Recently a friend called me asking for a divorce attorney referral for his brother. Unfortunately the brother is in another state so I couldn’t help. We only handle family law cases in the Chicago area. I couldn’t help him, but gave the brother some guidance on questions to ask before hiring an attorney. These questions are helpful for anyone looking to speak with a Chicago divorce attorney.

  1. What is the retainer fee? If a lawyer wants $5,000 and you only have $1500, that attorney isn’t going to work with you. Retainers are payment plans and every lawyer wants that retainer amount paid in full, up front, before they do anything.
  2. How long will the retainer fee last? You might be excited that a lawyer has a low retainer fee, but some will do that to just get your money and get you in the door. If they are going to be asking for money in three weeks and you won’t have it, they’ll potentially drop you.
  3. Who is going to work on my case? There’s a law firm in Chicago that is potentially in big trouble for having multiple lawyers and staff members bill (over bill) on pretty basic cases. Most cases require just one lawyer and maybe one support person. Either way, you want to know who you will be hiring and primarily working with. You don’t want to think you are hiring a lawyer with 25 years of experience and end up with a young attorney just out of law school.
  4. What will I be billed for? They should bill for talking to you, attending court, writing motions, talking to the other attorney, etc. They shouldn’t bill you for un-needed research, talking to co-workers about your case, etc.
  5. What time increments do you bill in? Believe it or not some firms will bill you 15-30 minutes of time for reading an email from you that took them less than a minute to read. Others will charge an hour of time for a five minute court appearance. This is why we tell people not to worry about the retainer cost as much as hiring an honest law firm. Which leads to my next question to ask.
  6. What is the estimated cost for my case? They can’t tell you for sure because your spouse could make a case drag on. That said, if you know it will be amicable or there’s really only one issue to fight over, they should be able to give you an estimate. They should at least be able to give you a range.
  7. When will the case be filed and when is the first court date? This will help you understand the process.
  8. Will you be out of town or unavailable for an extended period in the next 12 months? I’ve seen cases where someone hired an attorney a couple of weeks before that lawyer got married and then was out of town for more than three weeks with wedding activities and a very long honeymoon. You should know that before you put your case in their hands.
  9. When you are unavailable, who do I talk to? Who will work on my case? Hopefully this is self explanatory. If the answer is nobody I would be worried.
  10. Who do I talk to when I call? Some firms essentially have paralegals or secretaries do all of the communication. That’s in my opinion not great. The lawyer will have other cases, but they should be able to speak to you when needed. That doesn’t mean every day or every call, but in general they should be available.
  11. What is the best way to communicate with you? In my opinion, the best way is email or text for basic stuff and phone calls for something more urgent or serious with meetings before big court events. Either way, find out.
  12. How often should I expect to hear from you? As stated, they have other cases and there is no reason for them to talk to you daily or weekly. But in most cases you should have at least monthly communication.
  13. How often will I be billed? My recommendation is to ask for monthly invoices so you can track what you are being charged for and don’t find yourself with a huge bill out of nowhere.
  14. What do you know about my spouse’s attorney? They might not have one yet, but if they do, your lawyer should give you some insight on them.
  15. What can you tell me about the Judge? This would be for cases already filed. If they have no idea about the Judge it’s a bad sign.
  16. What am I not thinking about that I should? You can’t be expected to know what a lawyer knows. They should educate you at that first meeting.
  17. What is a realistic outcome of my case? I like attorneys that are honest and direct. This gives them a chance to show that to you.
  18. What percentage of your practice is divorce and family law? It doesn’t have to be 100%, but in my opinion it should be close to that.
  19. What experience do you have with forensic accounting in your cases? This is if your divorce involves a business owned by either spouse. Properly valuing that business as well as searching for hidden money could be a big issue. If your lawyer usually deals with more basic divorces they are not the right attorney for you.
  20. What can I do to help my situation? This is a good one for when you have kids and custody is an issue. Documenting all the things you do for them is helpful. There are many other things you can do to increase your chances of success. What those are depends on the case issues.

