Overview

Lance Malina’s practice focuses on municipal law and all aspects of litigation. With his extensive experience, Lance oversees the firm’s litigation department, which handles all forms of local government litigation and is personally involved in the firm’s most complex and sensitive cases.

Over his years at the firm, Lance has become more in demand in the area of general municipal consultation. In that capacity, he currently serves as corporation counsel for the Villages of Hinsdale, Mount Prospect and Schaumburg and recently completed a period as interim Corporation Counsel for the City of Aurora. He also serves as regular special counsel to the City of Aurora, the City of Berwyn, the Village of Cary, the Village of East Dundee, the Village of Northfield, the Village of River Forest and the Village of Oak Park.

After law school, Lance served for one year as law clerk to Judge Charles P. Kocoras of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. He was then appointed an Assistant United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, where he served as a criminal prosecutor from 1990—95, ending in the Special Prosecutions Division.

As a trombonist, he has played with such groups as the Chicago Symphony, the Lyric Opera and the Grant Park Symphony Orchestra, among many others. Lance has also done graduate work in history and taught in public and private schools as an instrumental music specialist. He maintains a reasonably active performing schedule.

Lance graduated from the Chicago Musical College of Roosevelt University in 1984 with a Bachelor of Arts degree, with honors, in Music Performance and received his Juris Doctor degree from DePaul University, with honors, in 1989, where he graduated number one in his class.

While attending law school, Lance received eight awards for excellence in courses taken and three awards for outstanding scholastic achievement, including two scholarships. He served as the Managing Editor of Lead Articles for the DePaul Law Review in 1988—89. Lance’s publications include “Retaliatory Discharge, Workers’ Compensations and Section 301 Preemption,” DePaul Law Review 675 (1988). He is a member of the Illinois State Bar, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit and the United States Supreme Court.