Stuart J. Chanen
Stuart J. Chanen is a partner with Valorem Law Group. Stuart concentrates his litigation practice in three primary areas: white collar defense and internal investigations; labor and employment matters, particularly wage claims, executive compensation, and non-compete agreements; as well as complex business disputes of all kinds.
Criminal and Civil Fraud Defense and Internal Investigations
Stuart frequently represents companies and individuals in a wide array of matters involving alleged fraud. He represents companies, executives, witnesses, and victims. This part of Stuart’s practice includes internal investigations, defense of criminal charges, including sentencing hearings and appeals, representing targets and witnesses in ongoing criminal and SEC investigations, and both the defense and prosecution of civil charges, such as whistleblower defense and other allegations of fraud. Stuart has led numerous internal investigations for Fortune 1000 companies. Stuart is also in the unique position of having represented plaintiffs, defendants, and the government in a wide-variety of whistleblower claims brought under both the federal and state False Claims Acts. He has tried more than 20 cases to verdict, in the Illinois state courts and in federal courts in Illinois, Michigan and California. He has extensive appellate experience, including in the Sixth, Seventh, and Ninth federal circuits and the Illinois Appellate Courts.
From March 2000 to April 2004, Stuart was an Assistant United States Attorney in Chicago, trying cases and supervising investigations in the General Crimes and Major Case Sections. He obtained indictments and pleas in complex fraud cases, including health care, securities, banking, tax, equipment leasing, and money laundering, as well as in drug and gun cases, including international drug smuggling, threats against a presidential candidate, and several bank robberies. Stuart is the editor of the Sentencing Survey, a survey of key criminal sentencing cases for each circuit, in the face of significant changes to criminal sentencing after Booker, Gall, Kimbrough, and Spears.
Wage Claims, Non-Competes, and Shareholder Disputes
Stuart has more than 20 years of experience in civil litigation. He has handled numerous wage claims, including a lengthy trial defeating individual overtime claims brought against a Fortune 1000 company. The trial came after defeating plaintiffs’ attempts to certify a class of over one thousand employees. In 2004, he obtained a multi-million dollar settlement (100% of the demand) on the eve of the verdict for a minority shareholder asserting fraud and receivership claims against the majority shareholders. Stuart has also handled numerous non-compete disputes, both for employers and employees, as well as other injunction hearings involving confidential and/or trade secret information.
Other Complex Civil Litigation
In addition to the matters already listed, Stuart has also prosecuted or defended trademark, copyright, and defamation matters, as well as trust, estate, and insurance beneficiary disputes. He has defended securities, consumer, and wage class actions in both state and federal court, and handled takeover and fraudulent conveyance litigation in federal court. Among his trial victories, Stuart obtained a $9.3 million fraud verdict for a Fortune 50 company arising out of an employee embezzlement; a $17.5 million verdict for a health care consulting client in an international breach of contract case; and a declaration of trademark ownership in an international trademark dispute. Stuart has also defeated a malpractice claim against a national law firm; a defamation claim against a franchisee of a national realty firm; and a spokesperson liability claim against a well-known actor.
Professional, Civic and Community Service
Mr. Chanen has been an adjunct faculty member at the Northwestern Law School since 1994, teaching courses in trial advocacy and professional responsibility and has also served as faculty for the National Institute of Trial Advocacy at Northwestern. In 1991, he took a leave of absence from practice to teach Constitutional Law at the University of Iowa Law School. Mr. Chanen writes and lectures frequently on a wide range of subjects, most recently on the subjects of whistleblower claims under the False Claims Act; preparing expert witnesses to testify; advocacy at criminal sentencing in the light of significant changes to the Guidelines after Booker, managing the business risk of employee fraud; and the Justice Department's recent amendments regarding assessing corporate cooperation in criminal investigations.
Stuart is rated "AV" (the highest rating) by the Martindale-Hubbell Law Directory and has also been repeatedly listed in Illinois Super Lawyers (2005-2009), a peer review designation published by Law & Politics magazine. He was recently recognized in the category of Business Litigation, and has also been named for White Collar Criminal Defense. He is also listed in Super Lawyers, Corporate Counsel Edition (2008-2009).
For six years, Mr. Chanen was appointed by the Illinois Supreme Court to serve as Hearing Board Officer for the Attorney Registration & Disciplinary Commission. For four of those years, he served as a Panel Chairman.
Since 2004, Mr. Chanen has been on the Executive Committee of the Advisory Board of The Center on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern University, as well as on the Advisory Board for Northwestern’s Short Course for Prosecutors and Defense Lawyers. Mr. Chanen has always engaged in extensive pro bono work. Most recently, Mr. Chanen helped obtain the exoneration of his client Thaddeus Jimenez, who was wrongfully convicted in 1994 and 1997 of a murder he did not commit. Mr. Jimenez, who was 13 at the time of his arrest, spent 16-1/4 years in prison before Mr. Chanen and his team obtained his release May 1 of this year. Mr. Jimenez is believed to be the youngest person in U.S. history convicted of a crime for which he was later fully exonerated.
