William M. McErlean
Bill has tried more than 40 commercial litigation cases, including the first civil RICO action in the Northern District of Illinois. He has 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 has 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 has defended his client’s rights in business torts and construction and real estate disputes.
Bill regularly prosecutes and defends multi-million dollar cases, including bet-the-company cases where the result will determine whether or not his client stays in business.
Notable Cases include:
- Handled the defense and prosecution of many claims of malpractice against accountants and law firm and attorneys.
- Represented as lead counsel Alliance 3PL Corp., a third-party logistics provider in the trucking industry, in its successful breach of contract action against a Missouri trucking company that had solicited business from one of Alliance's largest customers in violation of the contract between the two companies. After a week-long jury trial in federal court, Alliance obtained a $2.1 million jury verdict in its favor with assistance from Barnes & Thornburg.
- Represented TLC Beatrice International Holdings, Inc. and the Estate of Reginald F. Lewis as lead counsel in its successful defense in three related proceedings in which Carlton Investments, a former Drexel Burnham Lambert, Inc. sponsored partnership, sought over $300 million in damages and removal of the Board of Directors in a derivative suit in Delaware Chancery Court and a breach of contract claim in New York Supreme Court. TLC Beatrice's counterclaim in the New York Supreme Court led to a contempt proceeding in federal district court in the Southern District of New York before Judge Milton Pollack, the judge who had approved the settlement of all civil litigation against Drexel and Michael Milken. This, in turn, led to TLC Beatrice's challenge to the constitutionality of that settlement before the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in Presidential Life Insurance Co. v. Milken. All cases resolved one week before oral argument in the Second Circuit by the payment of a nominal sum by the Estate of Reginald F. Lewis to TLC Beatrice of which the Estate owned 60 percent.
Chicago, Illinois 60606-2833
