500 West Madison Street Suite 3700, Chicago, IL USA 60661
Jeri Baran focuses her practice on labor and employment law. She assists clients in resolving employment issues and implementing best practices to better focus their business and achieve their personal goals. As a partner to both employers and employees, Jeri’s clients include individuals, executives, small businesses, charitable organizations, private equity firms, and multinational corporations. She provides individualized, practical guidance to help clients address their immediate employment issues, mitigate risk, and ensure they are both legally compliant and using current best practices to meet their legal needs. Jeri serves as their legal guide when drafting and negotiating employment agreements from offer letters and equity agreements to transitional contracts.
With over 30 years of experience in employment law, Jeri regularly helps clients overcome a host of challenges. She helps management evaluate the practical and legal aspects of employee agreements, compensation agreements, and restrictive covenants. Likewise, she helps executives negotiate their desired employment agreements. Jeri leverages her commercial litigation experience to identify potential discrimination claims and day-to-day business and legal challenges. She is especially skilled at educating business managers and supervisors on current developments in employment law including diversity, equity, inclusion, disability issues, discrimination and harassment concerns, and conducting proper workplace investigations, among others.
Prior to joining the firm, Jeri was a partner in the Business and Finance Group and led the Employment practice at HMB Legal Counsel, a well-established, corporate-focused law firm based in Chicago, Illinois.
Jeri is a recognized leader in her field, having received many distinctions including Crain’s Chicago Business Notable Women Lawyers. She was recognized in The Best Lawyers in America® in 2025 for Management Employment Law. Jeri has been named a “Leading Lawyer” for Management Employment Law by Leading Lawyers magazine since 2011 and an Illinois "Super Lawyer" for Labor and Employment Law in 2009 and again in 2025 and the 14 years prior by Super Lawyers magazine. She was also recognized as a "Top 50 Women Illinois Super Lawyer" in 2016 and 2017 and a "Top 100 Illinois Super Lawyer" in 2017 by Super Lawyers magazine. Jeri is recipient of the American Jurisprudence Award in Products Liability.
Experience
*Provided valuable insights and guidance when evaluating employment representations and warranties in multi-million dollar deal transactions.
*Thoughtfully and pragmatically guided employers through large reductions in their workforce.
*Engaged in workplace classification analysis, evaluating risk exposure, and ensuring legal compliance.
*Counseled clients facing trade secret and restrictive covenant challenges.
*Successfully represented clients in employment mediations and arbitrations.
*Experience gained by attorney prior to joining Kilpatrick
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University of Illinois College of Law J.D.
Marquette University M.A., History Phi Beta Kappa
Marquette University B.A. Rickert Scholarship for Academic Excellence
Illinois
Federal Trial Bar for the Northern District of Illinois
U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of Illinois
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
U.S. District Court for the Central District of Illinois
U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois
U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Indiana
U.S. Tax Court
The Technology and Manufacturing Association, Women in TMA Committee, Member
Chicago Bar Association, Member
American Bar Association, Member
Illinois State Bar Association, Member
Women Helping Women, Founding Member
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