Law Firm Overview

The Chicago office of Foley is the centerpiece of the firm's national practice strategy and industry team approach to delivering superior client service and innovative legal solutions. One of our largest and fastest growing offices, the Chicago office has expanded to more than 160 attorneys who serve a broad range of clients based in Chicago and beyond, including prominent Chicago corporations and institutions, multinational companies, local entrepreneurs, and the city of Chicago itself. Our attorneys are deeply involved in the city's public and civic affairs and maintain a longstanding commitment to pro bono and charitable efforts that enhance Chicago's vibrant community.

Foley's Chicago lawyers provide clients with strategic legal insight and business counsel in essential practice areas, including business law, health law, intellectual property, litigation, real estate, and regulatory and tax and individual planning as well as new and dynamic areas of the law such as telecommunications, information technology and outsourcing, product distribution, project finance, airport services, and corporate compliance. We have particular skill and experience in the following areas:

Broker/Dealer
Our Chicago office houses one of the largest broker/dealer and commodities futures practices in the United States. With a practice that covers the interrelated areas of broker-dealer regulation, stock markets, and derivatives, we routinely address a broad spectrum of issues in counseling and representing brokers, dealers, derivatives dealers, exchanges, clearing agencies, and their customers. Among the issues we address are securities regulation and compliance issues, transactions, new product development, regulatory inspections, investigations, and litigation.

Bankruptcy & Business Reorganizations
Unprecedented economic change throughout the world has created an enormous need for qualified legal and business guidance. Our attorneys have the skills, experience, and proven proficiency to find and implement solutions in reorganizations, bankruptcies, and workouts. We are able to meld corporate trust, bond default, and bankruptcy experience with finance, litigation, tax, labor and employment, environmental, regulatory, and other practice concentrations. We regularly represent receivers for troubled real estate projects, creditors' committees, secured creditors, debtors, cross-border and domestic creditors, funds, and indenture trustees.

Transactional & Securities
A particular strength of Foley's Chicago office is our Transactional & Securities Practice. We represent both issuers and underwriters in publicly offered equity and debt securities that require registration with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and issuers of privately placed securities. Our attorneys have represented clients in industries such as manufacturing, retailing, mining, health services, environmental services, real estate, energy, and financial services.

Clients look to the Transactional & Securities Practice attorneys for assistance through all stages of the business life cycle from start-up through rounds of venture capital financing to an initial public offering or sale of the business. With wide-ranging knowledge in all aspects of advising businesses and raising capital, our attorneys offer sophisticated legal advice on creating, structuring, financing and growing businesses. In addition, the group includes attorneys who advise clients on mutual funds, investments, and hedge funds as well as broker/dealers.

Energy
Our Chicago office has counseled energy and utility clients on a full range of matters from infrastructure finance and environmental compliance to regulatory matters involving the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and other agencies. We have substantial experience in energy and utility operations, including significant skills in electric energy restructuring; nuclear energy facilities siting and certification; reliability and outage investigations; issues involving alternative and renewable energy sources; and controversies involving electric and magnetic fields.

With long-standing industry experience and extensive representation of hundreds of companies involved in energy production and distribution, Foley has one of the leading energy practices in the country.

Intellectual Property
With the explosion of new products and industries over the last decade, businesses have placed a high priority on protecting ideas and competitive advantages. Our Chicago office provides counsel with respect to intellectual property matters, including the acquisition, licensing, transfer, protection and enforcement of rights in patents, trademarks, copyright, mask work registrations, and trade secrets. Furthermore, we represent clients in the negotiation of know-how, confidential disclosure, consulting, development, assignment, and licensing agreements as well as in litigation.

Real Estate
The real estate attorneys of Foley's Chicago office assist clients in every aspect of real estate law from the structuring and implementation of complex acquisitions, developments, and financings to advice on individual and commercial land use and zoning issues. Chicago also serves as the resident office of the chair of Foley's national Real Estate Practice Group. Additionally, the Real Estate Practice in Chicago includes two full-time land use planners who provide specific, cost-effective insight into a variety of zoning and land use issues.

Our Chicago attorneys draw on their extensive understanding of the nuances of local, state, and national law that affect our clients' initiatives in Chicago and beyond.

Committed to Client Service
Creative legal thinking and practical business solutions are only one aspect of Foley's offerings. All of our efforts are focused on delivering the highest levels of client service. From pioneering the use of extranets to offer our clients secure, instant access to real-time case information on our flagship FOLEY ClientSuite Web portal, to leveraging sophisticated applications throughout the firm that increase productivity, Foley has embraced technology to improve collaboration with our clients and their satisfaction with our services.

In six of the past seven years, CIO magazine named Foley to its CIO-100, a list of high-profile organizations around the world that excel in positive business performance through innovative technology practices and products. Foley is one of only five law firms selected to receive the honor, and one of only two law firms to be recognized more than twice (2001, 2002, 20042007).

At Foley, technology is combined with a longstanding tradition of relationship building, close communication, and a commitment to client service excellence. In Chicago and throughout our international network of locations, Foley has been recognized time and again for our outstanding client service Foley was named to the BTI Client Service A-Team in 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, and 2007, and was recently ranked among the BTI Power Elite for our exceptional client relationships (2005, 2006, 2007). BTI Consulting Group, a management consulting and market research firm, surveyed 185 general counsel at Fortune 1000 corporations, asking them to judge outside counsel based on their service as an extension of the client's team, their understanding of client needs and their efforts to meet those needs, and their coordination of firm resources to build strong client relationships.

The growing list of accolades for our legal thinking, technology, and client service reflects Foley's simple approach to draw on integrity, insight, and innovation to help our clients achieve their business goals. We welcome the opportunity to put our philosophy to work for you.

Areas of Practice

• Broker/Dealer
• Bankruptcy & Business Reorganizations
• Transactional & Securities
• Energy
• Intellectual Property
• Real Estate