Peer Recognition

Jennifer Lowis, Pam Gellen, Robert Smith and Gerald Haberkorn were recommended by their peers to be among the Top Civil Defense Lawyers in Illinois, according to a Leading Lawyers Network listing in the October 2007 issue of Chicago Lawyer. Haberkorn was honored in the area of Professional Malpractice Defense. Lowis, Gellen and Smith were each recognized for their expertise in Medical Malpractice Defense representations.

Directorships

L&G partner Gerald Haberkorn has been appointed to serve on the Boards of Directors of four U.S. subsidiaries of Ontario-based Energy Savings Income Fund, an open-ended, limited-purpose trust to hold securities and to distribute the income of its wholly owned subsidiaries and affiliates. Through its subsidiaries and affiliates, Energy Savings markets natural gas to residential customers and small to mid-sized commercial businesses in Ontario, Manitoba, Alberta, Illinois and New York, as well as solely to commercial customers in Quebec and British Columbia. Energy Savings also markets electricity to residential and small to mid-sized commercial customers in Ontario, Alberta, New York and Texas.

Successful Defense of Hospital and Emergency Physicians

Lowis & Gellen partner Brian Levin successfully defended Sherman Hospital and its emergency department physicians in a recent trial. The case was brought on behalf of a 58-year old woman with multiple co-morbid conditions. Plaintiff’s counsel claimed the emergency room physicians, on two separate visits, failed to diagnose Coumadin toxicity (a condition that hampers the blood's ability to clot when a bleed occurs) and failed to reverse the potentially fatal condition in a timely manner. When an acute, but not active, brain hemorrhage was detected, Vitamin K (which reverses Coumadin toxicity) was given and the patient was transferred to the care of a neurosurgeon at another hospital. The bleed healed without surgery, and the patient was placed back on Coumadin. She experienced a series of subsequent bleeds, and died more than five months later, due to an infection contracted from a central IV line. Plaintiff’s counsel asked the jury for $4.9 million in closing arguments. The jury returned a defense verdict for the hospital in under three hours.