Corporations Turn to an Unlikely Segment of Trial bar to Press Suits

Picture it: Chicago's higher-profile plaintiff personal-injury attorneys representing major corporations. Under contingent-fee arrangements.

It may take some mental adjustments to think of Robert A. Clifford, head of Clifford Law Offices , cozying up with the pinstripe crowd.

But he-and others in the litigation field-says it's a harbinger, and that such arrangements in the future will cease to raise eyebrows.

Clifford began representing a large Brazilian company in a federal court suit a couple of months back.

Clifford's entry into corporate work occurred when he signed on as trial counsel in litigation between a Brazilian company and one of the largest corporations in Illinois, the Schaumburg-based Motorola Inc. The suit is potentially worth millions of dollars.

Clifford counts himself among the vanguard of highly-trained plaintiff lawyers who are beginning to represent corporations.

"I think what you're seeing is more and more corporations willing to retain traditionally-labeled contingency-fee lawyers to undertake high-risk, but high-profile litigation, in lieu of paying out millions of dollars in hourly legal fees," said Clifford .

"I think you see that dynamic developing in litigation nationally, lawyers who are expanding our practices to include commercial activity in addition to our historic mainstay of tort litigation from wrongful-death and injury claims," Clifford added.

Clifford acknowledges a link between his move into representing corporations and the adoption of the tort reform legislation. He noted that he has told lecture groups this year, in discussing the effects of tort reform, that "good trial lawyers will be needed in all the years to come, if we have tort litigation or not," he said. "It's an art to properly present a case to a jury."

Clifford became trial counsel for the Brazilian company a couple of months ago when the company and its local counsel, George S. Bellas, asked him to come aboard. David A. Novoselsky is also co-counsel.

In the litigation pending before U.S. District Judge Charles B. Norgle Sr., Clifford's client, Siteltra, was sued by Motorola in a dispute over a distribution agreement. Siteltra cross-claimed against Motorola for trying to abandon the distributorship tie, Clifford said, and for interference with a business relationship in Brazil. Motorola Inc. v. Siteltra, No. 94 C 3081.