Bruce Braun is the Chair of the firm’s Complex Commercial Litigation Practice Group. He joined the firm following judicial clerkships with William H. Rehnquist, the Chief Justice of the United States and Joel M. Flaum of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.
Mr. Braun has been recognized as one of the top litigators in Chicago and in the nation. Chambers describes him as “a ‘top-flight trial guy,’” “his work ethic is unsurpassed, he is an excellent cross-examiner and he is extremely intellectually nimble." Chicago Lawyer selected him, at age 36, for the first edition of its “Top 40 Attorneys Under 40.” Four years later, American Lawyer selected him as one of its “45 Under Forty-Five: the Rising Stars of the Private Bar.” Mr. Braun has also been named one of Chicago magazine’s Illinois Super Lawyers, one of Chambers USA’s America’s Leading Lawyers for Business, and one of BTI Consulting’s Client Service All-Stars. The American Lawyer selected him as its “Litigator In The Spotlight” for a series of high-profile victories. Most recently, he was selected as one of the Lawdragon 500 Leading Lawyers in America and Benchmark Litigation named him to its elite group of Chicago’s “Litigation Stars.” He was the youngest member ever elected to the firm’s Executive Committee.
Mr. Braun’s practice encompasses a wide range of subject matter areas, including antitrust, professional liability, securities fraud, internal investigations, breach of contract, intellectual property and consumer fraud. He was one of the lead trial lawyers defending Microsoft in its landmark three month antitrust remedies trial in Washington D.C. , which resulted in a complete defense verdict. He subsequently represented Microsoft in a series of trade secret and Intellectual property disputes involving the first Windows Smartphone (Sendo v. Microsoft), the Windows trademark (Lindows v. Microsoft) and volume management software (Symantec/Veritas v. Microsoft). Mr. Braun represented McDonald’s Corporation in the groundbreaking childhood obesity class action in the Southern District of New York (Pelman v. McDonald’s) and subsequently represented McDonald’s in class action consumer fraud litigation involving trans fat disclosures. Mr. Braun has represented numerous accounting firms in class action MDL and other consolidated proceedings arising from the accounting frauds at Countrywide, Paramalat, Refco, and HealthSouth, among others.
Mr. Braun has extensive appellate experience, including two arguing two landmark decisions before the Illinois Supreme Court. He argued and won the seminal asbestos conspiracy case of McClure v. Owens Corning, and he argued and won Mikolajczyk v. Ford, which set the legal standard for design defect cases in Illinois and which overturned one of the nation’s 75 largest verdicts of 2005. Mr. Braun has also argued in the United States Courts of Appeal for the Seventh, Eighth and Eleventh Circuits.
