Interesting Cases

Insurance Coverage: Patterson Wins Where Prior Law Firm Fails

A Path to Victory: One Educational Training Center’s Road to Justice. The Patterson Law Firm, LLC won an insurance coverage jury verdict for $534,000 in Cook County on June 16, 2011. The case involved the burglary of a company offering comprehensive software education training in July of 2003. The burglary

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Legal Settlement Lawyer Chicago, IL

Patterson Wins $32.3 Million Verdict

On behalf of RevoLaze, LLC, Patterson Law Firm won a $32,262,488.50 legal malpractice jury verdict against attorney Mark Hogge and Dentons. This is a win for RevoLaze against a firm that claims to be largest law firm in the world. The trial took place in Cleveland, Ohio and lasted three

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Litigation Attorney Chicago, IL

Jacobson v. Citibank Arbitration Win

On April 4, 2024, PLF attorney James Bonebrake won a victory for his client, Scott Jacobson, in arbitration against Citibank. The case has been the subject of two NBC Channel 5 News investigative reports due to the onslaught of fraudulent transactions pilfering consumer bank accounts like Scott’s and occurring across

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Gambling Loan Dispute Chicago, IL

Gambling Friendship Gone Wrong After a Breach of Oral Contract

Michael Haeberle and Jack Battaglia represented a plaintiff in a dispute over loans given for gambling during a weekend trip to Las Vegas. The plaintiff and the defendant were close friends, and they shared an interest in gambling, which they often did together. During these outings, the defendant often asked

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Winning for Lloyds: The Magic of New Technology

The Magic of New Technology. In federal court, we represented a small insurance brokerage company backed by Lloyds of London that was sued by a large insurance company represented by a large law firm. The large company claimed that our client, the brokerage company, had failed to enact rate increases

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When Real Estate Partners Collide

A general partner in a real estate partnership sought our help. His limited partners obtained a restraining order to temporarily stop the sale of partnership condominiums to raise funds to pay $2.5 million in partnership debts, some of which were owed to the general partner. The limited partners then sought

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The Un-Neighborly Cooperative

Ten intrepid homeowners in a residential cooperative complained about their board of directors. The board had discriminated against them. One of our clients came home to find an ax in his back door with the words “person must die” written in red paint. In addition, some of the board’s conduct

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Real Estate Development Litigation: Called in a Crisis

We met a real estate developer who was being sued for over a million dollars for fraud, breach of fiduciary duty, breach of contract, and related theories. His attorney had cancer and had to withdraw. His accountant recommended us to replace the attorney. We filed our appearance shortly after getting

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Protecting a Hospital Director

In 2010, we were retained by a doctor who was unjustly sued by a bankruptcy trustee for business decisions made. He had directors and officers (D&O) insurance. Other lawyers told him that two exclusions in the policy excused the insurance company from providing him a defense. The insurance company wrote

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Patterson Wins Case Prior Law Firm Dropped

The Case That Nobody Wanted. Most frequently, we represent businesses, professionals, and entrepreneurs in business lawsuits, but a lawyer friend asked us to help a family whose law firm was dropping their wrongful death case. The family’s existing law firm thought the case could not be won because of its peculiar facts

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Insider Trading

Our attorneys participated in the Motel 6 securities litigation. Certain individuals had traded on inside information. A tip spread from a company director through the Los Angeles nightclub scene and beyond. Our attorney represented traders who had traded Motel 6 options and were defrauded by the insiders trading on information not

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How to Get a Case Moving

In the summer of 2011, we were called out of the blue by an in-house counsel in California who had a problem and needed our help. His company had a construction project in Chicago that had not been paid in more than five years. The company had tried two different

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Hot Batch Glass Tempering Oven

Though touted as the latest state-of-the-art glass tempering oven, the one purchased by the client failed to work. By asserting a different theory, we were able to obtain a settlement that others across the country could not. To learn about similar services we offer visit our practice areas page.  Patterson

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Health Care Residency Programs: Litigating Ourselves Out of a Job

Litigating Ourselves Out of a Job. For several years, Mr. Patterson successfully represented the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) in federal courts and a few state courts around the country. One program argued that if the court refused to continue its accreditation on an emergency basis, it would suffer

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Dirty Window Shops

The Patterson Law Firm, LLC Partner Kristi L. Browne represented the Sealy Mattress Company in a series of actions against what the client referred to as ‘dirty window shops,’ small furniture stores that advertised Sealy products but in fact lacked such products to sell. She filed and prosecuted motions for

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Defense of Bank Directors: Confronting the Government

At the height of the so-called banking crisis of 1992, the federal government filed federal court lawsuits against several bank officials and directors, accusing them of violating their duties as directors and officers. Our clients – in one case a bank president; in others, ordinary citizen directors – had never faced

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Defeating the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation

HUD Issues New Regulations in Response to Class Actions. In federal court, we have been involved in multiple class action cases where plaintiffs had overpaid mortgage escrow funds and won. The court in these cases demanded recalculation of the mortgage escrow accounts and a refund of overages. After winning several

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Corporate Coup d’Etat

The president of a technology company walked into our office for the first time with a worried look on his face. He was locked out and then voted out of his office. A hearing was scheduled in a few days on whether he had violated a court order to return company

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Business Acquisition Contracts

Navigating the Waters of Commercial Contracts: Jury Finds Client Not Guilty after Complex Breach of Contract Trial. Typically, business acquisition contracts have multiple contracts covering different elements of the purchase. The assets, liabilities, employment, and incentives are important. Sometimes the purchaser gets buyer’s remorse after the acquisition. Employees or top

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Landscaping Lawyer

A Tale of Two Brothers

Two brothers who jointly developed a patented component of landscaping equipment had a falling out after they obtained a lucrative exclusive distributorship contract. One of the brothers threw the other up against a wall and fired him, telling him he wouldn’t “see a dime” from the business unless he sold

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A Perry Mason Moment

In a construction case, we represented the owner in arbitration against a contractor who had overbilled the project and then blamed our clients for the overruns. Here is part of the cross-examination: Q: And you didn’t mind swearing that that was the case, even though you knew it wasn’t? A:

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A Different and Better Argument

In 2003, we were asked to defend a startup foundation that had invested its client’s $5 million in a trading venture that failed. Because the investment was lost by our clients, they were found liable for the amount of the investment. Their opponent asked for damages for loss of reputation,

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A Bizarre Legal Malpractice Case

Imagine taking over a business and discovering that your lawyer drafted documents that gave you all of its debts but none of its assets. After years of intense–and sometimes vicious–litigation, the client escaped responsibility for the debts and reached a settlement with the lawyer who failed to properly draft the

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Locking Out the Contractor

In one typical case, a developer hired a small contractor using an informal invoice system rather than a final contract to document their agreement. When the job was almost done, the developer locked the contractor off the job and then redesigned the project and tried to back charge the contractor.

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