The Firm
and Its Attorneys
Ancel, Glink, Diamond, Bush, DiCianni &
Krafthefer, P.C. was founded nearly 70 years ago. As one of the preeminent local
government law firms in Illinois, our firm has a tradition of excellence
and innovation. Ancel, Glink has adhered to the principle of providing the
quality of work normally associated with the largest firms within a small
firm environment. Our goal is to offer our clients effective and comprehensive
representation at a reasonable cost. Our legal services and strategies match
our clients' needs and resources. Although a substantial portion of our
practice is in the Chicago Metropolitan Area (Cook County and the "collar"
Counties), we provide services statewide, often serving as special counsel
in assisting local attorneys with complex matters.
The attorneys at Ancel, Glink, Diamond, Bush,
DiCianni & Krafthefer, P.C. bring to our clients diverse educational and
occupational backgrounds. Attorneys have joined Ancel, Glink from the fields
of government, education, business, insurance and engineering. Several of
our lawyers previously worked for State's Attorneys or the Attorney General
of the State of Illinois. Others have served as members of governmental
boards, governmental administrators, hearing officers, court arbitrators,
and law clerks for both trial and appellate courts. Several of our attorneys
have taught at the major universities and law schools in the Chicago area.
All of our attorneys have participated as lecturers in continuing legal
education programs on a variety of subjects and in programs designed to
educate local government officials. Our attorneys are recognized experts
who regularly lecture on the following areas of law: Municipal Law; Personnel
and Employment; Tort/Civil Rights Liability; Collective Bargaining; Park
District and Recreational Law; School Law; Land Use, Zoning, and Annexation;
Risk Management; Workers' Compensation; Environmental Law; Cable Television
and Telecommunications; Business Law; Trial, Appellate, and Administrative
Practice.
Our lawyers have chaired the local government
committees of both the Chicago and Illinois State Bar Associations. We have
served in many capacities for the Illinois Municipal League, the Illinois
Association of School Boards, and the Illinois Association of Park Districts.
One of our lawyers served as the President of the National Institute of
Municipal Law Officers. Ancel, Glink, Diamond, Bush, DiCianni & Krafthefer,
P.C. enjoys the highest rating, "AV," given by Martindale Hubbell
and is listed by the A.M. Best Company in its Directory of Recommended Insurance
Attorneys.
We believe that attorneys for governmental
entities must demystify legal language and concepts so that local officials
understand the reasoning and consequences behind the options presented to
them and can intelligently evaluate the advice received. We advise elected
and appointed officials in a nonpartisan manner and are successful in creating
practical and lawful ways to accomplish the objectives of our clients. We
are not hesitant to suggest new and innovative ideas and approaches while,
at the same time, we are conscious of the need to help assess potential
costs and chances for success.
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Our Clients
The essence of our practice remains, as it
has for more than sixty years, the representation of local governmental
entities: municipalities, park districts, school districts, special districts,
and self insurance pools for these entities. The firm also represents a
number of businesses and real estate developers, principally in their relationships
with governments.
Municipalities
Our clients include cities, villages, and towns
throughout the State of Illinois. We serve as the corporate attorney for
many municipalities. We also serve as special counsel to communities which
seek our assistance either through their own attorneys or directly when
they have special problems. We represent newly incorporated municipalities
as well as those that have been in existence for more than 150 years. We
have represented communities with less than 5,000 residents and those with
over 100,000 residents. Because of our experience representing municipalities,
we are often asked to write or edit books, pamphlets, and articles which
are widely used by both municipal officials and attorneys. We have originated,
written, updated or edited many publications including: Illinois Municipal
Handbook, published by the Illinois Municipal League; Municipal Law and
Practice in Illinois, published by the Illinois Institute for Continuing
Legal Education; Zoning Handbook for Municipal Officials With Suggested
Forms, published by the Illinois Municipal League.
Park Districts
Illinois park districts recognize our firm's
expertise in this field. Our attorneys author the handbook Illinois Park
District Law published by the Illinois Association of Park Districts. One
attorney in our office served as the Executive Director for an Illinois
Park District for 15 years. We serve as the corporate attorney for many
park districts, and we represent other park districts in unusual or complex
litigation or special problems. Through self-insurance pools which we helped
to create and for which we serve as corporate attorney, we have been the
primary defense counsel for more than 100 Illinois park districts.