I hope these tips help. Nothing guarantees a good result in your case, but having an attorney who does a good job really increases your chances of success. If you would like a recommendation of an attorney that we feel would do a good job for you, please call us at 312-346-5320 any time.

About once a week, we get a phone call from someone who is divorced and needs a qualified domestic relief order (QDRO) completed. In plain English, it’s a legal document that divides up retirement funds between the two spouses. It essentially gives you your share of a 401k for the amount that was accumulated during a marriage.

Even if a spouse isn’t retiring when you get divorced, a QDRO can be completed and entered into court when you get divorced. And it should be completed then. It’s a lot of paperwork and if you don’t know what you are doing it can be complicated. So even though it should be done during the divorce, a lot of lazy Illinois divorce attorneys simply aren’t doing it.

Typically a QDRO is filed by the spouse not on the benefits. So if you are a husband whose wife gets a 401k through her work, you’d want to file it. If you are a wife whose husband has a 401k, then the burden would be on you.

Why so many divorce attorneys don’t do their job is beyond me. I think it’s because so many lawyers who take on divorces don’t actually handle cases that are beyond simple. They likely handle divorce and traffic and car accidents and write wills and do almost anything that comes through the door.

What ends up happening is years later you have to hire a different lawyer to finish the job. That will cost you more money than it should.

Now some may say that it’s not a big deal, they’ll deal with it when they have to. But there are a couple of problems with that:

  1. You risk your ex bleeding those funds dry without a court order. That could literally cost you hundreds of thousands of dollars.
  2. Most real family law and divorce attorneys don’t want to do QDRO’s if it’s not a case they are handling for an existing client. They know that it’s something the first attorney should have done and because they aren’t really enjoyable, a lot of them just refuse to clean up someone else’s mess.

The good news is that we do know some very good attorneys who will do this work. It can be frustrating for you as you will have to shell out money to get money that you are entitled to. But when your first attorney didn’t do the job (or you went without a lawyer and didn’t have a QDRO done), you really have no choice.

If you are in the Chicago area and want help getting a QDRO completed, entered and approved by the Courts, please call us any time at 312-346-5320.

I have a son who plays high level soccer. He will often travel 3-5 hours to play a game. It’s fun to see him against other teams, but there are also times when I think it’s dumb as there is so much great competition within an hour of where his club is based. Other times they will travel to places like Florida, Maryland, Dallas (in the summer) to play teams from around the country.

I go along with most of the travel because that’s what you do as a parent and he loves it and has big goals. Certainly there are times when I think it’s ridiculous and I definitely don’t think the decision makers have the best interests of the kids at heart.

If he does play Division 1 soccer, it’s likely the travel will make even less sense. If you are a sports fan, you know that the Big 10 is now actually 18 teams consisting of schools that touch both the Atlantic and the Pacific. I don’t envy the players that have to fly from Washington to Happy Valley, PA or from UCLA to a game in Iowa. If you don’t have charter flights, none of these trips will be easy. It’s of course happening elsewhere. Arizona now will have a conference game in West Virginia.

The players who will have it best are actually the football players. Most teams will have only four to five road games and likely will only have one to two really out of the way trips with the exception of the west coast schools who probably will have three. It sounds like a nightmare for the other sports, especially baseball and softball who play multiple games in a weekend. If you play a Friday series that means you are likely gone Thursday until late Sunday, early Monday at best.

I worry about the mental health of these players. The reality is that college sports is pro sports and these conference realignments are only happening due to the revenue sports of football and basketball. There’s sadly no going back on the changes made because of those sports.

The question I have is why do we treat all the sports the same? There’s no reason to. Already for sports like hockey and men’s soccer, you will find schools playing in different conferences than their other sports. Akron is in the Big East for soccer. Kentucky is in the same conference as Coastal Carolina and Georgia State. San Diego State plays with five other Pac 12 schools.

So why not have these national conferences for football and basketball and sensible, reasonable conferences for all the other sports? All you would need is a commissioner for each sport and an agreement to do what’s best for the kids. I realize that is probably a pipe dream.

But if you really cared about the best interests of the kids, you’d have some rule that all efforts should be made to keep 80% of the games within driving distance.

