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Caffarelli & Siegel
Ltd.
Two Prudential Plaza
180 North Stetson, Suite 3150
Chicago, Illinois 60601
Telephone:(312) 540-1230
Facsimile:(312) 540-1231
CLICK HERE to contact us |
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Alejandro Caffarelli is one of the founding shareholders of
Caffarelli & Siegel Ltd., a boutique employment law firm located in
downtown Chicago and the current President of
NELA-Illinois, the
largest plaintiff employment lawyers' group in Illinois. With over ten years of experience, he has
achieved success on behalf of his clients for a range of claims,
including discrimination, retaliation, wages, medical leave,
employment contracts, and class actions. A native of Argentina, he
is fluent in Spanish and has earned a strong reputation for
vigorously defending the rights of Hispanic employees. His firm has
negotiated numerous six-figure settlements, including a $920,000.00
settlement in the case of Sanchez et al. v. Stampede Meat, Inc. (N.D.Ill. No. 02C5452)
and a $2.6 million settlement in the case of Cardenas
et al. v. John B. Sanfilippo & Sons, Inc. (N.D.Ill.
No. 10C1354).
What
distinguishes Mr. Caffarelli from many of his peers in the
plaintiffs’ bar is that he has also handled high level management-side
work. He is a lawyer’s lawyer who, along with the co-founder Marc
Siegel, takes pride in representing a number of law firms in their
own employment disputes. Prior to founding Caffarelli & Siegel Ltd.
in 2001, he worked at a mid-size management-side only firm, where,
among other things, he helped draft the successful appellate brief
in support of enforcing a confidentiality agreement on behalf of
Oprah Winfrey’s production company, Harpo, Inc. The appellate
court’s decision is now viewed as one of the seminal resources for
defining the proper parameters of employee confidentiality
agreements. Coady v. Harpo, Inc., 719 N.E.2d. 244 (Ill. Ct.
App. 1999). In 2008, the
City of Chicago awarded Mr. Caffarelli the
position of Special Assistants Corporation Counsel and appointed him
to defend the City in two class action cases
brought against the City with combined total potential
damages in the millions of dollars.
Although he has successfully served as lead counsel in both
jury and bench trials, Mr. Caffarelli takes particular pride
in the writing and analytical abilities of his firm's
litigation practice. He has successfully defeated the
vast majority of his opponents' motions for summary judgment
– most of them brought
by large national firms. He has prevailed on many issues of
first impression in federal court, such as establishing that a
police chief is subject to individual liability under the Family and
Medical Leave Act, and that an employees’ sleeping on the job does
not alone constitute a breach of fiduciary duty in Illinois. See Rasic v. City of Northlake (N.D.Ill. No. 08C0104) and Beltran v. Brentwood North Healthcare Center, LLC, (N.D.Ill. No.
05C2558) respectively. In the Rasic case, Mr.
Caffarelli subsequently obtained a jury verdict at trial
against both the police chief and the municipality.
In
addition to his trial work, Mr. Caffarelli also has argued
before the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, as well as
handling cases before the Illinois Court of Appeals. For
example, in Loudermilk v. Best Pallet (7th
Cir. 10-1846) Mr. Caffarelli obtained the reversal of a
Summary Judgment against his client. Authored by Chief
Judge Easterbrook, this seminal decision reaffirms an
employee's right to gather information to support a
discrimination claim, and establishes that temporal proximity
alone may be enough to support a retaliation claim.
In
recognition of his achievements, Mr. Caffarelli has been awarded an
“AV” rating by LexisNexis’ Martindale-Hubbell, one of the oldest and
most respected peer-review based rating services for attorneys.
According to Martindale-Hubbell, the attainment of an “AV” rating is
“a testament to the fact that a lawyer's peers rank him or her at
the highest level of professional excellence.” As of 2008, Mr.
Caffarelli was rated “superb,” a perfect 10 out of 10 on a numerical
scale, by Avvo.
Avvo is an online attorney rating service with an
algorithm based upon an objective mathematical model. In 2010,
Mr. Caffarelli was one of the very few plaintiffs' employment
lawyers to be named a
"Rising Star" by
Super Lawyers Magazine.
The following year, in 2011, he was named an
"Illinois
Super Lawyer". Each year, only a very small percentage of Illinois
attorneys receive the honor of being named a Super Lawyer. Caffarelli & Siegel Ltd. has also
earned an A+ rating from the
Better Business Bureau ("BBB").
Mr.
Caffarelli is frequently invited to speak before lawyers’ groups.
Recent engagements include: |
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American Bar Association,
Panel Moderator: Hot Topics in the
Supreme Court, 2010. |
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Chicago Bar Association,
Panel: The Intersection between the
FMLA, the ADA, and Retaliatory Discharge, 2010. |
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Chicago Bar Association,
Panel: Intersection
of Employment/Immigration Law Issues, 2010. |
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ABA Journal Podcast, Management Panel on Social
Media: Good Employee Communication Tool or
Liability, 2010. |
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DePaul University College of Law, ICE
Enforcement Conference: Employment Panel, 2009. |
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American Immigration Lawyers' Association, Regional Conference: Employment
Enforcement Alert, 2009. |
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Chicago Volunteer Legal Services Foundation, YLS Seminar: The Interplay Between Employment Law and Immigration Law, 2008. |
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The Labor Employment Relations Association, Seminar: The
American with Disabilities Act Amendments, 2008. |
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American Immigration Lawyers’ Association, Regional
Conference: Employment Enforcement Alert, 2007. |
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Chicago Bar Association, Panel: Common Immigration Issues in
Employment Law, 2006. |
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Chicago Bar Association, Panel: The Undocumented in America,
2006. |
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In addition to his current position as President, Mr.
Caffarelli has for many years served on the Board of Directors for the
Illinois chapter of the
National Employment Lawyers’ Association and
previously served on the Board of Directors for the
Hispanic
Lawyers' Association of Illinois. For the past several years, Mr.
Caffarelli has provided pro bono services on behalf of indigent
workers through the Workers’ Center at the
Chicago Interfaith
Committee on Worker Issues. In 2001, he
volunteered to provide legal assistance for the City of
Chicago’s immigration workshops, sponsored by Mayor Richard M.
Daley.
Mr.
Caffarelli received a B.A. from the
University of Michigan in Ann
Arbor, with a double major of History and Spanish Literature, and
was awarded a Juris Doctor from the
University of Minnesota Law
School, where he served as Note & Comment Editor of the Minnesota
Law Review. During that time, he authored an article on criminal
asset forfeitures, which subsequently was accepted for publication.
In 1995, he served as an intern for the Honorable Judge Michael
Davis of the
United States District Court for the District of
Minnesota.
Since
graduation, Mr. Caffarelli has been admitted to practice law before
the
Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, the
United States District
Court for the Northern District of Illinois, the
Illinois Supreme
Court, and the trial bar of the Northern District of Illinois. In
2005, Mr. Caffarelli honed his trial skills by participating in the
National Institute for Trial Advocacy's Midwest Regional Workshop in
St. Paul, Minnesota.
Mr.
Caffarelli currently lives in the City of Chicago with his wife
Elise and children Isabella and Luca. When not at work, he enjoys playing
squash, cycling, gardening, traveling, and spending time with his
family. |
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