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School Districts
We have represented school districts through
the unprecedented growth of the 1940s and the 1950s, the social turmoil
of the 1960s, the increase of government regulation and employee awareness
of the 1970s and 1980s and the financial difficulties of the 1990s. Creative
and innovative approaches to problem solving are what these difficult and
constantly changing circumstances demand and what the firm's long and varied
experience makes possible. We represent school districts as their general
attorney and as counsel on special matters.
In addition, our firms currently serves as
chief defense attorney for several educational self- insurance pools which
keeps the firm in constant contact with the problems faced by more than
100 Illinois school districts. One of our partners is the founding General
Editor and current Co- Editor of the treatise published by the Illinois
Institute for Continuing Legal Education entitled Illinois School Law.
Special Districts
and Other Units of Local Government
We are also experienced in the representation
of townships, community colleges and fire protection, library, sanitary
and water districts. Generally, only sketchy statutory language and sparse
case law govern the operations of these important governmental bodies. Our
experience is extremely important in guiding these special districts through
uncharted areas. As one example, we recently represented a joint water agency
which finances and constructed, under budget and on time, a system serving
more than one hundred thousand users.
Self-Insurance
Pools
Ancel, Glink, Diamond, Bush, DiCianni &
Krafthefer, P.C. has helped organize and represent more governmental self-insurance
pools than any other law firm in the United States. In 1978, the firm wrote
the contract and by-laws for the first comprehensive governmental self-insurance
pool in the country. In addition to developing general liability defense
pools, the firm has developed specialized pools to provide high-level excess
coverage as well as pools for workers' compensation and the group health
and accident claims of employees.
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Our Government
Practice
Ancel, Glink, Diamond, Bush, DiCianni &
Krafthefer, P.C. offers full service representation to our governmental clients.
We have substantial experience in general and litigation matters involving
all aspects of governmental law including: Governmental Functions and Practices;
Ordinance Drafting; Governmental Finance; Purchase and Sale of Property;
Eminent Domain; Special Service Areas, Special Assessments, and Tax Increment
Financing; Economic Development; Contracts for Goods and Services; Collective
Bargaining and Personnel; Workers' Compensation; Zoning and Planning; Annexations;
Insurance; Risk Management; Liability and Civil Rights Defense; Intergovernmental
Agreements; Cable Television and Telecommunications.
Corporate and
General Local Government Law
Our firm represents local governments and their
committees and commissions in their daily activities. We counsel and advise
our clients to assure that appropriate practices and procedures are used
in passing ordinances, resolutions, budgets, levies, and bond issues; that
employees and members of the public are treated in a fair and lawful manner;
that contracts and franchise are favorably drafted; and that permits and
licenses are properly administered. We have drafted thousands of governmental
contracts and many governmental forms which we provide to our clients. Many
of these contracts and forms are designed to be reused to avoid unnecessary
legal costs.
We assist our clients in a variety of complex
financial, real estate, and contract matters. The firm advises its clients
in the use of special financing and economic development mechanisms such
as bond issues, special service areas, tax increment finance districts,
special assessments, business redevelopment districts, and sales tax sharing
agreements. We advise our clients in property acquisition and sale procedures
and represent them in eminent domain actions. Our lawyers have been successful
in enabling our clients to develop cooperative relationships with other
governmental entities through the use of intergovernmental agreements. As
federal and state statutes and regulations have become more expensive and
burdensome, we have worked with our clients to ease the oppression of these
mandates.
With six decades of experience representing
local governmental entities, our knowledge of how local governments work
and the services which they provide or wish to provide is unsurpassed. This
experience allows us to better serve our clients with legal, practical,
and financially responsible ideas and mechanisms to solve their problems
and reach their goals.
Land Use, Zoning,
and Annexation
Ancel, Glink, Diamond, Bush, DiCianni &
Krafthefer, P.C. has successfully advised its clients in matters of planning,
zoning, and annexations. We work with our regular corporate clients and
often serve as special counsel to other municipalities to draft, amend,
and implement comprehensive plans, zoning codes, and subdivision codes.
We are regularly involved in the process of granting and enforcing planned
unit development ordinances and, on numerous occasions, have compelled a
developer to fully complete the project its drawings promised.
Lawyers from our firm have been the principal
negotiators and drafters of annexation agreements for properties which range
in size and complexity from single lots with existing residences to hundreds
of acres planned to be developed over the course of 10, 15, or even 20 years.
Attorneys from our firm drafted the Illinois statute which made annexation
agreements possible along with recent statutory updates. Our attorneys are
the authors of the chapter on Annexation and Annexation Agreements in the
IICLE's Municipal Law and Practice in Illinois.
Our experience with annexations and development
includes dealing with impact fees for transportation facilities and donations
of land or money to schools, park districts, and other governmental bodies.
Our lawyers successfully argued the Illinois Supreme Court case validating
developer impact fees.
We have worked with both municipalities and
private developers on the environmental aspects of development including
drainage, wetland, and flood plain regulation. We have also helped to create,
develop, and protect historic preservation districts.
In addition to our administrative and transactional
experience in growth and development matters, we have a long history of
successful results in litigation involving these issues. These litigation
successes include disputes about the proper zoning classifications for a
piece of property, attempts to overturn lot size restrictions, challenges
to annexations, interpretations of zoning ordinances and annexation agreements,
propriety of wetland or flood plain designations, and suits seeking damages
for alleged "takings."
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Labor and Employment
Our firm has experience, both as corporate
and special counsel, in all types of personnel matters from contract negotiations
to discrimination claims. We represent governmental units in employment
related matters such as union recognition and unfair labor practice proceedings
before the Illinois State, Local, and Education Labor Relations Boards;
discrimination claims before the Illinois Human Rights Commission and Equal
Employment Opportunities Commission; and constitutional, statutory, and
tort claims in the state and federal courts.
We have written or reviewed numerous employee
handbooks and we held our clients achieve compliance with the requirements
of the Americans with Disabilities Act, Family and Medical Leave Act, and
other State and Federal Acts and regulations which affect employment decisions.
Lawyers in our firm are among the co-authors of the chapters on labor law
in the IICLE handbooks on Municipal and School Law.
Liability and
Civil Rights Defense
Ancel, Glink, Diamond, Bush, DiCianni &
Krafthefer, P.C. is one of the most experienced law firms in Illinois in the
defense of governments and their employees. As defense counsel for governmental
entities which are members of a self-insurance pool, as well as those which
are individually self-insured or conventionally insured, we have handled
thousands of claims seeking damages for personal injury or property damage
under theories of general negligence, defamation, trespass, civil rights
violations, and business torts. We are regularly able to have matters dismissed
early in the litigation because of our extensive knowledge of defenses,
many of which have been developed and successfully proven by our efforts.
Our firm is shown as the attorney of record in hundreds of reported decisions
in both the Illinois and Federal Appellate Courts.
Workers' Compensation
Our firm represents local governments and other
individually and collectively self-insured entities in workers' compensation
claims before the Illinois Industrial Commission. The firm defends these
claims in an aggressive manner, pursuing the facts and evidence necessary
to identify fraudulent claims and reduce unnecessary lost time and medical
expenditures. In our continuing efforts to control costs for our clients,
we have pioneered the use of paralegals to process workers' compensation
claims.
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The Future
In this brochure, we have stressed the 60 years
of experience which our law firm has in representing governmental bodies
and other clients. Although the past history of the firm is very important
to us, so is our future. In the past few years the firm has opened additional
offices to better serve communities in the collar counties. We are updating
the technological facilities at our offices so that we can respond to the
needs of our clients. We continue to employ attorneys with special experience
and interest in serving local governmental bodies. Members of the firm appear
many times each year at speaking engagements where they discuss for lawyers
and non- lawyers the newest innovations in statutory and case law. In addition
to attending conferences of local organizations, our attorneys speak at
national conferences concerning new trends in governmental law.
We learn from our clients that government must
change in order to be more responsive to the needs of their citizens. So
too must government lawyers. At this law firm, we provide lawyers who are
sensitive to the demands and promise of the future and who have the technological
facilities to meet these needs. We pledge to continue our long tradition
of scholarship and innovation and to offer superior services at prices that
governments can afford.
Our Facilities
The law firm's main offices are located in
the landmark Marquette Building in downtown Chicago fronting on the Federal
Plaza. In our full floor of offices, we have an extensive law library and
the latest in computer-assisted research tools. We also maintain four suburban
offices: DuPage County, Lake County, McHenry County, and Kane County.
We employ trained paralegals which allows us to perform services
for our clients at a great cost saving. We encourage our clients to take
advantage of our experience through telephone inquiries which can reduce
the need for formal written opinions. When written opinions are given, we
place them in a memo and opinion file so that the data can be referred to
when similar problems occur with other clients.
If you believe that Ancel, Glink, Diamond,
Bush, DiCianni & Krafthefer, P.C. can assist you, please feel free to contact
or e-mail one of our senior partners,
Stewart Diamond, Robert
Bush or Thomas
DiCianni, to discuss the matter. We would be happy to visit you to describe
the services we provide.
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