Professional Details

Representative Matters

Employment Discrimination

Lewis v. City of Chicago. In this ongoing class action, HSPRD represents more than 6,000 African Americans who took and passed a hiring examination for entry-level firefighter positions in the Chicago Fire Department and then were wrongfully denied the opportunity to be considered for employment by the City. The trial court ruled that the City’s method of hiring firefighters bore no demonstrable relationship to the relative skills or abilities of candidates for the position and that it disproportionately excluded African Americans, making it more than five times more likely that a white candidate rather than an African American would be hired. The City’s practice was, as the trial court called it, “a manifest violation of Title VII,” our nation’s core federal guarantee of equal employment opportunity. We have prevailed not only at trial but also in the federal Court of Appeals and before the US Supreme Court, which issued a unanimous opinion in favor of our clients. In May 2011, the Court of Appeals on remand directed the trial court to enter a remedial order, which will result in the hiring of 111 class members as Chicago Firefighters and the payment of tens of millions.

• Lewis Trial Court opinion
• Lewis Supreme Court opinion
• Lewis Court of Appeals opinion

Jones v. Walgreen Co. Represented a nationwide class of women retail store management employees in a Title VII class action lawsuit against the nation’s largest drugstore chain. The settlement provided for monetary relief of $17 million, as well as an injunction requiring both objective criteria for pay and promotions decisions involving female managerial employees and outside review of gender equity compliance efforts.

Bell v. Woodward Governor Co. Represented minority employees in a Title VII class action alleging race and national origin discrimination by a large manufacturing employer, resulting in a multi-million dollar settlement. The settlement also provided comprehensive injunctive relief, including appointment of a third-party monitor and retention of workplace industrial organizational experts to create and implement non-discriminatory, job-related best practices for compensation and promotional decisions going forward.

Represented a school district employee fired after exercising his First Amendment right to support the candidate of his choice in local school board elections. The verdict in this case was one of the highest ever in a single plaintiff civil rights action in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.

First Amendment

Personal PAC v. McGuffage. In a First Amendment challenge filed on behalf of Personal PAC and two of its supporters, HSPRD obtained a permanent injunction, barring the enforcement of portions of Illinois’s campaign finance law.

Protection of Other Worker Rights

Ramirez-Cruz v. United States. This was a class action filed by HSPRD against the Mexican government and three Mexican national banks on behalf of thousands of Mexican workers (braceros), who worked in the U.S. as contract laborers during World War II, pursuant to diplomatic agreements between the U.S. and Mexico. HSPRD led a team of lawyers from law firms in 5 cities seeking to recover unpaid wages withheld between 1942-1946. The historic settlement not only provided compensation to our clients, but was also the catalyst for reparations programs that made additional compensation available to many more thousands of braceros who worked in the program between 1947-1962. The presiding federal judge commended HSPRD for their persistence and accomplishment, stating: "I want to tell you I’ve never seen such litigation in 11 years on the bench that was more difficult than this one. It was enormously challenging…I actually expected, to tell you the truth, at some point that the plaintiffs would just give up because it was so hard, but they never did....And, in fact, they achieved a settlement of the case, which I find remarkable under all of these circumstances."

Chicago Teachers Union v. IELRB. Represented the Chicago Teachers Union. Obtained a reversal of the Illinois Educational Labor Relations Board’s position with respect to the scope of arbitrable grievances.

School Desegregation

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.

Voting Rights

del Valle v. McGuffage. Represented Latino and African-American voters in Illinois in a class action against seven local election jurisdictions and the Illinois State Board of Election Commissioners in which HSPRD challenged the use of flawed systems of recording and counting votes. The use of these voting systems had consistently resulted in disproportionately high error rates and undercounting of votes, particularly in predominantly minority voting districts. The settlement in the case led to elimination of punch-card ballots and optical-scan voting systems, which had failed to provide error notification throughout Illinois.

Election Law

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.

Commercial Litigation

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

Successfully defended a large, national office-supply retailer against nationwide, class action allegations of consumer fraud, obtaining resolution before discovery.

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.

Consumer Protection

In re Mexico Money Transfer Litigation. This was consolidated litigation in which nationwide classes, represented by HSPRD, brought claims against the three largest money transfer companies in the United States. The suits alleged fraud by each company through their concealment of the spread between the currency-conversion fees they charged customers and their much lower actual transaction costs. The cases settled on terms that mandated transparency and facilitated price competition in exchange rates used by the money transfer industry and provided benefits worth more than $400 million to the classes of most Mexican immigrant workers, as well as $4.5 million in grants to non-governmental organizations all over the United States to serve the needs of the Mexican migrant community.

Martin v. Heinold Commodities, Inc. Represented a plaintiff investor class in a suit against a commodities brokerage firm for breach of fiduciary duty and violations of the Illinois Consumer Fraud Act; $3.5 million settlement.

Professional Recognition

• Elected Member, American Law Institute

Memberships / Associations

Legal

• Member, Board of Directors, Chicago Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, Inc.
• Member, Seventh Circuit Electronic Discovery Pilot Program Committee
• Member, Illinois State Bar Association

Related News

• The United States District Court held that two provisions of Illinois’s campaign finance law violate the First Amendment and entered an injunction prohibiting their enforcement in the case Personal PAC v. McGuffage. Read more.
• HSPRD attorneys filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of Personal PAC, a bipartisan statewide political action committee, and two of its supporters, challenging the constitutionality of two provisions of Illinois's campaign finance law. Read more.
• HSPRD is pleased to announce that Joshua Karsh has become a shareholder of the firm.
• Following the victory in the U.S. Supreme Court in Lewis v. City of Chicago, the district court entered an injunction requiring the City of Chicago to hire 111 class members as candidate firefighters and to pay tens of millions of dollars of backpay to the remainder of the class.
• Federal district court preliminarily enjoins enforcement of Indiana's new immigration law, SEA 590, in a challenge to the law's constitutionality. HSPRD filed an amicus brief on behalf of five nations in support of the challenge. Read more.
• HSPRD partners Mary Rowland and Joshua Karsh serve on the 7th Circuit Electronic Discovery Pilot Program Committee, a program featured in the Chicago Daily Law Bulletin. Read more.
• Following a decade of representation by HSPRD and co-counsel, the U.S. Court of Appeals rules in favor of a class of over 6,000 qualified African-American firefighter applicants in landmark employment discrimination case. Read more.
• HSPRD files suit on behalf of Mexican H-2A guest workers against Tennessee tomato farm alleging abusive working conditions, discrimination, and retaliation. Read more.
• 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.
• Federal court judge grants final approval to class action settlement in which HSPRD represented a nationwide class of women retail store management employees in a Title VII class action lawsuit against nation’s largest drugstore chain. Read more.
• HSPRD partner Joshua Karsh presented arguments to the Illinois Supreme Court on the state Constitution's residency requirement for judicial candidates. Read more.
• U.S. Supreme Court rules unanimously in favor of plaintiffs in case brought by HSPRD & others to challenge discrimination in the City of Chicago's hiring of firefighters. Read more.
• The American Law Institute names HSPRD partner Joshua Karsh among its newly elected members.
• U.S. Supreme Court agrees to hear case brought by HSPRD & others on behalf of Chicago firefighters who contend that the city used a racially discriminatory test to screen applicants. Read more.
• Federal court approves class action settlement brought by HSPRD on behalf of World War II braceros to recover monies withheld from their paychecks. Read more.