Take Northwestern for example. They are part of the Big 10 in soccer and soon will have to travel to Washington or UCLA every year, but also go to Maryland, Rutgers, and Penn State. Why not have most of their sports in the same conference as UIC, Loyola, DePaul, Northern Illinois, Illinois, Bradley and even Purdue, Indiana and Notre Dame (yes, I know not all of those schools have men’s soccer). This would still lead to really strong competition and the schools with more money or interest could still play non-conference games a little further afoot.

This already happens and works in college hockey. Boston College of the ACC is in a conference with Boston University, Northeastern (also in Boston), UMass and a bunch of other New England schools that are within driving distance. You could play road games on a Friday and Saturday and still sleep in your own bed. None of this has prevented BC from being a college hockey powerhouse.

This of course would not only be good for mental health, but also save money. And it wouldn’t take away from the competition. Is it hypocritical to not do this for football and basketball? Of course it is, but the whole of NCAA sports and the idea of a student athlete is built on hypocrisy. But it’s a workable and reasonable solution, especially for the schools who have fellow conference members 2,000 miles apart from them. And if it doesn’t happen, the next step is going to be to drop these non-revenue sports which nobody wants to see happen.

The next step is for a leader to step up and propose something that may sound radical, but really is logical. It could happen if we put an athletes first person like Jay Bilas in charge of the NCAA. In other words, it will never happen.

Growing up I heard the term ambulance chaser. It’s meant to describe a low life personal injury attorney who would follow an ambulance to a hospital and try to sign up a client. The image is of an unkempt person with a bad suit and bad haircut.

I never imagined that could be a reality, but sadly it is. Now with the caveat that most Illinois personal injury attorneys are honest and ethical and the ones we recommend wouldn’t do these things, there do seem to be more and more that toe the line of morality. And in my opinion they greatly cross the line of what’s right and wrong. Here are some things I’ve heard from callers in the last few months:

  • One Chicago personal injury attorney may have stolen funds from a client as part of a settlement that were supposed to be used to pay off liens by medical providers. This same attorney paid the client in cash for the settlement instead of writing a check. I’ve literally never heard of an attorney doing that and can’t imagine why they would. Oh, and this lawyer has been suspended from practicing law for unethical behavior three times.
  • In one case where a person was rear-ended in Chicago at a stop light, more than 20 law firms reached out to them within a week, unsolicited. Many of them did it by phone, a couple had “runners” show up at their house. I hear this type of behavior all the time. Is that not ambulance chasing? Many firms buy crash reports. Some allegedly pay off cops to hand out their business card or alert them to big accidents.
  • One of the lawyers who does this chasing is backed by private equity money meaning he has investors in his law firm that fund his practice. They of course have an expectation of getting a return on their money. To me it’s a huge red flag if a firm is doing this as you have to question if they are going to be worried about your best interests or making their investors happy. In fact, I encourage you to ask your lawyer before you hire them if they are backed by private equity. One notorious lawyer who does this doesn’t actually try cases.
  • Another firm advertises heavily here with billboards and TV ads yet the main guy isn’t even licensed to practice law in Illinois. They just hire out attorneys to handle the cases. They are, in my opinion, marketers, not lawyers.
  • I’ve heard stories of some attorneys paying clients at the beginning of the case to sign up. It’s basically an illegal advancement on their settlement. It sounds great to the client, but the reality is that these lawyers are breaking the law and often you end up with less because they are just trying to churn through cases instead of get the best result possible.
  • And of course many lawyers pay doctors for referrals or have an arrangement where they send each other business even if it’s not in the best interest of the client.

It’s really disheartening that it happens so much and that it’s happening more and more. The public gets hurt. All I can tell you is that if someone will cross an ethical line to get your business, it’s a reflection of how they will handle your case. And the best firms who get the best results don’t feel a need to do this and their clients are happier.

Most Americans have heard about the opioid crisis in our country. Opioids (or opiates) are a broad class of drugs that help control or relieve acute pain. Some common opiate painkillers include oxycodone (sold under the trade names OxyContin and Percocet), hydrocodone (Vicodin and Norco) and fentanyl (Actiq, Duragesic). Some opioids are derived naturally from the poppy plant and others are synthesized in a laboratory.

