Chicago, IL commercial litigation attorney Peter S. Lubin talks about a memorable case involving a dispute in a family-held business. He represented a number of large, closely held family businesses over the years, businesses that, at one point, were successful where the relatives got along. In one case, he represented a business that had been founded by brothers. One of the brothers died, and the other—his client was the sister-in-law. The brother-in-law, in this very complicated real estate business, decided he would seize control of the family business and overcharge and cheat his sister-in-law.

He came up with a strategy to get the sister-in-law made whole by tens of millions of dollars. After years of trial, he was on trial in that case for two years. He worked with forensic accountants and tax accountants and was able to show that there was a substantial amount of theft, in effect, by the sister-in-law with ghost payrolls and other techniques that the brother-in-law was using to siphon off money from his sister-in-law.