Here are Chicago’s best lawyers
9 mins read

Here are Chicago’s best lawyers

Robert Kahn is convinced that Chicago Evictional courts have softened too much during the post-pandemic era.

“No one likes to settle with the landlord,” he said.

Still, he does it every day, in thousands of Cook County court cases each year, to demand the top spot as Chicagos most often employed Eviction Law Firm by a large margin.

Among a data set of more than 142,000 cook County evictions Lawsuits Initiated SINE 2017 (Not Including Thousands of Cases Filed the Pandemic and Kept under Seal Due to Emergency Orders), Kahn’s Law Firm represented Landlords 15.6 from Cook County Circuit Clerk’s Office analyzed by The real deal.

Kahn is the second generation head of the Chicago-based law firm Sanford Kahn, named after his convicted father, who is credited with co-authored Illinoi’s law on compulsive entry and prisoners in the 1970s. Sanford Kahn was the first law firm specialized in representing landlords in Chicago’s expulsion system. Over the past seven years, the company represented landlords in more than twice as many cases as other ranked Thomas Raleigh III, who has climbed the rankings in recent years, according to the industry’s top players.

“Rob became the king. He was literally bred for this. He used to be a child running around on the 14th floor of the Daley Center where the draft courts were, ”said Melvin Sims III, an often opponent of landlords whose permanent tenants are among the most employees of the defendants in the Chicago expulsions.

Sanford Kahn maintains its top position with clients that include Multifamily Giants Waterton and related Midwest. It has submitted more than 22,000 Cook County Eviction costumes since 2017, according to the court’s information.

“My guess is that we archive more than anyone else in the state and probably more than anyone else in the country.”
Robert Kahn

“We used to have all landlords. As the years go by, some of them break, and these other lawyers come in. We are the largest store in the area, so there is nowhere to just go down, ”Kahn said. “My guess is that we archive more than anyone else in the state and probably more than anyone else in the country.”

His Chicago Caseload is just part of all his fixed handles. Sanford Kahn covers a total of seven other jurisdictions that crash Cook County. It has become much easier to promote their costumes at the right time the further away they are from Chicago in recent years. This is because tenant protection established during the pandemic has developed into permanent changes in the ejection process and its negotiating tactics.

“It used to be that you could get a tenant from your device in a couple of months and pay $ 800 to get them out. Now it takes six to eight months and it costs about $ 2,000 in Cook County, ”Kahn said because of the rising costs and longer waiting times for the cases to be resolved. He quotes the elongated process compared to the pre-pandemic timeline to keep units outside the market and rent out of the landlord’s pockets.

The higher costs for drafts have been raised in rents, according to Kahn.

While he stays at the top of his area, Kahn has been rail against new strategies to have drafts solved, claiming that a special judge more often seals register of draft cases against tenants to protect them from the public – is particularly worrying.

“I’m not here to screw every tenant, but I think if you don’t pay a landlord and they have to submit a draft against you, it should be a black mark on your post and the public has the right to know,” said Kahn.

Landlords offer more often to reject and seal cases that are brought against tenants who agree on a rapid relocation, for example leaving their home in less than 30 days. Judges have more widely accepted such offers from landlords and agreed to seal cases much more often compared to the pre-pandemic norm, according to experts. There is a questionable legal basis for the reduced transparency, compared to the pre-pandemic tradition that was more reluctant for sealing.

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It is a deal that landlords are willing to do in many cases to get an apartment to generate revenue again faster again, and tenants are so that they can rent another apartment without a draft fall flagging on a background check and shutting down landlords.

Pandemin initiated politics in favor of hiding ejection register after Governor JB Pritzker demanded that cases be returned during the early days of health crisis, a rule that lasted for months.

“It’s easier for me to handle my cases when I can seal, because I don’t have to go to trial. But from a principle point of view, you release someone from shoe -free, ”said Charles Zivin, a lawyer with Wolf Solovy, who has increased his eviction Caseload to hundreds a year since 2022.

Mark Swartz, who is the head of Law Center for Better Housing, favors the greater openness for sealing. His organization helps to administer the Eviction Court’s early resolution program that responded to Pandemin – a step in the process that gets many cases dismissed without assessment but which has added weeks, if not months, to the timeline for landlords to get entities refilled.

Swartz pointed out that for a decade, about 40 percent of ejection cases ended with a dismissal as opposed to a judgment, which means that tenants prepared their questions with their landlord in most of these situations to come to a solution, and avoid a more serious money assessment It can lead to collections.

“Many people don’t even understand the difference between an archiving or a judgment, and sincerely they don’t care,” Swartz said. “I understand why a landlord would not rent to someone with an archiving if they look at someone else without one. But Eviction Court Records is not really the most crucial way to decide whether you want a tenant or not. That is why I advocate to seal in most cases. “

For the most part, Kahn only approves to seal a case when a tenant repays a significant part of the rear rent that they are alleged to owe their landlords, usually at least 50 percent, he said.

Although Kahn regrets how much time is added to the ejection process through the start of the early resolution program – which helps tenants and their landlords to check if they are eligible for rental assistance from state or federal sources and gets many cases to solve – he is not ‘I am not’ I Am afraid to let landlords know that they let a situation get out of their hand.

“When a landlord calls me and says, ‘I have to get this guy yesterday because he owes me $ 25,000,’ I tell them, ‘Well, what did you do for the past six months as they are now owe you $ 25,000? ‘ “Kahn explained.

Today he gives landlords a date about six months out when they get their unit again, twice as long as previous years. “The other page’s job is to buy as much time as possible. I can respect it, ”Kahn said. He acknowledged the latest success for tenant -oriented companies by setting up the early resolution program.

Few other ejection companies have the bandwidth to take cases as deep into the appeal process as Kahns. Sanford Kahn has taken cases that feel current challenges for the basic property owner’s rights regarding Illinoi’s Supreme Court, where the company has built much of the state’s academic framework around ejection.

A large one known as Midland v. Helgason, justified by Kahn’s father for a 1994 Supreme Court decision, found that a landlord can continue to have that part of the tenant’s rent covered by a section 8 coupon, known today as housing vault coupons, and still operates ejection procedures. It has made a difference for landlords with low -income tenants who fall after the rent ever since.

Up-and-comers in Eviction Law Practice as Zivin and Michael Steadman, who cracked the top 10 with more than 1400 cases submitted in recent years, are familiar with the legacy of Kahn’s company and often quotes the appeal law that it has established .

While tenant protection can still pull Ire of Illinoi’s property owner, Steadman says that the environment would be tougher without Kahns: “As far as making marks on the appeal level, landlords in Illinois have a debt to Sanford Kahn.”