then like death, failure to diagnose cancer, or surgical errors. While they may occur in different ways, it’s no surprise when a caller tells us that is what’s what happened. Other injuries are more unique or only now understood. One such potential medical malpractice lawsuit is purple glove syndrome.

Purple glove syndrome (PGS) is a minimally understood and uncommon skin disease where a patient’s limbs become discolored, painful, and swollen. PGS is most commonly reported among patients who have received intravenous (IV) doses of the drug phenytoin. It’s an anti-seizure medication also known as Dilantin. Phenytoin is only administered through an IV in emergency situations where the patient is having active seizures and is unable to receive medications orally.

Physicians believe that there are a few reasons for why PGS occurs, one being that a chemical irritation forms due to the high alkalinity of phenytoin and propylene glycol being administered. Further, they think that the mixing of alkaline solution and a neutral pH may led to a vascular and IV catheter obstruction. They also believe that the IV insertion may cause a microtear in the vessel wall that allows phenytoin to infiltrate the tissue without a way to exit. Microtears are more commonly seen in elderly patients which is why physician believe PGS is more common among their demographic.

PGS is characterized by a blueish-purple discoloration around the IV site accompanied with severe swelling and pain. The symptoms typically form within two to twelve hours of administration. Progression of PGS occurs in between twelve and sixteen hours where discoloration and swelling continues to spread throughout the whole limb.

There can be very mild and very severe cases of PGS. In the mild cases, physicians quickly recognize the symptoms and immediately discontinue the phenytoin IV, elevate the limb and/or apply heat/cold applications. Eventually the symptoms will subside, and the patient is healthy. In worst case scenarios, PGS can lead to necrosis, ischemia or vascular compression, any of which could lead to a need for amputation.

There are a few methods to reduce the likelihood of PGS which include education on various procedures. Phenytoin should not be administered at a rate greater than 50mg/min. Phenytoin, if diluted, should not be mixed immediately prior to administration. Dextrose solutions and lactated ringers’ solution cannot be used with a phenytoin IV. Avoid smaller veins especially in the hands. 20-guage catheters should be utilized, and arguably the most important, there should be careful and diligent monitoring of the IV site.

This is certainly not the most common case out there, but there are cases where patients are given this medication and not properly monitored. If you have purple glove syndrome and want to know if you may have a malpractice lawsuit, please contact us any time.

When you hire an attorney in Illinois, you will pay them in one of three ways:

  • Flat fee – Typically traffic or misdemeanor criminal cases
  • Hourly – Divorces, most civil law suits, commercial litigation
  • Contingency – Paid if they win on injury cases, suing for owed life insurance money, class actions, some employment wage cases

It’s up to you and the law firm to agree on what type of fee arrangement to enter in to. No matter what you agree on, your contract with them will likely have a clause that says that they get reimbursed for their expenses. For example, if they have to issue a subpoena for your medical records or take a deposition as they prepare for trial, those things cost money.

Typically the law firm will front the expenses and get reimbursed by you. On contingency cases that happens when the case settles. On hourly cases that would be when you get your (hopefully monthly) bill. There aren’t usually expenses on flat fee cases, but if there were the attorney would have to ask for them since there wouldn’t be a bill.

While being able to get reimbursed for expenses is standard, some law firms in Chicago are doing something that is not standard lately. They are asking for interest on the expenses they pay out on your case. In other words, if they advance $50,000 in costs, which is not unusual for something like a medical malpractice case, they want to get 8% or so interest back on that money.

In the end, that could mean an extra $10,000 or more in their pocket depending on how long the case lasts. To me, while it is allowed, it’s really just a money grabbing exercise and a bit greedy. Fronting expenses is the risk of being an attorney and taking on a case. To try and get interest on those expenses is comparable to “resort fees” at hotels or “convenience charges” by Ticketmaster. It’s just taking more money because you think you can get away with it.

Unlike with the hotel and Ticketmaster, you do have a choice here. You can object and ask that this clause be removed. You can also hire one of the many great firms that don’t do these things to their clients. Whether or not they are allowed to do it isn’t the issue. The issue is should they charge interest and to me the answer is clearly no.

Beyond all of that, I really question how accurate the interest charges are. It’s not like they spend all the expense money at once. It happens over time and they aren’t allowed to charge interest on money that isn’t spent yet. Unless you’ve got a CPA on staff that has years of experience with this, I’d be worried about mistakes in calculating interest.

Finally, some of these firms are not only charging interest, but they are also claiming as expenses petty things like postage stamps, photo copying charges (even when it’s just a couple of pages), gas money, etc. To me those things are the cost of doing business and clearly separate from items like deposition fees, subpoena fees, expert witness pay, etc.

We highly encourage you to read and question any other items in whatever legal document you are given before signing it. If you have any questions about this you can call us any time to speak with a lawyer, at no cost, at 312-346-5320.

There are some areas of law that have thousands of attorneys who handle those types of cases. For example, if you need an attorney for a divorce, DUI or personal injury case, you will see a lot of profiles out there of various firms and attorneys. And finding these lawyers is not hard even if you are in a more remote area.