When opioid medications travel through your blood and attach to opioid receptors in your brain cells, the cells release signals that dampen your perception of pain and increase your feelings of pleasure.

Doctors often prescribe opioids following surgery or an injury, or for health conditions such as cancer. The opioid drugs are quite potent and readily available, which means there is a risk that patients will become addicted to them and possibly overdose. It’s not negligent for these doctors to prescribe these drugs, but it is negligent to not monitor their use or over prescribe them.

Since the 1990’s there has been an alarming increase in the overuse, misuse/abuse, and overdose deaths attributed to opioids. Yes, there is some level of personal responsibility involved when taking any medication; however, we are going to focus on corporate greed and physicians wrongly prescribing or over prescribing the drugs that lead to these awful outcomes.

Pharmaceutical companies make more money if more people take the medications they produce. That makes sense. But what is concerning is that, according to an analysis from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Harvard Medical School, and CNN, “Opioid manufacturers are paying U.S. doctors huge sums of money for speaking, consulting, and other services—and the more opioids a doctor prescribes, the more money he or she gets paid by those same manufacturers.”

With pharmaceutical companies and doctors looking to line their pockets, is the best interest of the patient at the forefront? Can drug-pushing doctors be liable for the deaths of their patients?

Recently, a Cook County jury decided yes, in a particular case. That jury awarded $6 million to the family of a woman who died due to an opioid addiction the family says was caused by her doctor.

A woman was under the care of a pain management physician for years for neck and back pain from a work-related accident. That physician prescribed her hydrocodone with refills nearly every month. The doctor also increased her prescription several times as she said she was feeling no change in her pain level.

The woman began to abuse the opioids and died of respiratory failure related to her opioid use.

The woman’s family stated that the doctor failed to warn her of the dangers of opioid medications and failed to wean her off them after the doctor knew that the meds were not working to relieve her pain.

The $6 million verdict sends a signal to pain management doctors to be more thoughtful about how they prescribe these drugs.

While every case is different, we are interested in helping families who have lost loved ones due to the failure of doctors in monitoring these opioids. If you know someone who has died from opioid use related to a doctor over-prescribing these powerful meds, please contact us at 312-346-5320. All calls are free and confidential and there is no fee unless the case is successful.

We are experienced Illinois attorneys who can help you with an accidental death benefits lawsuit when the insurance company doesn’t pay out a policy. To speak with an attorney for free, call us any time at 312-346-5320. We cover all of Illinois.

We have written a lot about life insurance lawsuits in Illinois. Those are cases where someone dies and there is a life insurance policy on them that doesn’t get paid out for some reason.

Accidental death insurance is a different type of benefit than life insurance. As the name implies, it pays out for accidental death. It also can pay out for accidental injuries such as a loss of a limb. It overlaps slightly with life insurance, but only provides a benefit for stuff like being killed in a car accident, being murdered, a plane crash, etc. People like it because you are typically automatically accepted for it if you apply for it unlike life insurance which often requires a medical exam and screening.

Much like life insurance, we see insurance companies denying these policies without good cause and acting in bad faith. They will look for any non-accidental factor that contributed to a death and hope that you will accept the denial and go away.

The key thing to know is that quite often these denials are b.s. When you purchase and accidental death and dismemberment policy (AD&D) the beneficiary shouldn’t have to deal with a nonsense denial. What the lawyers we recommend typically do is immediately file a lawsuit to force the insurance company to provide a valid reason for the denial. Often doing so results in them just paying out the policy benefits. Some of the ways they deny you wrongly include:

  • Saying that the policy had lapsed when they didn’t give notice this will happen.
  • Alleging there is a misrepresentation in the application for benefits.
  • Saying the death was caused by an illness, not an injury
  • Putting a requirement in place that isn’t clearly defined or interpreting something vague in their own favor.

It’s important to know that these policies often have filing deadlines, so acting without delay is important. You should also know that the attorneys who take on these cases work on a contingency basis which means that there is no fee to you unless they are successful with the lawsuit.

