Morgan Lewis's Chicago office offers a broad range of services related to corporate and securities matters; complex international and domestic tax and business planning, litigation, and employment issues; regulatory matters; and employee benefit transactions. Our team in this important hub of innovation and commerce also includes a number of attorneys with high-level scientific backgrounds who are especially suited to assist life sciences clients with their intellectual property needs.
Attorneys in Chicago also defend banks, consumer service providers, consumer product companies, and others in class actions in federal and state lawsuits throughout the United States. We assist clients with a variety of complex legal issues such as mergers and acquisitions, public and private financings, restructurings, joint ventures, and private equity and venture capital transactions. Our lawyers also serve as outside general and special counsel to corporations.
Corporate Matters
Our corporate team, part of our Business and Finance Practice, represents major corporations, including Fortune 500 companies, both domestically and overseas. We assist our clients in mergers and acquisitions, public and private financings, restructurings, spin-offs, joint ventures and partnerships, securities regulations, private equity and venture capital transactions, and general corporate and securities counseling.
Tax
Morgan Lewis's Tax Practice focuses on helping our clients minimize the federal, state, and foreign taxes associated with their transactions and ongoing business operations, and on resolving disputes with taxing authorities. We integrate controversy, consulting, and transactional advice to produce practical and efficient solutions to often highly complex tax challenges.
The Tax Practice advises in the areas of: controversy and litigation, transactions, international tax issues for multinationals, tax-exempt organizations, and state and local taxes.
Intellectual Property
Clients, particularly those in the life sciences, turn to our firm's Chicago office for assistance in Intellectual Property matters. Our team features attorneys with advanced academic degrees in such disciplines as microbiology, molecular biology and biochemistry, and cell biology. We focus on such matters as the acquisition and enforcement of intellectual property rights, the design and implementation of global intellectual property matters, and the valuation of patent portfolios. We also advise clients regarding freedom-to-operate opinions, patent prosecution, and patent counseling. The leader of our Chicago IP team has represented clients before various courts and administrative agencies and in private mediation and arbitration.
Litigation
Our Chicago litigators work in concert with hundreds of Morgan Lewis attorneys in our worldwide Litigation Practice to offer clients advice in and out of the courtroom on a wide range of litigation matters. For decades we have defended the nation's leading companies in high-stakes product liability and toxic and mass tort litigation. We were among the original participants in asbestos property damage litigation, which was critical in developing current class-action case law.
We represent clients in insurance recovery, environmental, product liability, property damage, and business interruption litigation. We also represent clients in cases involving allegations of financial fraud, as well as in securities regulatory and commercial litigation matters. We defend clients in serial litigation, in multiplaintiff claims, and other cases that may involve a relatively small number of plaintiffs but pose significant risks for the client.
Workforce Issues
Our Employee Benefits Practice provides risk transfer, Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP), and consulting services to many financial institutions and privately held companies. Our ESOP Practice is among the nation's largest dedicated to this area. Our Labor and Employment Practice represents national and regional clients in discrimination, employee benefits, trade secret, Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), wage and hour, and union/company litigation and counseling matters.
Our team is particularly active in assisting companies with matters related to workforce change, such as reductions in force, as well as with high-stakes ERISA litigation, including cases involving retiree health benefits and victories in post-Enron stock-drop cases. Our team defends employers around the country in other complex litigation, including significant wage and hour collective actions and employment discrimination class actions brought by private counsel, as well as pattern and practice claims brought by the government.