Experience 

Michele Odorizzi is a member of the Litigation group and Supreme Court and Appellate practice in Mayer Brown’s Chicago office.  Ranked as one of the leading litigators in Illinois by Chambers USA since 2004, Michele concentrates primarily on appellate litigation and brief-writing at the trial court level.  The 2007 edition of Chambers USA notes that Michele is “[p]raised for her ‘encyclopedic knowledge of corporate-related litigation’” and “best known as an excellent appellate lawyer.”  However, it also notes that Michele’s “‘thoughtful approach and superb judgment’ allow her to navigate many types of troubled waters.”

Over her more than thirty years at Mayer Brown, Michele has filed hundreds of briefs in state and federal trial and appellate courts throughout the country on a wide variety of issues.  Much of Michele’s work has focused on securities litigation, accountants’ liability, shareholder derivative litigation and fiduciary duty issues in cases involving acquisitions of public companies.  She has also concentrated on class action issues, particularly in the consumer class action area, working not only on class certification issues at the trial level, but also interlocutory appeals of class certification decisions and appeals from three of the largest class action judgments ever rendered in Illinois, or any other state. Michele also focuses on constitutional litigation, particularly in the area of state taxes.

After graduating with honors from The University of Chicago Law School in 1976, Michele clerked for the Honorable Philip W. Tone, on the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.  She joined Mayer Brown in 1977, leaving in 1979 to clerk for Justice John Paul Stevens on the US Supreme Court and then returning permanently in 1980.

Michele is currently serving on Mayer Brown's twelve-person Partnership Board.

Education 

University of Chicago Law School, JD, cum laude, 1976; Order of the Coif; Articles Editor, The University of Chicago Law Review • Northwestern University, BA, 1973; Phi Beta Kappa

Admitted

• United States Supreme Court, 1980
• Illinois, 1976
• US Courts of Appeals for the Second, Third, Fourth, Sixth, Seventh, Eighth, Ninth and Tenth Circuits
• US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois