Super Lawyers: Corporate Counsel Edition Includes L&G Partner Profile

The premier publication of this popular national resource has selected Lowis & Gellen partner Gerald Haberkorn as one of their profiled "go to" lawyers for business litigation. The edition will have broad national distribution to general counsel and chief executive officers of public and private companies and key lawyer profiles will be posted at superlawyers.com.

DISMISSAL OF PHYSICIAN’S EMPLOYER AFFIRMED ON APPEAL

Partner Vito Masciopinto and Deborah O’Brien (Of Counsel) successfully defended the Not Guilty verdict previously garnered by Lowis & Gellen in favor of the firm’s client, an attending physician’s employer, before the First District Appellate Court in Chicago. The plaintiff mother sought reversal of the jury’s verdict that the defendant physician and his employer were not negligent in failing to diagnose the heart condition which led to the death of her son (an admitted cocaine user), while he was under the physician’s care. In affirming the defense verdict, the Appellate Court rejected the plaintiff’s arguments that the trial court committed error when it limited recross-examination of a defense expert, and by refusing to instruct the jury on aggravation of a preexisting condition.

Donating Time to the Community

Lowis & Gellen partner Gerald Haberkorn was unanimously elected to the 2007-2008 LaGrange Little League Board of Directors.

New Associate Attorneys

Linda B. Conroy and Justin C. Doolittle were both law clerks with Lowis & Gellen while attending law school and have each established a considerable body of experience in their selected areas of practice.

Ms. Conroy is a graduate of The John Marshall Law School, where she was on the Dean’s List, and an honors graduate of Loyola University Chicago (BA Political Science and Communications). While at Loyola University Chicago, she was elected to the National Political Science Honor Society, the National Communication Honor Society, and the National Society of Collegiate Scholars. Her experience as a law clerk focused primarily in medical malpractice and personal injury litigation. She will concentrate her practice in civil litigation with an emphasis on medical malpractice defense.

Mr. Doolittle began law school on an academic scholarship at Willamette University College of Law in Salem, Oregon. He completed his legal studies at Loyola University Chicago School of Law. He was named to the Dean’s List and was designated a Mayer Brown Vis Moot Fellow for 2006-2007. Mr. Doolittle also competed in the Willem C. Vis International Commercial Arbitration Moot in Vienna, Austria, in 2007. As an undergraduate, Mr. Doolittle attended The Colorado College (B.A., in Philosophy, with a minor in Physics), where he was the only student appointed to the Intellectual Engagement Committee created by the President of Colorado College to develop a strategic plan for the future development of the College. As a Lowis & Gellen law clerk, he researched and drafted procedural motions for both corporate litigation and medical malpractice issues. He will practice in commercial litigation, shareholder disputes, municipal liability defense and constitutional tort defense.

Trial Victory in Multi-Million Dollar Hospital Case

Lowis & Gellen Attorneys Robert H. Smith, Vito M. Masciopinto, Scott R. Wolfe and Julia Molina obtained a Not Guilty verdict for a Chicago hospital and its emergency department physicians. The Plaintiff’s attorney asked for $15,000,000 from the jury. Plaintiff, a 6-year-old boy, was taken to the hospital’s ER due to back pain where he was examined. The ER felt he was stable and discharged him without doing an MRI. Approximately one week later he lost function in his legs and was taken to another hospital where an MRI diagnosed a spine tumor. Emergent neurosurgery was done but the boy was rendered a paraplegic with no movement or sensation below the umbilicus. The boy, now 18 years old, is confined to a wheelchair, is permanently incontinent of bladder and bowel, is impotent and suffers from skin breakdowns from his wheelchair. Lowis & Gellen argued plaintiff's visit to the hospital was very early in the disease process and the tumor could not be diagnosed at that time. After a three-week trial the Cook County, Illinois jury returned a verdict in favor of Lowis & Gellen’s clients, the hospital and ER physicians.