BUSINESS AND TAX
ZRFM’s Business and Tax Group represents clients in several industries, including financial services, manufacturing, real estate, and construction, and other areas of business and transactional law. Our corporate attorneys draw upon the skills of our colleagues in the labor & employment, estate planning, insurance, tax, and litigation practice areas.

We understand the issues and opportunities facing businesses of all sizes – including concerns related to closely-held business ownership, succession planning, rapid growth, and growth funding. We provide a broad range of legal services to our business clients, including business entity formation (such as the organization of limited liability companies, partnerships, and corporations) and the tax planning associated with these entities. We provide corporate maintenance services, such as filing the annual reports with the Secretary of State and preparing annual corporate meeting minutes and corporate resolutions. We also advise clients on employer/employee matters, buy-sell arrangements, lease negotiations, mergers and acquisitions, reorganizations, divestitures, and other transactional matters.

Our attorneys advise and counsel employers and executives on qualified and non-qualified retirement plans on a wide range of matters. We advise on the tax, legal, and economic issues arising out of establishing and maintaining 401(k) and other employee pension plans. We also work with clients to develop and implement pension and profit-sharing plans, 401(k) plans, cafeteria plans, deferred compensation programs, and other tax-deferred arrangements that address long-term and short-term corporate objectives.

We emphasize a team approach to serving clients. By clearly understanding our client’s business objectives, we are able to provide innovative and practical solutions and advice, using a team approach to effectively address the variety of issues that arise in complex matters. Because providing quality service is our first priority, we provide our clients with the attention and commitment to excellence that they deserve.
 

EMPLOYMENT
Our firm provides labor-related services to private and public entities. We represent our clients before arbitrators, administrative agencies, and the courts on such statutory matters as FLSA, FMLA, Title VII, and ADA and we have significant expertise in defending employers against all kinds of employment discrimination claims. We work with clients to draft pro-active approaches designed to avoid costly litigation, and are frequently called upon to conduct workshops on sexual harassment, employee handbooks, and recordkeeping compliance. Our attorneys have the advantage of expertise on both sides of employment issues, having also appeared as counsel to, and prosecutors for, public agencies. We have negotiated hundreds of employment agreements and separation agreements, addressing issues of confidentiality, trade secrets, and covenants not to compete, as well as collective bargaining agreements.
 

CIVIL LITIGATION
Our firm provides the full spectrum of litigation-related services, and our attorneys are frequently called upon to represent private and public entities before arbitrators, administrative agencies, and the courts. ZRFM represents individuals, private and public entities in a wide array of litigation, including commercial disputes in the context of sales of assets, real estate, goods and services, distributorships, franchises, insurance coverage, construction, as well as claims involving employment, personal injury, civil rights, and property damage. We represent corporate and government clients before administrative agencies, and in litigation in both state and federal trial and appellate courts in Illinois.
 

REAL ESTATE
Our real estate practice includes virtually every type of transaction or legal issue dealing with real estate including acquisition and sale of commercial and residential real estate, acquisition of easements for streets and utilities, drainage and wetland issues, construction contracts, loan documentation and foreclosure, title insurance, eminent domain litigation, and tax objection defense for local governments.
 

CONSTRUCTION
ZRFM regularly represents participants in the construction industry, including private and public owners, general contractors, subcontractors, suppliers, consultants, lenders, managers, sureties, architects, and engineers. We know that risk is a part of every construction project -- beginning with early design work, increasing during construction, and possibly continuing on for years after the completion of a project. We work closely with our clients to manage risks, prevent risk from becoming loss, and deliver practical business solutions aligned to each client’s unique objectives.

Our attorneys have extensive knowledge of the legal issues and potential liability inherent in the relationships between owners, general contractors, and sub-contractors in general, and specifically in the context of the many project delivery systems used today in the construction industry. ZRFM can assist in managing the risk inherent in the construction process through careful drafting of construction contracts and counseling clients regarding key contract administration and performance issues that often help the client avoid costly and time-consuming litigation once construction has commenced.

Under our approach, dispute resolution does not begin with a claim; it begins with the parties’ initial agreement before a project begins. We help manage risk by drafting and negotiating contracts and conditions, placing specific emphasis on insurance requirements and risk-shifting provisions. Custom agreements with insurance requirements, indemnification provisions and damage-limitation clauses are prepared to protect clients from the risks unique to each project. We help clients “resolve” disputes and potential setbacks to the project completion before they occur through carefully drafted contract language regarding, for example, construction delays, cost overruns, and design changes. We utilize a combination of contractual and statutory rights and remedies, such as mechanics liens acts to assist clients in minimizing or avoiding economic losses due to construction setbacks.
 

