Jim has extensive experience and an impressive record of success as a business trial lawyer. He has handled high-profile litigation, conducted investigations, and overseen matters related to regulatory, employment, and internal compliance issues. Jim has extensive experience in a wide range of complex multi-party business and commercial litigation disputes, legal counseling, and investigations. He has represented clients in both federal and state courts and at both the trial and appellate court levels and in arbitrations. His business litigation experience includes a broad range of disputes and potential areas of risk including those related to contracts, business torts, shareholder disputes, directors' and officers' liability, employment matters, fraud, defamation, the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA), cybersecurity, intellectual property, partnerships, joint ventures, real estate related disputes, including leases and purchase agreements. Jim also handles corporate investigations and provides his clients with general business counseling on a variety of topics. He has considerable experience prosecuting and defending temporary restraining orders/injunctions.
Jim has experience defending multiple BIPA class action clients in various business segments including the manufacturing, software, health care, temporary staffing, technology, and service industries. He also represents BIPA defendants in “mass arbitration” actions, where he leads complex litigation/arbitration strategies. In addition to BIPA class actions, Jim has handled numerous class actions asserting false claims act and consumer protection claims. He has 28 years of litigation experience including trials and appeals in both state and federal courts.
Jim regularly represents clients ranging from sole proprietors and practitioners to large corporate entities and institutions, both in pursuing claims and in defending and trying lawsuits in various complex commercial litigation matters. He has experience representing technology based companies, hospitals, medical professionals, insurance producers, law and accounting firms and individual lawyers and accountants, against claims and potential claims and with respect to subpoenas for depositions and records, administrative proceedings, criminal matters, and risk management issues. Jim’s successful representations have involved winning cases through dispositive motions and at trial or through arbitration when necessary.
Admitted to practice in the state of Illinois, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, including the Trial Bar, the U.S. District Court for the Central District of Illinois, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, and the U.S. District Court, District of Colorado and has been involved in federal and state court litigation around the country.
Jim’s numerous successful representations have earned him recognition, for three consecutive years (2009, 2010, 2011), as an Illinois Super Lawyers Rising Star, an honor conferred upon less than 2.5 percent of the top up and coming Illinois lawyers who are under 40 years old.
Jim has served, by gubernatorial appointment and Illinois State Senate confirmation, as chairman of the Illinois Department of Employment Security Advisory Board. He has served in that capacity for four different administrations. He also serves at a local high school as an assistant mock trial coach and has served, by mayoral appointment and City Council confirmation, as a commissioner of the city of Park Ridge’s Planning and Zoning Commission and as chairman of its O’Hare Airport Commission. He has been elected to several terms as a Chicago Public School System Local School Council representative, and has volunteered in the Chicago Public School System, District 64 School System, the Chicago Greek Orthodox Archdiocese, the American Hellenic Educational Progressive Association (AHEPA), and the Park Ridge Police Parent Patrol.
Jim received his bachelor's degree, summa cum laude, from the Honors Department, in economics from Loyola University of Chicago in 1992 and served as a student representative on the Loyola University board of trustees. He received his law degree from Loyola University of Chicago Law School in 1995 where he served as law review executive editor and as an assistant Legal Writing/Moot Court instructor. Jim is fluent in Greek.