Mr. Lies is a partner in the Chicago office. His primary practice areas involve occupational safety and health law, related personal injury litigation and employment law, including single plaintiff and class action litigation and counseling.

In his occupational safety and health law practice he has represented employers on a national basis in complying with occupational safety and health regulations, as well as representing employers during OSHA inspections, OSHA citation enforcement proceedings and trial of OSHA cases before federal and state agencies and appeals to federal and state court. In the course of this representation, he has also defended related civil tort actions involving mass personal injury and fatality accidents and property damage claims resulting from fires and explosions at refineries and petrochemical plants, construction accidents, ammonia and other toxic substance releases at food and other processing plants, as well as employee exposure to ergonomic hazards, mold, tuberculosis, SARS, MRSA, lead, asbestos, benzene, cadmium, hydrogen sulfide and other toxic substances. He has extensive experience in disaster preplanning and response, including pandemic preplanning for Avian Flu and Swine Flu (H1N1).

In his companion employment law practice, he represents employers on a national basis involving developing compliant employment policies and appearing before the EEOC and state human rights agencies. He has defended employers in single plaintiff and class action employment litigation in federal and state court involving discrimination based on race, age, sex, religion, disability and retaliatory discharge cases involving exercise of First Amendment and other employee protected activity. He has tried jury cases and argued appeals in federal and state courts. In addition, his practice has included counseling and defense of workplace violence threats and incidents requiring involvement with the FBI, Department of Homeland Security and other federal and state agencies. He has authored numerous publications on preventing workplace violence, including as editor of “Preventing and Managing Workplace Violence” published by the ABA.