Of Counsel

Richard Chapin has over forty years of civil litigation experience in the Central Illinois area. Mr. Chapin’s practice is concentrated in insurance law and the defense of personal injury lawsuits. He has experience in the U.S. District Court for the Central Illinois District of Illinois and in the Circuit Courts of more than ten counties located in the East-Central Illinois area. In addition to having taken over twenty-five cases to trial, Mr. Chapin has been involved in the resolution of many cases through binding arbitration and non-binding mediation proceedings.

Mr. Chapin has tried civil rights, municipal liability, product liability, breach of contract, auto liability and professional liability claims. In addition, he has handled a large variety of cases involving transportation, premises, construction site and employment law issues.

Mr. Chapin earned his BA in Political Science, with honors, from the University of Illinois in 1975. He received his JD from the University of Illinois College Law in 1978. He is a member of the Illinois State Bar Association and the Champaign County Bar Association.

In 2005, Mr. Chapin completed an intensive 42 hour training in Mediating the Litigated Case conducted by the Straus Institute for Dispute Resolution, Pepperdine University School of Law. Since that time, he has conducted over four hundred mediation conferences involving a wide variety of cases, involving personal injury as well as commercial disputes, from a number of venues and has continued to pursue education and training regarding the mediation process. He recently addressed a class of twenty one members of the Ministry of Justice of China on the topic of Traffic Accident Dispute Mediation and Arbitration, and participates annually in a panel discussion on mediation at the University of Illinois College of Law.

As a practicing attorney concentrating in civil litigation, Mr. Chapin has personal insights into the negotiations process. He understands the necessity of seeing a case from each party’s perspective. He has experience in examining the strengths and weaknesses of a case from the defense position, as well as from the plaintiff’s position. He believes that the role of a mediator is not to tell the parties what a case is worth, but to facilitate and expedite settlement discussions that might otherwise take weeks or months to conduct between counsel and their clients. In the course of a mediation conference he will offer his opinions regarding the issues of liability, the nature and extent of the claimed damages, the evidentiary issues that might impact the case at trial, as well as thoughts on the venue and jury pool where the case will go to trial. He believes that a good result in a mediation is one where all parties feel that they have had their position heard, discussed and understood, and leave the conference happy to have reached an agreement, even when they have paid more, or received less, than hoped for at the start of the day.

Please contact Holly Johnson, hjohnson@chapinlong.com, for mediation and arbitration rates.

Mr. Chapin earned his BA in Political Science, with honors, from the University of Illinois in 1975. He received his JD from the University of Illinois College of Law in 1978. He is a member of the Illinois State Bar Association and the Champaign County Bar Association. He has been recognized by his peers as a Leading Lawyer in insurance law, personal injury defense law and personal injury alternative dispute resolution.

Associate

Colleen Long’s path to the law was not a straight line. She lived an entire life before joining the rank of attorney. The real-world experience she brings to the practice of law, in addition to the modern legal education she recently excelled at, she is able to legally maneuver while seeing the whole picture of life outside of your legal issue. This whole life approach to your legal issue serves to create an environment of camaraderie and understanding. Her focus is in family law which creates an added need for her abundant empathy and care. Before law school, Colleen enjoyed her time as a stay-at-home mother after a career as a real estate appraiser in her hometown of Bloomington. When life took a turn, Colleen embraced the opportunity afforded by her own divorce to attend law school and graduated from University of Illinois College of Law. Meeting Jim Long and creating a new family with him was the highlight of not only her pandemic but her adult life. With nearly all of their combined children off to college and their own lives, Colleen is grateful to get a chance to help other families “glow up” like she did.