Other areas of law are more niche and there are many parts of Illinois where finding an attorney who has experience and is local to you is impossible. This is really true for cases before the Illinois Department of Professional and Financial Regulations (IDFPR).

The IDFPR licenses most professionals in Illinois including nurses, doctors, real estate agents, accountants, barbers and many others. If you get a notice from them of a possible violation your career and livelihood is on the line. So getting an experienced attorney is not only smart, it’s a must.

You will find that the best and most experienced IDFPR lawyers are in Chicago. That is because the IDFPR itself is in Chicago and that is where hearings take place. So if you are an attorney who is going to handle defending these cases, it would make sense that you’d be in Chicago.

In other words, if you are a nurse in southern Illinois or a realtor in Rockford, the best attorney for your IDFPR case is not going to be a law firm up the street. The good news is that you won’t have to travel to Chicago to hire one of these law firms. Every attorney we know who handles these cases is happy to talk to you by phone and/or Zoom. And everyone we recommend offers a free consultation.

It’s also important to note that even in Chicago, there are maybe 5-6 attorneys who make IDFPR defense just about 100% of their daily legal work activity. There are a lot of other attorneys who dabble in it, but mainly focus on other areas of law. In other words, you don’t have a lot of qualified, experienced choices. The good news is that we’ve met the ones who do this work all day every day and have seen them obtain incredible results for their clients, even those who were in dire circumstances and feared losing their license.

If you would like a free consultation to get the best IDFPR attorney for your case or just to see what your options are, you can call us any time at 312-346-5320. You will speak with an experienced lawyer right away and all calls are confidential.

What is your life expectancy? What is your health history and health outlook? Do you have a spouse or family member who can care for you if needed?

No one can predict how long they will live or exactly what condition their body and mind will be in as they age. And the cost of long-term care can be staggering. Therefore, many people invest in long-term care insurance.

People pay premiums to have a long-term care insurance policy that will cover their care in a facility that is not an acute-care hospital. That includes nursing homes, residential care facilities, assisted living facilities, and skilled nursing facilities. It also includes home care including home health care, adult day care, hospice services, or respite care.

But the sad reality is that when people need long-term care, and they file claims for long-term care benefits, there is a lot of red tape and the claims are sometimes delayed or denied by the insurer. Insurance companies are looking to make money, and adjusters will scrutinize the claims, trying to find reasons to not pay out the benefits to the policyholder.

Here are some of the common reasons insurance companies use to delay and deny claims:

  1. Ineligible Care Provider. If the insured person needs a nursing home or assisted living facility, make sure it meets the criteria of that person’s policy. The policy might state that the facility must have a specific license and the appropriate personnel and care.
  2. No Prior Hospitalization. Sometimes called “the gatekeeper provision,” this often appears in older policies. It requires that a policyholder have a hospitalization, a nursing home stay, or both before claims would be paid. Most states though have outlawed these provisions for many years.
  3. No Benefits for Personal Care. Insurance companies may say they won’t pay benefits for personal care like light housekeeping or running errands for the policyholder.
  4. Failure to Pay Claims Due to Cognitive Impairment. A policyholder may have some cognitive/memory issues and forget to pay their policy premiums for a little while. But in most states, you have a grace period of up to 5 months before a policy can lapse because premiums weren’t paid. If you can get a physician to state that during that time, the policyholder was impaired, the insurer will reinstate the policy.

Those a just a few of the reasons given by insurance companies. If you or a loved one has been denied long-term care benefits, please reach out to us. The cases we get involved with are when their are medical bills in the six figures that aren’t being covered. We can help you sort through the red tape, show the insurance company that you mean business, and fight for your rightful benefits.

You do not pay anything upfront. The experienced, reputable attorneys that handle these cases only take a fee if they win a settlement for you. Contact us at 312-346-5320 if you want to discuss a case.

We spoke to over 15,000 people this year via phone, email and live chat and heard a lot of great questions. Here are some of the best ones. As always, if you’d like to speak with an experienced Illinois attorney for free, call us at 312-346-5320.

I’m getting divorced. I discovered my wife spent way more over the years than I knew about. Can I get that money back?

Likely no. Money earned during the marriage is a marital asset. Each spouse has the same right to use it during the marriage. What you do have a right to is possibly recovering some of the items. While you can’t recover money spent on trips, dinners, gambling, etc. (with some exceptions), if they bought fancy items that can be resold, that may be one way to get some money back.

I’ve done everything needed to earn a commission on my job. Our handbook says if we quit or get fired before the commission pay day, we don’t get paid. Is that allowed?

No, that is not enforceable. You get paid. The Illinois Wage Payment and Collection Act (“IWPCA”) regulations specifically anticipate that scenario.

My wife was in a car accident and the police report says no injury because she didn’t feel pain at the time. Two days later she woke up with terrible back pain. Is she able to get medical treatment that the insurance company will have to pay for?

