Andrea M. Despotes

Timothy J. Ritchey is a partner at Peck Ritchey, LLC who concentrates his practice in estate and trust litigation , elder law , and guardianship . Tim has been appointed Special Assistant Attorney General in numerous matters to represent the State’s interests in actions relating to Illinois healthcare and disability law. In 2014, Tim wrote legislation and testified as an expert before the Illinois Senate on an amendment to the Illinois Probate Act regarding elder abuse and financial exp...

Carmen D. Caruso is a trial lawyer first, and a franchise lawyer second. Carmen has tried more than 40 cases to decision in state and federal courts in Illinois and across the country. In addition, as an Arbitrator, he has presided over nearly 20 hearings in the last five years. The Carmen D. Caruso Law Firm is quite proud of the fact that it receives most of its business by referrals from other attorneys from all over the country, from former clients and from other professionals that are fam...

James H. Whalen is the co-managing partner of Lipe Lyons Murphy Nahrstadt & Pontikis LTD, a Chicago, Illinois law firm. He practices in the areas of Litigation – Insurance, tort defense, commercial litigation, and product liability. Mr. Whalen represents clients in state and federal courts, as well as before state administrative bodies. His practice includes construction, business, commercial, product liability, employment discrimination, and premises liability litigation. Mr. Whale...

Susan M. Franzetti has extensive experience in compliance counseling, regulatory and litigation matters. Ms. Franzetti has extensive experience in water pollution matters under both federal and state programs, including issues relating to NPDES and industrial pretreatment discharge permits, effluent toxicity, TMDLs, use attainability analyses, wetlands, CSO’s/SSO’s, rule-making proceedings, variances/site-specific relief, mixing zone demonstrations, antidegradation, antibackslidin...

Tom Donovan advises on patent and trademark litigation and prosecution, unfair competition and trade secret litigation, as well as a variety of licensing-related matters. Regardless of the client or the complexity of the matter at hand, Tom provides his clients with the guidance they need, in a way they can understand and apply to their daily business operations. Tom also has significant negotiation and drafting experience with software licensing, as well as patent, trademark and copyright li...

L. Timothy Halleron focuses his practice on high-net-worth tax and estate planning matters. Tim advises individuals and family offices in planning for the preservation and transfer of wealth within families without the imposition of gift, estate or generation-skipping transfer tax. Read full biography: https://www.mwe.com/people/halleron-l-timothy/

For over 50 years, Bruce Sperling has been winning record-breaking and game-changing jury verdicts, court judgments, and arbitration awards for plaintiffs and defendants in high-stakes litigation. Experienced in virtually every area of the law, Mr. Sperling has favorably resolved wide-ranging commercial disputes for Fortune 500 companies, privately held enterprises, and individuals. His cases have included securities, antitrust, patents, trade secrets, corporate governance, real estate develo...

Dennis Myers was a partner in the Capital Markets Practice Group for nearly 25 years before becoming Of Counsel in February 2021 and retiring in February 2022. Dennis focused his practice on representing both public and private companies, including portfolio companies of private equity funds, in a wide variety of capital markets transactions involving the sale of securities. Dennis has significant experience in the following types of transactions: (i) public equity offerings, including initia...

Bill Welke focuses his practice on the tax aspects of complex business transactions and entities, including: mergers, acquisitions, and leveraged buyouts; venture capital and other private equity investments; formation of private equity funds; joint ventures and partnerships; workouts and restructurings; tax contests and controversies. Described as having “encyclopedic knowledge of tax structuring strategies” and “adept at cross-border international tax planning in the conte...

Bradley V. Ritter is a top attorney recognized by Best Lawyers in the practice area(s) of Real Estate Law. Bradley V., who practices law in Chicago, Illinois, has been recognized since 2025. This recognition is based on an exhaustive peer-review survey, reflecting the high esteem in which Bradley V. is held by other top lawyers in the same geographic and legal practice area.