Arnstein & Lehr LLP: The First 120 Years: A Foundation for the Future

It all began in 1893 when two young men, Albert Loeb and Sidney Adler, opened a law office in Chicago. The Columbian Exposition was underway in the Windy City, and business leaders from all over the world were discovering the unique and profitable markets that existed there. Little did Loeb and Adler know, an event in 1895 would change their lives and the future of the law firm. It was in that year, these young lawyers handled the reorganization and formation of Sears, Roebuck and Co. Thus began an attorney-client relationship that still exists today as one of the longest, if not the longest, in the United States. The author, Louis A. Lehr, Jr., recounts the history of Arnstein & Lehr, as it was combined with the history of Chicago, from the significant to the mundane, as well as the firm's role in major matters throughout United States, Puerto Rico and Mexico. One of the notable matters in Chicago was the firm's involvement in the sensational Leopold and Loeb murder case. Another was defeating lawsuits to halt the construction of the Sears Tower. Among the many of its high stakes trials outside Chicago was the successful defense of a client in the DuPont Plaza Hotel Fire case in San Juan Puerto. Ninety seven people perished in the fire and hundreds were injured. Another successful defense was in the massive Japanese Electronic Products Antitrust Litigation in Philadelphia in which the plaintiffs sought billions of dollars in damages. On the business side, the reader will also learn the firm was, at one time, outside general counsel for five New York Stock Exchange companies and of other historically significant business and governmental entities that have been represented over the years by the firm we know today as, Arnstein & Lehr LLP.