The bottom line is that you should not accept a denial in the payout of accidental death and dismemberment benefits without talking to an attorney first. If you would like a free, confidential consultation, we would be happy to speak with you any time.

One big misconception I hear from the public a lot is that attorneys will cover for each other when one of them does something wrong. I’m not saying that there aren’t some scummy, unethical attorneys in Illinois. There are. But the great majority are honest, ethical and want to do the right thing.

As part of this belief, some individuals don’t think that lawyers in Illinois will sue each other. I promise you that is not true. We love to get involved in legal malpractice lawsuits. They aren’t easy to win, but when the facts and damages are right, we are all over them.

So what makes a good Illinois legal malpractice lawsuit?

The first thing needed is what is called irreparable harm. That means that your lawyer made an error and it can’t be fixed. So if you hired an attorney to file a lawsuit for a car accident and they didn’t do it before the statute of limitations ran out, you’d have irreparable harm and likely a good case for suing. On the other hand, if you feel that your lawyer has been lazy and that’s caused the case to drag on for years, that sucks, but it’s a harm that can be fixed. In other words, that’s not a case.

We also look for actual financial losses. If the car accident case isn’t filed in time, that’s an actual loss. If you lose out on a spouse’s pension in a divorce because your lawyer waived your right to it without permission, that’s an actual loss. Because there are costs in bringing these lawsuits, we want the financial loss to typically be at least $100,000.00.

It’s also important to know that a bad result doesn’t mean legal malpractice nor does a lawyer not doing what you want. In most cases, an attorney could successfully defend themselves by saying that they made a judgment call and it didn’t work out. That’s unfortunate, but not typically negligence. You also can’t sue because their service was bad. It’s unethical not to return phone calls or yell at a client or miss court, but if it doesn’t lead to the irreparable harm, it’s not a lawsuit.

The last thing to know is that to win an Illinois legal malpractice lawsuit, you have to be able to prove that had the attorney done things correctly, you would have won your case. That can be a challenge at times. The more complex the original case was, the harder it can be to sue your law firm.

These cases aren’t easy, but we love to bring them. If you’d like a free consultation to see if you have a case, call us any time at 312-346-5320.

Over the weekend there was an article in the Sun Times that had a headline stating police in Chicago are being investigated for possible improper sexual conduct with immigrants. There are allegations that multiple police officers are having sexual acts with teenage immigrants. One officer is accused of impregnating a teenage girl.

I respect the police, but this favorable headline treatment is ridiculous. These cops are being accused of rape and sexual assault. That’s what it is. If the teens are under 18 it’s statutory rape. If not, do you really believe that these fresh to the country teens are so horny and hot for cops that they voluntarily engaged in sexual acts with them?

Of course they didn’t. There’s a huge power imbalance here. We’ve seen scores of instances across the country, including many in Illinois, where police have pressured women to have sex with them or blatantly raped them. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that’s what is happening here.

I hope these immigrants understand that they have rights and that includes the right to sue the police. They can and should do that. This power inbalance is no different than if a lawyer pressured a client for sex or a doctor did that to a patient. It’s not too dissimilar to the power imbalance sexual abuse and hazing allegations recently in the news against Northwestern. We’ve sadly seen those situations many times too and have represented people in all of these types of cases.

Coerced or forced sexual activity is sexual assault. Any officers that did that should be stripped up their police powers and arrested. It puts a huge stain on good cops. Any victim should file a lawsuit and I hope that they recover millions. Them being immigrants doesn’t change their rights in any way and may actually make the situation worse as for some this is their first exposure to the United States.

We have helped hundreds of sexual assault victims with their lawsuits. If you would like to speak with an attorney for free and in confidence you can call us any time at 312-346-5320.

I recently had an hour long conversation with a woman who was looking for an Illinois medical malpractice attorney to pursue a case involving the tragic death of her husband.

At first it seemed like it would be a quick conversation because she just asked “Who is the best Illinois malpractice attorney?” Usually I can explain this away quickly, but she asked me so many good questions about hiring a lawyer that I thought it would be a good blog post.