Yes. When you get into a car accident, your body will release adrenaline. That can often mask pain and make it so you don’t realize you are injured. It’s very common that within a day or two that pain will start to appear. Our recommendation is that you get to a doctor ASAP (as in today), tell them about the accident and go from there with whatever their advice is.

I was scammed out of $5000 for a stock purchase through someone I met on Facebook. Is there any way to get my money back?

Honestly, probably not, at least not through a lawyer. Odds are that the scammer isn’t even in the US and finding them would be a real challenge. Best bet is to work through your bank which may be a long shot too. This sadly happens to a lot of people.

Can a store ban me? I was accused of stealing but showed them a receipt. They called the cops anyways and said I can’t come back for 90 days.

It may be unfair, but yes a business can restrict people from entering as long as it’s not for an illegal reason. Even though the store made a mistake, what they are doing is unfair, but also legal.

I hired a lawyer and then changed my mind. He said the retainer fee is not refundable. Is that legal? 

No and the ARDC just made that crystal clear with new rules in 2023. The attorney has to return any money not earned which in this case sounds like all of it.

We look forward to answering more great questions in 2024!

We talk to hundreds of people a week about all sorts of Illinois legal issues. While the cases may be different, it’s not uncommon for someone to start off the call by saying something like:

I want to know if I even have a case at all.

To get answer to that question there is one really important factor involved. You have to be willing to accept that you might not have a case. Now it sounds like that would be easy to do when you are just inquiring, but in reality that is not always the case.

Going through a legal issue can be really personal and emotional. You always want to believe there is hope. You want justice if you feel you’ve been wronged. The truth though is that you might have been wronged, somebody might be at fault and there still might not be a case. Or something may be unfair or unjust, but also not a case.

For example, you could go to a doctor’s office with complaints of chest pain and be told it’s just anxiety. Later that day you could have continued pain and go to the ER who diagnosis you with a heart attack and performs surgery on you.

While that sounds like malpractice, it’s possibly and likely just a case of a bad doctor. But because you were smart enough to get a second opinion, you prevented yourself from having damages that you wouldn’t have had otherwise. In other words, the heart surgery was likely to happen anyway. So the first doctor’s negligence didn’t cause any harm. You cant’ sue because something bad could have happened.

That example is in many ways a reflection of the bad health care system we have in the USA. But there are other examples too. You could be let go from your job because your boss wants to hire their friend or relative. That’s totally unfair, but also very legal in most cases. So if you tell me “that isn’t right” I would agree with you, but also tell you there’s nothing we can do.

The benefit of a good lawyer is that we can take the emotion out of a situation and look at it objectively. We are motivated for you to actually have a case as it could make us money. But we don’t lie to people to give them false hope or to make them momentarily feel good. We view it as our job to tell you the blunt truth, even if you don’t want to hear it or believe it can be true.

I encourage you to always seek a second opinion as we are not the Judge and we of course can be wrong. But I also encourage you not to drive yourself crazy doing so. If you talk to multiple lawyers who all tell you the same thing, there’s likely a good reason for that. At some point you have to accept that nothing can be done even if that makes you mad to think about.

I was sent a link by someone who stumbled upon some “men’s rights” podcast that was discussing divorce. It was from some group that is trying to get rid of no-fault divorce. That’s just a fancy way of saying that they want to control their wives or leverage the divorce to avoid paying their spouse any money. It’s gross, but it’s not why I am writing this.

As happens a lot on podcasts or other online content, the speaker talked very authoritatively as if everything they were saying is correct. It’s a feature of a lot of these guys that allows them to lie in a way that politicians do.

The first thing this guy said that was wrong is that pre-nuptial agreements almost never get enforced. That’s totally not true. If it’s done correctly, the pre-nup is a valid contract. There are guidelines in Illinois such as it shouldn’t be completed in the days before the wedding and each side should have an opportunity to review it with a lawyer. But to say they never get enforced is total nonsense.

The second lie was that men never receive child support or custody. Again this is total bullshit. Custody is based on the best interests of the child. Traditionally men worked and women stayed at home so women had a better chance of getting custody since they would be around. Times have changed and both men and women have careers. People also work from home which has changed the ability to take care of children. If the man gets custody, which happens all the time, they will get child support.

This same podcaster also said that women never pay alimony. In Illinois it’s called maintenance and it’s not a gender based law. If a husband stayed at home or had a low paying job while the wife made great money, she’d have to pay maintenance to him. Again, it hasn’t traditionally happened, but times are changing and it does happen. Saying “never” is to try and piss off people who follow him.

This guy went to throw out fabricated stats that are easily searchable such as saying that men make up 97% of child support payors or that men get custody less than 2% of the time (it’s actually over 20% nation wide and over 30% in many states). These trends will only continue to increase and become more even as they have been doing every year.

This podcaster isn’t a lawyer and shouldn’t be giving out legal advice. Maybe he had a bad experience. More likely it’s just part of a grift to help him make money. Whatever the situation, your case is unique and if you want to know where you stand, talk to a lawyer. You can do that for free with us any time.