Springfield, August 4, 2004 - Veteran estate planner and real estate attorney James M. Lestikow, a partner in the Springfield office of national law firm Hinshaw & Culbertson LLP, has been appointed by Russell Scott, the President of the Illinois Bar Foundation, to serve as a Fellows Director of the Illinois Bar Foundation. Mr. Lestikow has been a Charter Fellow of the Foundation since the formation of the Fellows as a fund-raising arm of the Foundation. He will serve a one-year term, which may be extended, as Director-Outside Cook County.
The Illinois Bar Foundation endows scholarships and funds grants intended to improve the delivery of legal services throughout the Illinois legal profession.
Mr. Lestikow has an active estate planning practice that includes the drafting of wills, trusts, family limited partnerships and other devices. He also handles a growing number of estate and trust administration disputes for both plaintiffs and defendants. He has training as a Mediator, and handles disputes in estate or trust administration.
Mr. Lestikow also represents businesses, many of them family owned. He helps them with their choice of business entity, and advises them on such day-to-day issues as employment discrimination, credit, contracts and management activities. He also offers transactional advice on asset sales, mergers, acquisitions, loans and dissolutions. In addition, he advises on succession plans for closely held and family held businesses.
As an expanding part of his business counsel, Mr. Lestikow litigates contentious business split-ups and deadlocks. He handles real estate matters including loans, tax-free exchanges, purchases, sales, leasing and zoning and has testified as an expert witness on fees of executors and in attorney malpractice cases.
Reflecting his substantial estate planning experience, Mr. Lestikow has been elected to Fellowship in the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel. He is a past chair and current member of the Illinois State Bar Association's Trusts and Estates Section Council, and has also served as chair of the ISBA's Business Advice and Financial Planning Section Council.
Mr. Lestikow was also past President of the Sangamon Valley Estate Planning Council, and he was one of the initial members of the Advisory Board of the Central Illinois Family Business Forum. Among his other professional affiliations in the field, Mr. Lestikow is a member of the American Bar Association's Probate, Trust and Real Estate Section. He is a prolific writer and speaker on matters related to estate planning.
Hinshaw & Culbertson LLP is a national law firm with 475 lawyers in 25 offices coast-to-coast. The firm offers a full-service practice, with an emphasis in commercial and defense litigation, corporate, environmental, employment and construction law, as well as the representation of professionals in their liability matters. The firm provides services to a range of clients in financial services, construction, health care, not-for-profit, insurance, legal, manufacturing, real estate, transportation and other industries. Firm clients also include government agencies, municipalities and schools.
Hinshaw was founded in 1934. The firm is headquartered in Chicago, and maintains offices in 12 states: Arizona, California, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Missouri, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island and Wisconsin.