Overview
Mike Lieber serves as the Founder of The Lieber Law Group, LLC. As someone who has started his own companies, Mike understands the unique challenges that businesses face in navigating today’s complex legal landscape. Mike’s broad business knowledge helps him guide companies in a variety of industries, ranging from manufacturing to financial services to the media to pharmaceuticals to food and beverage companies to the travel and tourism industry, among many others.
Mike recognizes that clients often face challenges that are as much business issues as legal problems. Mike assists clients in dealing both with the dispute at hand and in identifying the problems that keep clients up at night, focusing on how to get ahead of those problems and how to protect against them.
Mike has a range of experience in various state and federal courts, including Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin, Ohio, California, Texas, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Hawaii, New Jersey, Louisiana, Florida and Mississippi. He has knowledge and experience in several practice areas where he represents individuals and midsized corporate clients.
Work Experience:
Kirkland & Ellis, LLP (Associate: October 1996-December 1999)
Sachnoff and Weaver, Ltd. (Associate: January 2000-September 2003; Partner: September 2003-January 2006)
McGuireWoods LLP (Partner: February 2006-November 2010)
Ice Miller LLP (Partner: November 2010-September 2015)
Education
Undergraduate School
Bachelor of Arts in Rhetoric, Magna Cum Laude and with High Honors
Bates College 1992
Law School
Juris Doctor, Cum Laude
Indiana University Maurer School of Law 1996
Admissions
- Illinois
- United States District Court Northern District of Illinois
- United States District Court Central District of Illinois
- United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
Memberships
- American Bar Association, Forum Committee on Communications Law
Community Involvement
- President of 24,000-member Bates College Alumni Association
- Little League soccer and football coach
- Friends of the Bloomingdale Trail,
Rails-to-Trails Organization
Selected Experience
Financial Services Industry — Representative Matters
- Winning a multi-million dollar federal court jury verdict on behalf of a third party marketing company for hedge funds
- Winning summary judgment on a multi-million dollar mortgage dispute on behalf of a bank relating to tax sales and redemptions of out-of-state properties
- Acting as lead counsel to a multi-national commodities and futures trading company in prosecuting a $15+ million financial futures trading claim against a state regulatory agency
- Leading the prosecution of a regional bank’s claims against a large property management company that botched its oversight of trust properties assigned to the bank
- Representing a multi-national aggregator of financial information in a defamation lawsuit brought by a company claiming that the aggregator misrepresented that company’s financial condition
- Prosecuting a title insurance company’s multi-million dollar claim against an insurer who failed to properly transfer escrow funds on behalf of buyers and sellers of property
- Serving as counsel for debt collection companies in a variety of Fair Credit Reporting Act and Fair Debt Collection Practices Act litigation, successfully winning dismissal on numerous occasions
Manufacturing Litigation — Selected Matters
- Successfully defending a car seat manufacturer being sued for damages of up to $2.5 million by a plaintiff suffering partial paralysis resulting from an automobile accident; assisted in the direct and cross-examination of witnesses, enabling the client to settle for substantially less than the cost of defense
- Managing multiple suits on behalf of an international manufacturer related to injuries occurring on client’s blowmolding machines
Media Law – Representative Matters
- Representing a mid-sized Midwestern media company in its defense of defamation claims, successfully winning one of the first dismissals in Illinois based on the state’s recent anti-SLAPP statue, including winning at the trial, appellate level and Illinois Supreme Court levels.
- Acting as primary outside counsel for a large communications industry client’s Chicago properties, supervising those properties’ litigation, corporate, employment, intellectual property, sweepstakes, real estate and construction law needs
- Serving as lead counsel on a multi-national dispute involving a Chinese client whose financial reporting allegedly damaged an Illinois company’s billion dollar product line overseas
- Assisting a communications industry client in implementing a major promotional initiative by spearheading the multidisciplinary legal team that developed the rules, labor agreements and other legal documents associated with a major contest to select and employ a spokesperson to represent the client in high profile advertisements and during marketing events
- Helping to protect a communications industry client from incurring major legal expenses likely to be associated with its defense in a wrongful termination suit
Class Action Litigation — Representative Matters
- Successfully preventing class certification on behalf of a nutritional supplement/weight loss client facing multi-million dollar claims stemming from allegations that their product contained trace amounts of substances not listed in the ingredients
- Successfully defending a chemical industry client in a toxic tort case where more than 10,000 class members sought approximately $2.5 billion in damages at trial, jury determined that the plaintiffs suffered no damages
- Overseeing plaintiff-specific research and discovery in several large pharmaceutical class actions
- Leading a five-person discovery team that was instrumental in defeating the class certification of a 100,000 member plaintiff group claiming up to $1 billion in damages from an insurance company