Thomas H. Geoghegan

Mr. Geoghegan, 60, has been with Despres, Schwartz, & Geoghegan, Ltd. since 1979. He has represented labor unions and individual plaintiffs in labor, employment, pension, health and consumer fraud cases. These cases have often been class actions in which he was lead counsel. He has also brought voting rights and other public interest cases. He graduated from Harvard College in 1971 and Harvard Law School in 1975. He is the author of four books, including Which Side Are You On? (1991), The Secret Lives of Citizens (1998), In America’s Court (2003), and most recently See You In Court: How the Right Turned America into a Lawsuit Nation. He has also written numerous articles and op ed’s on legal issues for The New York Times, The Nation, Harpers, The London Financial Times, Slate, Salon, and other publications. He wrote a column for The America Prospect in 2008. He is a member or the Board of Directors of Business and Professionals in the Public Interest. In 1994, he was a fellow at the Kennedy School’s Institute of Politics at Harvard University. In 2001, he received a Fulbright fellowship and taught law at Humboldt University in Berlin. In 2004 he was a Fellow at the American Academy in Berlin. In 2009, he ran for Congress in the Fifth District of Illinois. Learn more about him on his website here.

Jorge Sanchez

Mr. Sanchez represents workers, unions and other plaintiffs primarily in labor, employment and civil rights litigation. Mr. Sanchez has been admitted to practice in the federal Courts for the Northern District of Illinois, the Eastern District of Michigan, and the Northern District of Indiana. Mr. Sanchez has argued in the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals and on matters involving Title VII jury instructions, the Federal Worker Adjustment Retraining and Notification Act (WARN Act, the Railway Labor Act, the Voting Rights Act, and public employee free speech and associational rights.
Mr. Sanchez has devoted substantial pro bono time counseling organizations in not-for–profit governance matters, land use, historic preservation, and environmental and first amendment issues.

Michael P. Persoon

Mr. Persoon’s practice focuses on civil litigation and appeals for both plaintiffs and defendants. This experience from both sides of the case provides him a useful perspective in analyzing cases, understanding the opponent's strategy, and securing a favorable result for clients. He has worked on appeals in the Illinois Court of Appeals (First District), the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, and on both certiorari and merits briefs in the United States Supreme Court.
Mr. Persoon works with unions in matters proceeding before the National Labor Relations Board, and in drafting and enforcing their collective bargaining agreements. He also helps individual employees faced with employment loss by advising them of their legal rights and negotiating a severance with their employer. Mike also drafts wills and performs estate planning, and incorporates and advises not-for-profit corporations.

Carol T. Nguyen

Ms. Nguyen’s primary practice is representing individuals in complex civil litigation focusing on civil rights and labor and employment law. She holds an undergraduate degree in finance, investment, and banking and a law degree from the University of Wisconsin- Madison. Ms. Nguyen represents a number of organizations, small groups, and individuals in state and federal courts and before administrative agencies.
Ms. Nguyen is admitted to all state courts in Illinois, the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, all state courts in Wisconsin, the United States District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin, and the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. She is also a member of the Illinois State Bar Association and the Wisconsin Bar Association.

Leon M. Despres

The late Leon M. Despres, the founder of the firm, who died on May 6, 2009 at the age of 101, was a legendary Chicago lawyer and political leader.   He graduated from the University of Chicago in 1929.  From the 1930s on, with his colleague Albert Schwartz, he was active as a civil rights lawyer, a civil liberties lawyer, and a labor lawyer.  He also represented many housing “co-ops,” and was one of the most prominent and knowledgeable practitioners of real estate law relating to co-operatives.  As a labor lawyer he represented red caps, nurses, electricians, and many other employee groups.  As a civil liberties lawyer, he served as counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union in the 1940s.  But he was proudest of his work as a civil rights lawyer and as an alderman advocating open housing and opposing racial segregation. From 1955 to 1975, he was alderman from the Fifth Ward (Hyde Park in Chicago) and became famous for “fighting the Daley Machine” which he later recounted in a book of the same name published in 2005.  As a lawyer he championed the same causes that he fought for as a politician.  In addition to his civil rights, civil liberties, labor, and real estate work, he was active in various kinds of environmental litigation, especially with respect to the protection of the Lakefront.

In 2008, the Chicago Bar Association gave him the John Paul Stevens Award for his work as a lawyer and especially for his role in forcing the integration of the Chicago Bar Association in the 1940s.   On June 26, 2009, the American Constitution Society will give him a posthumous award as a Chicago Legal Legend.  He has received numerous other awards for his work as an independent politician and a lawyer.  Though he worked up until his 90’s, he was retired from the firm at the time of his death.

His long time associate and partner, the late Albert Schwartz, was an expert in real estate and trusts as well as general civil litigation.  At the same time, he was also an accomplished actor on stage and in television, and in the 1980s he gained national recognition for appearing with Clara Peller in a series of hugely popular TV commercials. Albert Schwartz died in 1998.