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Lynette D. Simmons

    
Partner  
Education
 
Ms. Simmons graduated, with honors, from the University of Michigan, with a B.A. in Philosophy in 1990. She received her J.D. from the University of Michigan Law School in 1993.
 


    Experience
 
Ms. Simmons joined the firm in January of 2000.  She became a Partner in January of 2003 and a Shareholder in January 2008. Ms. Simmons began her legal career in 1993 as an Associate at a thirty-attorney insurance defense firm, defending personal injury, product liability, premises liability and property cases. She then moved to a major seventy-five attorney Chicago firm with both commercial and tort practice groups. Here she prosecuted cases involving minor children who had been exposed to lead-based paint.

Prior to joining Sudekum, Cassidy & Shulruff, Chtd., Ms. Simmons was counsel to a variety of health care providers, including home health agencies, physicians and physician organizations at a four attorney firm. She was responsible for the preparation of cases for hearing before the Provider Reimbursement Review Board.

  

  Expertise
 
Ms. Simmons concentrates her practice in first-and third-party insurance defense, including bodily injury, property, coverage, arson and suspected fraud.

She has tried more than 20 cases to verdict since joining the practice, in addition
to conducting hundreds of depositions and in excess of eighty arbitrations,
including mandatory, three-man and Triple A. She also acts as an arbitrator on behalf                         of insurers.  She has conducted numerous examinations under oath                                               and drafted coverage opinions on complex insurance issues involving arson,                               targeted tender and theft of securities.

Additionally, she taught firefighters testimonial tactics at the International
Association of Arson Investigators Conference (IAAI) in Champagne-Urbana
in 2004. She is also an instructor at the National Institute for Trial
Advocacy (NITA) at Loyola University in Chicago.