Welcome to the HPS Team, Joe and Anu! We are delighted to have two new Associates join our HPS Team in Chicago, Joe Muska and Anu Rao!

HPS Welcomes Two New Associates to our Chicago office, Madeline Engledow and Isabella Shindler! HPS celebrated their swearing into the Illinois Bar on May 8, 2023.

Hugh Griffin, Co-Chair of HPS’ Appellate Department, successfully defeated plaintiff’s attempt to avoid the effect of a second voluntary dismissal order by filing post-judgment petitions under 735 ILCS 5/2-1401.

As 2023's Women's History month comes to an end, Hall Prangle and Schoonveld, LLC presents a conversation about women in the legal profession between two of our attorneys: Marilee Clausing, Managing Partner, who graduated from DePaul University College of Law in 1985 and Tania Dawood, Associate, who graduated from the University of Nevada-Las Vegas, William S. Boyd School of Law in 2021.

One of the top causes of maternal death is postpartum hemorrhage. However, there are devices available to obstetrical providers to use in appropriate cases in addressing this potential complication.

Matthew J. Kaminski and David L. Kalimuthu have been elevated to the partnership at Hall Prangle and Schoonveld, LLC (HPS). The two attorneys earned the promotions by a dedication to excellence and client service.

On February 27, 2023, Shelley Doi-Taketa received the first annual Amy Kane Memorial Award at an event at the Chicago office of Hall Prangle and Schoonveld (HPS). As part of the award, Shelley will receive a monetary stipend for educational pursuits to help her grow as an attorney and leader.

HPS Attorneys Mike Prangle, Ken Webster, and Trent Earl successfully defended a Las Vegas area hospital (defendant hospital) against allegations that it had contributed to a patient’s Osmotic Demyelination Syndrome (ODS) resulting in the Plaintiff being in a complete, locked-in state.

A recent study by the CDC suggests that approximately 84.2% of postpartum deaths are preventable. When the CDC viewed the statistics to determine whether a death was preventable, the CDC asked was “there at least some chance of the death being averted by one or more reasonable changes to patient, community, provider, facility, and/or systems factors.”

In December 2022, three additional attorneys at Hall Prangle and Schoonveld, LLC were sworn into the Wisconsin Bar, which now makes eight attorneys at the Firm licensed to practice law in that state. HPS partners and associates moved to gain permanent licenses in Wisconsin to better serve clients with healthcare legal and litigation needs in that state. 

On November 4, 2022, the CDC released new guidelines for the prescription of opioids for pain. The new guidelines have been described as a “corrective” measure after the 2016 CDC Guidelines were often misinterpreted by health systems, physicians, and state governments.

Eleven Attorneys at Hall, Prangle and Schoonveld LLC have been recognized as 2023 Super Lawyers or 2023 Rising Stars. Super Lawyers, which is owned by Thomson Reuters, is a national organization that ranks attorneys based on peer nominations that are then reviewed by an independent research team.

Suicidal ideation-related emergency department visits for youth in Illinois increased substantially from 2016 through 2021, with key peaks starting before the COVID-19 pandemic, medical researchers in Chicago have found.

The March of Dimes recently released the “Nowhere To Go: Maternity Care Deserts Across the U.S.” report for 2022. A maternity care desert is defined as any county without a hospital or birth center offering obstetric care and without any obstetric providers.

A recent report from VMG Health, a healthcare strategy and transaction company, suggests that a delay in progressing medical malpractice cases during the pandemic is leading to an increase in medical malpractice activity and is increasing the costs of medical malpractice cases to the hospital in 2022.

From all of us at HPS, we wish you and yours a happy holiday and a prosperous new year.

In October, Federal Judge Steven C. Seeger declined the defendants’ request to stay Illinois’ prejudgment interest statute in the case of Saiyed v. U.S. due to ripeness. He based his decision on procedural law. Both the state’s appellate courts and Supreme Court have yet to take prejudgment interest under consideration.

HPS Attorneys Marilee Clausing and Molly Pankauskas successfully defended an anesthesiologist against claims that he negligently performed the patient’s preoperative evaluation and failed to timely treat postoperative airway complications.

Ann Ford, Partner at HPS Law and Managing Director of HPS Advise, and Chad Gough, HPS Advise Consultant, presented a webinar on electronic health records (EHR)/electronic medical records (EMR), audit trails, digital discovery and managing the risks they present in litigation. The webinar focused on federal law and on related issues that are current in Illinois.

On November 1, 2022, the Anesthesiology and Respiratory Therapy Devices Panel of the FDA’s Medical Devices Advisory Committee met virtually to discuss a problem brought to light by the COVID-19 pandemic: pulse oximeters are not as accurate as previously thought, particularly for patients with darker skin.