Professional Details

Professional Details

Cara A. Hendrickson

Cara Hendrickson is a partner with Hughes Socol Piers Resnick & Dym, Ltd. She concentrates her practice in the areas of civil rights/constitutional law, class actions, and labor and employment. She joined the firm in 2005.

Prior to working at HSPRD, Ms. Hendrickson was a Skadden Fellow for Business and Professional People for the Public Interest and worked with the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau, the Massachusetts Law Reform Institute and the National Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights. Ms. Hendrickson also worked as an associate at Kirkland & Ellis.

Representative Matters

Goodman v. Ward. This was an election-law case, presenting a novel question of Illinois constitutional law regarding the contours of the constitutional requirement of residency for judicial office. The issue was whether residency is a prerequisite to running for judicial office or, instead, only to holding judicial office. The case began before a local electoral board and finished before the Illinois Supreme Court, culminating in a unanimous Supreme Court decision in favor of our client, ruling that all candidates for judicial office, and not merely eventual office holders, must satisfy the residency requirement imposed by the judicial article of the Illinois Constitution. Read case details.

Represented a successful sales representative in litigation against a computer software firm for sex and age discrimination that led to her disparate treatment and termination, which resulted in a favorable resolution for our client.

Represented in litigation several predominately African-American school districts challenging the decision made by eleven predominately white high school districts to secede from and form a new, predominantly white high school interscholastic conference. The separation of the conferences would have effectively ended regular season competition between majority-white and majority-African-American high schools in this area. This case, one of the first to use the “effects test” provisions of the Illinois Civil Rights Act of 2003, settled on terms that assured integrated conferences and continued regular season competition and meetings between majority-white and majority-African-American high schools.

Representing a major insurer in complex, non-Wellington asbestos coverage litigation.

Representing a trustee in bankruptcy and seeking to recover approximately $500 million in losses incurred by a debtor corporation, through claims against the corporation's former officers and directors for breach of fiduciary duties and the terms of a shareholder agreement.

Memberships / Associations

Legal
  • Member, Illinois State Bar Association
Civic / Community
  • Board of Directors, Protestants for the Common Good (2003-2006)

Publications

  • A Community Guide to Creating Affordable Housing (2005) (a publication of the Business and Professional People for the Public Interest).
  • Deconcentration in Public Housing, 9 Geo. J. on Poverty L. & Pol'y 35 (2002).
  • The Death Penalty in Massachusetts, 36 Harv. J. on Legis. 479 (1999).

Related News

  • Illinois Supreme Court rules unanimously in favor of HSPRD's client, holding that all candidates for judicial office, and not merely eventual office holders, must satisfy the residency requirement imposed by the judicial article of the Illinois Constitution.