Deane B. Brown

Deane B. Brown, a Shareholder with Hughes Socol Piers Resnick & Dym, Ltd., has earned a highly regarded reputation in the Chicago legal community as a tenacious, strategic and skilled advocate for her clients. An accomplished lawyer for over 30 years, Ms. Brown has extensive experience representing executives and high-level employees in all areas of employment law, including severance negotiations, employment discrimination claims and retaliatory discharge cases. Ms. Brown represents clients who have been the victims of age, race, gender, sexual orientation, national origin and disability discrimination. She represents women who have been sexually harassed in the workplace, sales representatives who have been wrongfully denied bonuses and commissions, and executives in challenging overbroad and unenforceable non-competition agreements, among many other types of employment matters. Ms. Brown regularly represents clients in the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the Illinois Department of Human Rights.

Ms. Brown is extremely experienced in representing C-Suite and senior executives in public and private companies in negotiating and drafting employment agreements. She handles sophisticated equity and compensation issues involving long-term and short-term incentive plans, stock options, and restricted stock unit agreements. Ms. Brown also assists clients in negotiating signing and retention bonuses, non-compete and non-solicit provisions as well as confidentiality and trade secret agreements. She also handles shareholder and partnership agreements.

Admitted to practice in the state of Illinois, Ms. Brown is also admitted before the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, the United States Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit and the United States Supreme Court.

Ms. Brown has been repeatedly recognized as a top lawyer in Illinois. In September 2022, Ms. Brown was named one of Crain’s Chicago Notable Women in Law, an honor which recognizes women who have made an impact in the types of cases they handle, served as a role model to other women attorneys, and assumed a leadership role in professional organizations and civic/community service initiatives.  In May 2022, Ms. Brown received the 2022 Vanguard Award from the Chicago Bar Association, which honors individuals and institutions who have made the law and the legal profession more accessible to and reflective of the community at large.  In May 2020, Ms. Brown was one of 50 Honorees selected for the Inaugural Women In Law Award, sponsored by The Chicago Daily Law Bulletin & Chicago Lawyer Magazine. The Women In Law Award honors women lawyers for their work to mentor and promote other women in the profession, their success in the legal community and being a shining example of leadership. 

Ms. Brown is a leader in the Chicago legal community. She is a Past President of the Illinois Bar Foundation, the charitable arm of the Illinois State Bar Association (ISBA), and previously served as President of the Women’s Bar Association of Illinois, Chair of the ISBA Bench & Bar Section Council, and Chair of the ISBA Professional Conduct Committee. In addition, Ms. Brown is a strong supporter of other professional women. She served as President of the Professional Women’s Club of Chicago and is a founder of the Exclusive Professional Women’s Networking Group (EPWNG).

For the last 10 years, Ms. Brown has been named to the list of Top 100 Lawyers In Illinois and for more than a decade, she has been named to the list of Top 50 Women Lawyers in Illinois in all practice areas, in Illinois Super Lawyers Magazine.  Only the top 5% of lawyers in Illinois are selected as Super Lawyers, using a multi-step evaluation process involving a statewide survey of lawyers, independent panel research and in-depth evaluation of background and experience by practice area. 

Ms. Brown has also been named by the Law Bulletin Publishing Company in the Top 15 Women Attorneys and Leading Lawyers Network Magazine-Women's Edition named her one of the Top Ten Women Lawyers in Illinois. For her high ethical standards and long list of successful results, she holds the highest peer rating possible of AV Preeminent* from Martindale-Hubbell.

In 1986, Ms. Brown graduated from the Johns Hopkins University with a Bachelor of Arts. Ms. Brown then attended the University of Cambridge in England where she earned a Master's degree in Philosophy. At Boston University School of Law in 1990, she graduated with her Juris Doctor. While in law school she was a noted contributor for the Boston University Annual Review of Banking & Financial Law.

* AV®, AV Preeminent®, Martindale-Hubbell Distinguished and Martindale-Hubbell Notable are certification marks used under license in accordance with the Martindale-Hubbell certification procedures, standards and policies. Martindale-Hubbell® is the facilitator of a peer review rating process. Ratings reflect the anonymous opinions of members of the bar and the judiciary. Martindale-Hubbell® Peer Review Rating™ fall into two categories – legal ability and general ethical standards.