INSURANCE
ZRFM provides its clients with coverage advice and litigation services, representing policyholders in all phases of the insurance process. We provide expertise on complex issues, including notice issues and tender of defense, duty to defend and right to control defense, self-insured retentions, gaps in coverage and overlapping coverages, bad faith claims and claims for extra-contractual damages, insurability of punitive and statutory damages, coverage trigger and allocation of damages issues, wrongful acts coverage, "property damage" claims, and coverage for construction defects and subcontractor work. We are knowledgeable regarding an array of liability insurance policies, including commercial general liability, errors and omissions, directors’ and officers’ liability policies, employment practice liability policies, and both excess and umbrella policies. We draft insurance specifications and analyze coverage programs for compliance with imposed specifications and our client’s contract specific risk management goals.

We advise and assist clients at every stage of insurance-related transactions and litigation, including negotiation and drafting of policy endorsements, evaluation and drafting of insurance and indemnity provisions in corporate transactional documents, drafting coverage opinions, presentation of claims and drafting of tender and bad faith letters and representation in arbitrations, appraisals, coverage suits, and appeals.
 

PERSONAL INJURY
Our firm represents clients in all areas of personal injury litigation, including vehicle collisions, premises liability (i.e. slip and fall), dog bites, nursing home malpractice, and medical malpractice.  Our attorneys have unmatched personal injury trial experience.  Our vast experience provides us with the knowledge to properly evaluate and develop personal injury claims to ensure that our clients have the opportunity to receive full and complete compensation for their injuries.  We place the interests of our clients first and therefore when the at-fault party or its insurance company refuses to make a fair settlement offer, we insist upon proceeding to trial.

All of our personal injury cases are handled on a contingency fee basis, which means that our fee is based on a percentage of the recovery obtained, not an hourly rate.  If ZRFM fails to make a recovery for the client, the client does not owe ZRFM attorneys' fees.

FAMILY LAW
ZRFM’s family law attorneys are problem-solvers, not just advocates. We understand the emotional and financial impacts that a divorce or contested child custody battle can have on families. We represent the best interests of children, mothers, fathers, and grandparents in a myriad of issues, including adoptions, divorce, alimony and spousal maintenance, spousal support, child custody, and visitation. We also have considerable expertise in preparing marital settlement agreements, marital separation agreements, marital property agreements, premarital, and prenuptial agreements. Our tax attorney can assist in assessing the tax implications of a divorce on the client, and in assessing the value of businesses owned by parties to the divorce.
 

ESTATE PLANNING
ZRFM’s estate planning practice includes preparation of wills and trusts, estate tax planning, charitable gift planning, revocable trusts and irrevocable trusts. Our lawyers can assist with probate, estate and trust administration. Our objective is to assist families by assuring that the deceased's assets are distributed correctly. Our tax attorneys assist our individual and commercial clients in matters with tax implications, identifying and addressing state and federal tax issues and structuring transactions to minimize taxes and avoid inheritance tax problems.
 

GOVERNMENT AND PUBLIC ENTITIES
ZRFM represents public entities (counties, municipalities and special districts) in a variety of capacities, from general counsel to special counsel. In important ways, local governments are like other businesses, facing increasingly frequent employment disputes, construction headaches, vendor contracts, labor negotiations, land use matters, and health care and other insurance issues. Unlike most other businesses, however, local governments are governed by a myriad of seemingly overlapping statutes and regulations. ZRFM’s attorneys know the “business” of local government from top to bottom. We have experience in every facet of local governmental operations, from ordinance preparation, finance, construction, impact fees and special assessments, TIFs, zoning and development, police and fire commissions, litigation, employment matters including personnel policies, workers' compensation, civil rights, employment discrimination, ADA compliance and labor contracts, FMLA and FLSA compliance, real estate acquisition and eminent domain proceedings.

ZRFM represents governmental entities, as well as individuals, developers and other private entities in a multitude of land use matters. Our experience representing parties to an annexation, rezoning, conditional use, variation, and subdivision matters allows us to bring a unique understanding and comprehensive perspective to our representation in land use matters.