Attorney Profiles

James O. Latturner is a 1962 graduate of the University of Chicago Law School. Until 1969, he was an associate and then a partner at the Chicago law firm of Berchem, Schwantes & Thuma. From 1969 to 1995 he was Deputy Director of the Legal Assistance Foundation of Chicago, where he specialized in consumer law, including acting as lead counsel in over 30 class actions. His publications include Chapter 8 ("Defendants") in Federal Practice Manual for Legal Services Attorneys (M. Masinter, Ed., National Legal Aid and Defender Association 1989); Governmental Tort Immunity in Illinois, 55 Ill.B.J. 29 (1966); Illinois Should Explicitly Adopt the Per Se Rule for Consumer Fraud Violations, 2 Loy. Consumer L.Rep. 64 (1990), and Illinois Consumer Law (Chicago Bar Ass'n 1996.). He has taught in a nationwide series of 18 Federal Practice courses sponsored by the Legal Services Corporation, each lasting four days and designed for attorneys with federal litigation experience. He has argued some 30 appeals, including two cases in the United States Supreme Court and two in the Illinois Supreme Court. Mr. Latturner was involved in many of the significant decisions establishing the rights of Illinois consumers.

Consumer Rights