Bio

Jeralyn Baran is a Partner in HMB’s Business & Finance Group and leads the firm’s Employment practice. She helps clients resolve employment issues and implement 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 and inclusion, disability issues, discrimination and harassment concerns, and conducting proper workplace investigations, among others. Jeri is a recognized leader in her field, having received many distinctions including Crain’s Chicago Business Notable Women Lawyers. She has been named to Leading Lawyers for 10 consecutive years and to Illinois Super Lawyers for 12 years. Jeri also has been recognized as one of Illinois’ top 50 Women Lawyers and one of Illinois’ top 100 Lawyers overall.