Alejandro Caffarelli's Email & Phone

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 judgmentmost 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: · American Bar Association, Panel Moderator: Hot Topics in the Supreme Court, 2010. · Chicago Bar Association, Panel: The Intersection between the FMLA, the ADA, and Retaliatory Discharge, 2010. · Chicago Bar Association, Panel: Intersection of Employment/Immigration Law Issues, 2010. · ABA Journal Podcast, Management Panel on Social Media: Good Employee Communication Tool or Liability, 2010. · DePaul University College of Law, ICE Enforcement Conference: Employment Panel, 2009. · American Immigration Lawyers' Association, Regional Conference: Employment Enforcement Alert, 2009. · Chicago Volunteer Legal Services Foundation, YLS Seminar: The Interplay Between Employment Law and Immigration Law, 2008. · The Labor Employment Relations Association, Seminar: The American with Disabilities Act Amendments, 2008. · American Immigration Lawyers? Association, Regional Conference: Employment Enforcement Alert, 2007. · Chicago Bar Association, Panel: Common Immigration Issues in Employment Law, 2006. · Chicago Bar Association, Panel: The Undocumented in America, 2006. 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.