The firm has represented clients on virtually every type of legal issue on appeal, including administrative, antitrust, arbitration, bankruptcy, civil rights, communications, constitutional, criminal, employment, government contracts, health care, intellectual property, products liability, tax, and transportation law.

Lewis v. City of Chicago. In this ongoing class action, HSPRD represents more than 6,000 African Americans who took and passed a hiring exam for entry-level firefighter positions in the Chicago Fire Department and then were wrongfully denied the opportunity to be considered for employment by the City. The trial court ruled that the City’s method of hiring bore no demonstrable relationship to the relative skills or abilities of candidates for the position and that it disproportionately excluded African Americans, making it more than 5 times more likely that a white candidate rather than an African American would be hired. The City’s practice was, as the trial court called it, “a manifest violation of Title VII,” our nation’s core federal guarantee of equal employment opportunity. We have prevailed not only at trial but also in the federal Court of Appeals and before the US Supreme Court, which issued a unanimous opinion in favor of our clients. In May 2011, the Court of Appeals directed the trial court to enter a remedial order, which will result in the hiring of 111 class members as Chicago Firefighters and payment of $78.5 million in back pay and pension contributions.

• Lewis Trial Court opinion

• Lewis Supreme Court opinion

• Lewis Court of Appeals opinion