U-46 families enlist expert

A class-action lawyer from Chicago has been enlisted to help a group of Elgin families fight their discrimination lawsuit against Elgin Area School District U-46.

In a Friday filing, lawyers from Chicago-based Futterman and Howard requested James Bradtke be approved by the court as additional counsel.

Bradtke, a partner at Soule Bradtke and Lambert, is "someone very experienced with a wide range of class-action cases," said Carol Ashley, a lawyer with Futterman and Howard.

Bradtke is a former faculty member at Loyola University of Chicago's law school. He was a Futterman and Howard partner from 1988 to 1994.

Ashley and Bradtke have worked together on a number of class-action cases, including the 1989 Rockford school district desegregation case, Ashley said.

The Rockford case lasted more than 10 years and cost $250 million in taxpayer funds.

Futterman and Howard lawyers requested Bradtke be added to help with plaintiff's increasing workload, Ashley said.

"That's a lot of depositions. … They're going to have to move quickly," said Patricia Whitten, a lawyer with Franczek Sullivan, one of two firms representing the district. Whitten noted that her firm has come across Bradtke in a number of class-action cases.

After the written phase of discovery officially ended April 1, the two parties now are in the process of taking depositions from a number of key potential witnesses.

Though civil law permits 10 such depositions to be taken by each party, Magistrate Judge Michael T. Mason granted each side permission to take up to 40 depositions.

"I don't think the cost will go up because of (Bradtke's) additional counsel," Ashley said. "The cost would have been driven up anyway with the length of the discovery process."

Mason will rule on the request at a Wednesday hearing.

To date, Elgin Area School District U-46 has spent more than $4.6 million fighting the lawsuit.

Filed in February 2005, the lawsuit alleges U-46 violated the rights of black and Hispanic students by placing them in crowded, older schools; busing them farther and more often than white students; and providing them inferior opportunities.