Mitchell Edlund

Mitchell J. Edlund focuses his practice on general business and commercial litigation and has served as lead counsel in a variety of matters, including professional liability, directors and officers liability, breach of fiduciary duty, restrictive covenants, such as actions for injunctive relief, banking, both regulatory and enforcement, and business torts.

Mitchell also has experience in contract, trademark and consumer and common law fraud cases, as well as litigation with respect to community associations. Mitchell has extensive experience defending complex, high-stakes commercial litigation matters involving claims of fraud and malpractice as well as other litigation that implicates professionals as defendants.

His E&O work includes defending retail and wholesale insurance agents and brokers, captive/exclusive agent programs, MGA’s, securities brokers, lawyers and other professionals. Mitchell has developed and implemented successful defense strategies, which focus on defenses well beyond standard of care liability issues.

In addition, because of Cozen O’Connor’s widespread geographic litigation presence, Mitchell and the other members of Cozen O’Connor’s professional liability practice group have developed a strong local knowledge in state and federal courts throughout the country.

Mitch has successfully defended a large retail insurance broker against professional liability claims brought by a publicly traded company seeking more than $20 million in business interruption losses relating to the broker’s placement of commercial property policies, as well as a retail insurance broker against negligence misrepresentation claims relating to the placement of a technology errors and omissions policy.

He also has represented retail and wholesale brokers in matters involving non-solicitation/non-competition disputes. Mitchell has successfully defended directors and officers of banks and bank holding companies in actions brought by the FDIC, shareholders and borrowers.

He successfully defended a former bank director in a $10 million shareholder derivative action. He also successfully defended certain directors of the holding company of a failed bank in an action brought by the FDIC-R, which sought in excess of $20 million arising out of alleged deficiencies in the bank’s lending program.

In addition to his litigation practice, Mitchell counsels businesses and executives on a variety of matters, including advising financial institutions and retail and wholesale insurance brokerage companies on the enforceability of their competition restrictions and hiring protocols to reduce the risk of liability for those companies when recruiting potential employees from competitors. He also helps clients develop strategies relating to potential professional liability claims asserted against companies and their executives.

EXPERIENCE :

• Represents a large insurance brokerage firm in actions involving claims of professional negligence and breaches of fiduciary duty.
• Prosecuting a multimillion dollar fraud and breach of fiduciary duty action on behalf of large company against its formers officers in the Complex Litigation Division of the Superior Court in California.
• Represented the director of a bank holding corporation in a multimillion-dollar shareholder derivative action, which was related to a lawsuit brought by the FDIC-R against officers and directors of the bank.
• Represented the owner of the commercial portion of a large high-rise located in Chicago’s Gold Coast in a multimillion dispute with the home owner association regarding the allocation of shared utilities under the condominium declaration.
• Defended hair salon conglomerate against Lanham Act and related injunction claims in the U.S. District Court and before the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

EDUCATION :

• Valparaiso University School of Law, J.D., 1995
• Augustana College, B.A., 1990
• Northern Illinois University, M.P.A.

BAR ADMISSIONS : Illinois

COURT ADMISSIONS :

• U.S. District Court — Northern District of Illinois
• U.S. District Court — Central District of Illinois

AFFILIATIONS :

• Illinois Bar Association
• Chicago Inn of Court