What I told her is that there isn’t a “best” law firm, but what we can do is help her find the best one for her possible case. To do that though, we need to know what happened with the treatment and about the patient.

I say that because there are some Illinois malpractice firms that are extremely selective with the cases they take. They have amazing track records of success and it would be great if you can get them to take your case. But because time is of the essence, you don’t want to waste your time with them if it’s clear you won’t meet their standard.

In other words, for some firms, if there isn’t an economic loss or millions of dollars in medical bills for past and future treatment, they won’t consider the case. Some firms are only interested in cases that could be worth potentially in the mid to high seven figures at worst.

Other firms won’t take cases that have obvious defenses right away. For example, if you have co-morbidities such as diabetes, extreme obesity, etc., they won’t even consider your case.

There’s of course no way for you to know this about various firms which is one reason we started our lawyer referral service. We know the selection criteria each firm has and can match you up with the best one for your case facts.

You also want to hire someone who has experience with your type of case. Having won similar cases in the past can increase the chances of success as well as speed up the process. If they know which experts to consult with, it can significantly cut down on the investigation time. These are also things we are familiar with and can help you with.

Some things you can do on your own when looking for an Illinois medical malpractice attorney include:

  • Make sure they can demonstrate a track record of settlements and trial verdicts in many cases. How many? There’s no magic number, but it should be at least somewhere above 25.
  • Verify that they can fund these very expensive cases. If you have a young or one person firm, they might not be able to.
  • Know that just because a lawyer says they do medical malpractice cases in Illinois doesn’t mean they really do. A lot of lawyers just list it in order to refer the cases on to other firms.
  • Be aware of the time limits for suing. It can be as little as two years from when the incident happened. So don’t delay looking for a law firm as it takes more than six months on average and often more than a year to properly investigate a case.
  • Avoid lawyers that also do defense work. You don’t want to have to worry that they will have a conflict of interest or be more loyal to their insurance company clients.

If you have any questions or want our opinion as to if you have a case and if so who you should hire, call us any time to speak with a lawyer for free at 312-346-5320.

We are Illinois attorneys who since 2001 have given free legal guidance to more than 500,000 people. If you’d like to speak with a Chicago lawyer for free, call us any time at 312-346-5320.

We get a lot of great questions from readers and callers. Here are some of the best ones that we’ve received over the last few months that we thought you might enjoy.

Can my doctor stop seeing me?

Generally yes. They can’t ignore an emergency situation, but just as you can stop seeing them, they can choose not to see you. They should give you notification in writing and a reasonable amount of time to find a new doctor.

I have my will mad and would like to register it to make things easier for my executor. Where should I go to register it?

While there have been talks about creating a State registry and it is a great idea, as of now it does not exist. The best thing you can do is to let your loved ones know that a will was created, who made it for you and where a copy can be found.

Can the police lie to you?

Yes they can and it happens all of the time. They aren’t generally looking out for you and it’s not their job to look out for you. This is why lawyers advise people not to talk to the police and certainly not to trust them in most situations.

My wedding got cancelled after my fiance and I ended things. The event planner and venue won’t give me a refund. Can I sue them?

The real question is can you sue and win? The answer comes down to what the contract you signed with them says. Typically it’s written in their favor so while you still have to look at the contract, I’m not optimistic.

With Covid and everything being closed, is that a way to get around not filing a lawsuit before the statute of limitations expired?

It’s not. The courts were open and lawyers were working even if most things were being done remotely. So generally speaking, Covid is not an excuse for waiting too long to sue.

My son was shot and killed outside of his apartment in the streets of Chicago. I’m sick of the violence here. Can we sue the City of Chicago over his death?

We are all sick of the violence and this is a sad situation. That said, there is no basis for suing the City over the acts of some criminals. They can’t police every block at every moment. There may be a lawsuit against the scum bag who did the shooting or potentially whoever supplied the gun. In some cases we can sue property owners if they let this behavior happen. But I’ve never seen a successful lawsuit against the City due to the amount of crime.

If you have any questions about anything related to Illinois law or want our help in finding the best attorney for your case, please contact us any time.