Vance Liebman
Vance is a true general counsel for our clients. Vance works on the full range of problems faced by owner managed businesses. His broad experience includes everything from multi-national transactions to a probate case in which he proved a husband had murdered the deceased wife. In addition to probate litigation, Vance has represented holders of patent portfolios in enforcing their patents, defended patent cases, and litigated complex securities, tax, and shareholder cases. Vance has extensive experience with commercial, industrial, and rental real estate, both on the ownership and lending side of the deals.
Many lawyers can claim a broad based practice, but Vance’s experience spans virtually to every legal situation, from managing an international merger in Paris to proving a murder in the Chicago suburbs. Vance was an early advocate of increasing efficiencies through a multi-disciplinary approach, in which his legal team can handle all of the aspects of a transaction, including securities, tax, real estate, environmental, labor, corporate, antitrust and employee benefits.
- Representation of buyers and sellers of mid-size businesses in North America, including distressed businesses and companies with complex ownership arrangements.
- Real estate development, leasing, financing, purchases and sales of industrial, office and commercial properties throughout North America including major Chicago office buildings.
- Work with large and small companies on shareholder and partner disputes with success in resolution without litigation in almost every situation.
- Complex estate plans dealing with family wealth, including tax strategies and solutions for sensitive intergenerational issues such as substance abuse, sibling rivalry, and children with special needs.
- Work with inventors in commercializing inventions, enforcing patents and trademarks, raising money and dealing with investors.
- Defense of clients from patent trolls with a business oriented viewpoint.
- Defending and prosecuting commercial lawsuits with a view toward business oriented solutions and the knowledge that winning can be worse than losing if it takes too long or costs too much.
- Obtaining insurance proceeds for a murdered woman’s children by proving (after police failed) that a man murdered his wife for her insurance proceeds, including a landmark appeal that set the rules for establishing a murderer’s inability to inherit from a murder victim.
Education:
- Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law, J.D., cum laude
- Grinnell College, B.A. Economics, with honors
Admissions:
- Supreme Court of the United States
- United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
- United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit
- United States Tax Court
- United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois (Trial Bar)
- United States District Court for the Northern District of Indiana
- United States District Court for the Northern District of Ohio
- United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas
- Admitted to Practice in Illinois
- Peer Review Rating of “AV” (highest certification) by Martindale Hubbell
- Ranked as a “Leading Lawyer” in Closely & Privately Held Business Law, Commercial Litigation, and Mergers & Acquisitions Law by Leading Lawyers Network
- One of only 9 Chicago lawyers rated as a top lawyer in Merger’s and Acquisitions by Super Lawyers in 2021.
- Board of American Friends of the National Institute for Psychobiology in Israel
- Midwest advisory board for the American Associates of Ben Gurian University of the Negev 2003-2017
- Speaking to numerous business groups on the sale of businesses, creation of employee equity incentive plans and taxation
