Three Heyl Royster attorneys have recently been selected by Leading Lawyers Network as Leading Lawyers in Illinois: Brad Elward of the firm’s Peoria office; Lisa LaConte in the firm’s Peoria and Edwardsville offices; and Mike Schag in the firm’s Edwardsville and Chicago offices.
Brad Elward was selected in the area of civil appellate law. His appellate practice includes a significant concentration in workers’ compensation appeals. He is the current Vice President of the Appellate Lawyers Association. He serves as the Vice Chair of the Peoria County Bar Association’s CLE Committee. In addition, he is the Associate Editor of the Illinois Association of Defense Trial Counsel’s IDC Quarterly. He has also authored amicus curiae briefs before the Illinois Supreme Court on behalf of the IDC. Elward is the editor of Heyl Royster’s monthly workers’ compensation newsletter, Below the Red Line. He is a magna cum laude graduate of the University of Southern Illinois School of Law.
Lisa LaConte was selected in the areas of toxic torts defense law, products liability defense law, and health law. LaConte is co-chair of Heyl Royster’s Toxic Torts & Asbestos Practice. In addition, she serves as the firm’s hiring partner and co-chair of its Diversity Committee. She is a member of a number of professional organizations including Lawyers for Civil Justice, the Council on Litigation Management, the Defense Research Institute, and the Illinois Association of Defense Trial Counsel. She is a graduate of the Washington University School of Law and also holds an LL.M. degree in Health Law from Saint Louis University.
Mike Schag was selected in the areas of toxic torts defense law, products liability defense law, and military law. He has handled cases entailing products liability, mass tort, commercial contract, government contract and insurance law, and he is experienced in jury trials, appellate practice, administrative/regulatory litigation, and alternative dispute resolution. Schag is a frequent speaker to professional groups, most recently at the Midwest Asbestos Litigation Conference on developing the damages case within the context of an asbestos trial. In addition to his practice with Heyl Royster, Schag is an Air Force Reserve JAG lawyer now serving in an operational assignment supporting the legal advisory function at the 618th Tanker Airlift Control Center at Scott Air Force Base, Illinois.
In 2012, he was the recipient of his fifth Meritorious Service Medal (MSM), the non-combat equivalent to the Bronze Star. He is a cum laude graduate of Oklahoma City University School of Law.
LaConte, Elward and Schag join 31 other Heyl Royster attorneys from all six of the firm’s offices who have previously been named to the Leading Lawyers list. Their selections were in many different areas of law, including personal injury defense, medical malpractice defense, employment law, commercial litigation, governmental law, workers’ compensation defense, transportation, construction, elder law, real estate, class actions, and insurance coverage.
Leading Lawyers Network is a division of Law Bulletin Publishing Company. The Leading Lawyers list is the result of surveys of thousands of lawyers in a given state asking which of their peers they believe comprise the top lawyers in their state. Only those lawyers who are most often recommended qualify as Leading Lawyers. Only five percent of lawyers in the state are named as Leading Lawyers.
Heyl Royster is a regional Midwest law firm with more than 100 lawyers, and offices in Peoria, Springfield, Urbana, Rockford, Edwardsville, and Chicago. The firm provides legal services for businesses and corporations, professionals, healthcare organizations, governmental entities, universities, insurance carriers, and other major institutions. Heyl Royster lawyers have successfully defended clients in all of the federal courts and in each of the 102 counties in Illinois, as well as in courtrooms in Missouri and Wisconsin.