Velasco & Rickard LLC
Attorneys At Law
email us
Home Page
Our Approach
Velasco & Rickard LLC works effectively and honorably to resolve issues in the areas of business and family law. The firm's approach is both professional and direct. We listen. We educate. We set clear, coherent and reasonable expectations. We evaluate possible outcomes. We explore realistic timelines. Of equal importance, we confer about strategies to control costs.
Business & Litigation Issues
From forming the corporation to taking part in litigation, Velasco & Rickard LLC provides services for any and all business needs.Personal & Family Issues
Velasco & Rickard LLC provides a wide range of services to take care of our clients' personal and familial needs including but not limited to divorce, child custody, civil union agreements, premarital agreements, asset protection and EB-5s.
Our Firm
Firm Profile
James Velasco and Danielle Rickard founded Velasco & Rickard LLC in 2007 to address the corporate and familial needs of their clients. In order to handle these needs, the firm operates in a number of practice areas.
James Velasco and Danielle Rickard merge their skills and experience to provide their clients with the most effective representation and dynamic solutions.
Business & Litgation
Our Services
Velasco & Rickard LLC serves as business lawyers to entrepreneurial and family owned businesses. We help clients in forming business entities, drafting both personal and business contracts, drafting leases, settling membership and ownership issues, drafting employment policies, resolving business disputes, reviewing operating agreements, and providing legal representation in court.
Velasco & Rickard LLC also offers services related to foreign investor participation in the EB-5 government program and asset protection, often essential for all business owners and investors.
Personal & Family
Our Services
Velasco & Rickard LLC offers services related to all matters of personal and family law issues, including divorce, child custody & support, civil union agreements, premarital agreements, asset protection and EB-5s.
At Velasco & Rickard LLC, we pride ourselves on our communication, planning and professionalism. We inform our clients of what is possible and present the most direct plan for achieving the possible.
Asset Protection for Professionals
Our Services
Our firm has a multidisciplinary approach to preserving business and personal wealth. For professionals working in industries where there is a greater likelihood of being sued, devising a plan for protecting business and personal assets during one's lifetime is often overlooked. Our firm works with physicians, lawyers, and other persons of high net worth to protect their current and future assets. Our unique team of attorneys and consultants has experience with the various types of exposure for professionals and persons of wealth. Our firm will create a protection plan that will benefit you and your heirs.
Outside General Counsel
Our Services
As experienced outside general counsel, Velasco & Rickard LLC works proactively to reduce internal risks and manage external legal needs. Our outside general counsel work is cost effective, efficient and responsive.
Velasco & Rickard LLC is your value-added contact point for advising, drafting and negotiating. We understand your business, your needs and your bottom line.
Family Business Succession Planning
Our Services
Velasco & Rickard LLC helps today's business owner reap the rewards from today's succession planning. Solve tomorrow's problems today: management, ownership and taxes.
Succession planning allows business owners to resolve equity and shareholder concerns as well as deal with the technicalities of buy-sell agreements, insurance and estate planning.
Mediation
Our Services
Mediation is a private, non-adversarial, cost effective and efficient way to resolve conflict. Mediation is a great tool for both couples and businesses. During mediation, expectancies are explored, choices are discussed, information is shared and analyses are developed.
The attorneys at Velasco & Rickard LLC are trained mediators. As attorney-mediators, we bring the authority that comes with knowledge of the law to the mediation process.
EB-1, EB-2, NIW, EB-5 & H-1B
Our Services
For foreign investors who are interested in participating in the EB-5 USA immigration program, Velasco & Rickard LLC offers assistance at every stage of the process. Obtaining EB-5 status is a complex and detailed process. Velasco & Rickard LLC assists the investor in overcoming difficulties along the way.
For those individuals with "extraordinary ability," talent or accomplishments in the arts, sciences, business or athletics, or who have extraordinary achievement in the motion picture or television industry, Velasco & Rickard LLC is here to help you through the process of obtaining a visa.
For those businesses seeking to employ a foreign worker in a specialty occupation, Velasco & Rickard LLC can help you through the process of petitioning for an H-1B on behalf of that foreign worker.
Although Velasco & Rickard LLC does maintain membership in AILA, we limit our legal assistance in immigration matters to foreign investors seeking EB-5 status for themselves and their families and those individuals looking to obtain visas based on their talent, accomplishments or education.
Our Attorneys
James Velasco
James Velasco is one of the founding and managing partners of Velasco & Rickard LLC. He received his undergraduate, graduate and law degrees from Loyola University Chicago where he was a Presidential Scholar in 1968 and a member of Alpha Sigma Nu, the Jesuit Honor Society.
James has spent the past three decades litigating complex legal issues. Although he has extensive trial experience, his primary goal is to negotiate the best settlement possible for the firm’s clients and to avoid the high cost of litigation whenever possible.
Before attending law school, James taught Classical Greek at Loyola Academy in Wilmette. James has volunteered to teach a colloquium about justice and litigation at Northside College Prep High School, where his daughter is currently a sophomore. He lives with his wife, a Chinese artist, and his daughter.
Leslie T. Lederer
Leslie T. Lederer has recently joined Velasco & Rickard LLC on an of counsel basis. He received both his Bachelor’s degree in accounting and Juris Doctorate from the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana. Along with being a member of the Illinois State Bar, Les is also a Certified Public Accountant in Illinois.
Les came to Velasco & Rickard LLC from the corporate setting where he was both general counsel and vice president for a fortune five hundred corporation. He has played an active role in taking a major corporation from a $250 million enterprise to a leading USA manufacturer with revenues in excess of $7 billion. He has also played a major role in acquisitions and mergers worth billions of dollars.
Danielle Rickard
Danielle Rickard is one of the founding partners of Velasco & Rickard LLC. She earned her bachelor's degree from Indiana University Bloomington and received her Master's Degree from Loyola University Chicago where she was trained as a family therapist. Danielle then earned her law degree from Loyola University Chicago.
While in law school, Danielle was a Senior Editor of the Annals of Health Law Journal and an Editor for the Journal of Children's Legal Rights. Two of Danielle's articles were published in the Journal of Children's Legal Rights: "Second Parent Adoption: An Update on the Most Recent Court Decision" (2004) and "In the Courts" (2004). Most recently, Danielle was named Illinois Rising Star 2012 for family law.
Brittany Roebke
Brittany Roebke has recently joined Velasco & Rickard LLC as an associate attorney; she, during law school, had worked at Velasco & Rickard LLC as a clerk and researcher. Brittany received her undergraduate degree from Truman State University and her Juris Doctorate from Chicago-Kent College of Law.
Brittany was awarded the President’s Scholarship from Truman State, an academic based scholarship that covered the full cost of her undergraduate tuition. She was also awarded a full tuition scholarship from Chicago-Kent.
During her time in law school, Brittany became a Center for Conflict Resolution Certified Mediator. She also worked as an extern for the Honorable Michael Panter in Parentage and Child Support Court.
Contact Us
Contact Address
Velasco & Rickard LLC
161 N. Clark
Suite 3200
Chicago, IL 60601
Telephone: +1 312 240 1122
Fax: +1 312 240 0072
E-mail: vrlaw@me.com
View Larger Map
Contact Form