The firm succeeded before the United States District Court in Chicago, as well as the Department of Labor, in arguing that an over-funded pension plan belonged to the employees of a corporation and not to the corporation itself. This victory was contrary to several then-published decisions in other courts. The firm then helped arrange for financing and structured the first contested takeover of a company by an ESOP so that the employees, and not the potential raiders, would own the corporation.
Our firm successfully argued the landmark case before the United States Supreme Court, Cheek v. United States, 498 U.S. 192, 111 S. Ct. 604 (1991). That case involved the question of willfulness under the criminal provisions of the Internal Revenue Code and, more generally, the meaning of criminal intent. In a six-to-two majority opinion, we were successful in establishing a rule of law which reversed a long series of decisions in the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Before we took the case, both we and the client were advised by other lawyers, including tax lawyers, that we would not be successful.
After having been appointed as counsel by the Bankruptcy Court in the Central District of Los Angeles, the firm recovered more than $7 Million in a lawsuit which everyone else thought worthless. We prevailed in both the District Court and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
The firm represented a wealthy individual who was under investigation for tax evasion. Through a series of creative lawsuits and painstaking factual investigation, we established that the government had employed an illegal informer who had a penchant for misinformation. As a result, the government dropped its case.