Getting the right result is as important to Bill McErlean as it is to the clients he represented, and he consistently obtained such results in his nearly four decades of litigation and trial practice. Bill was the Litigation Department Chair Emeritus and served for many years as Litigation Chair and on the firm’s Management Committee.
A proven and consistently effective advocate, Bill tried more than 40 commercial litigation cases, including the first civil RICO action in the Northern District of Illinois. In his former practice, he handled a variety of complex, high-stakes commercial cases in courts and before arbitrators throughout the country, defending and prosecuting RICO, securities fraud and common law fraud claims at trial and on appeal.
Bill also tried franchise, contract, professional malpractice, UCC, ERISA, lender liability, partnership and corporate dissolution and freeze-outs, trade regulation, trade secret, and real estate broker disputes. In addition, he defended his client’s rights in business torts and construction and real estate disputes.
Bill regularly prosecuted and defended multimillion dollar cases, including bet-the-company cases where the result determined whether or not his client stayed in business.
Credentials
Education
- Georgetown University Law Center, J.D., 1978, with honors
- University of Notre Dame, B.A., 1975, magna cum laude
Bar Admissions
- California
- Illinois (Retired)
Court Admissions
- U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit
- U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
- U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
- U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit
- U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
- U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit
- U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin
- U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois