Law Offices of Caffarelli & Martin Ltd.

Focus and practice areas

Caffarelli & Martin Ltd. is an employment law firm in downtown Chicago that represents individuals. The site states the firm has operated since 2001 under the same founder. Its cases are brought under both state and federal law.

The firm handles executive representation, wages and overtime, sexual harassment and assault, FMLA claims, wrongful termination, arbitration and administrative proceedings, trial and appeals, and class and collective actions. That list covers most of the ways an employment dispute can be resolved. The firm describes its representation as running from negotiation through trial.

A second list of topics goes further into the detail of wage and workplace claims. It includes whistleblowers and retaliation, government fraud and abuse, Equal Pay Act claims, wage theft and unlawful deductions, unpaid bonuses and commissions, and misclassification of employees. Pregnancy and IVF discrimination, lactation and pumping discrimination, full-recovery return-to-work policies and COBRA notices also appear.

What that mix suggests about the caseload

The topics the firm names sit in different procedural tracks. Wage and hour claims often begin with a complaint under the Fair Labor Standards Act or its Illinois equivalent, and they can be filed for one worker or for a group. Discrimination and harassment claims usually require a charge with the EEOC or the Illinois Department of Human Rights before a lawsuit can be filed, and the agency issues a right to sue letter when it closes the file.

FMLA matters run on different ground. They turn on eligibility hours, employer size, medical certification and whether the worker was returned to an equivalent position. Executive representation is quieter work again: reviewing employment agreements, severance terms, non-compete language and bonus formulas, often without any filing at all.

How the team is built

Four attorneys appear on the firm's people page. Support staff are listed as well.

Alejandro "Alex" Caffarelli founded the firm and describes it as a boutique labor and employment practice. He is a former President of NELA-Illinois, the state affiliate of the plaintiff-side employment bar. He is also a former Board member of the Hispanic Lawyers' Association of Illinois. Both roles are service positions within the profession, and in my opinion they say something useful about where a lawyer spends time beyond billable work.

Alexis D. Martin joined in 2014, which makes her the longest-serving attorney at the firm after the founder. Her practice covers employment litigation under state and federal law. The site lists her work across wage and hour claims for classes and individuals, family and medical leave, unlawful retaliation, discrimination and harassment, and whistleblower claims. She was quoted in a Borderless Magazine article about delays in DACA renewal.

Amanda Burns joined in January 2023. She graduated cum laude from Loyola University Chicago School of Law in 2019. Whitney Barr joined in August 2023 and concentrates her practice in employment litigation.

The shape of a four-attorney office

Two of the four attorneys arrived in 2023, so the firm added staff in a single year. That kind of growth usually follows caseload rather than preceding it. As a reviewer, I read the pairing of a 2001 founding with two recent hires as a practice that has been steady for a long time and is currently expanding.

Small employment firms on the worker side tend to carry a mixed docket by necessity. A single attorney may hold a class wage claim, a handful of individual discrimination charges and a severance negotiation at once. The practice areas the firm names line up with that pattern.

Class and collective work

Class and collective actions appear on the firm's main practice list, which places some of its work on a larger procedural footing. Collective actions under the FLSA operate on an opt-in basis: workers must file written consent to join, and the court decides whether to send notice to the group. Rule 23 class actions run the other way, with class members included unless they opt out.

Both routes involve a certification fight before the merits are reached. The court examines whether the workers are similarly situated, how the pay practice applied across the group, and whether one set of proofs can resolve the claims. Payroll records, timekeeping data and written policies do most of the work at that stage.

A firm of four attorneys taking on that category is making a real commitment. Certification briefing and group discovery absorb a lot of hours before any recovery is in view.

What the record shows

The firm carries a continuous identity back to 2001, and its own materials note that it was previously known as Caffarelli & Associates. The name changed when Alexis Martin's name joined the door. Firms that promote a long-serving associate into the name are signalling something about internal succession.

The firm maintains Facebook, YouTube and LinkedIn profiles, with the LinkedIn page pointed to from the site footer. A YouTube presence is less common for a firm this size than the other two.

Where the listing runs quiet

The site names practice areas and attorneys, and it states when each attorney arrived. It does not publish law school details for three of the four attorneys, nor bar admission years, nor internal titles below founder. Case results and settlement figures are absent from the public pages too.

In my opinion that reticence is worth reading carefully rather than counting against the firm. Plaintiff-side employment settlements are frequently confidential by agreement, and a firm that respects those terms has less to publish than one working in areas without them.

Who the firm is set up to help

The client here is the individual worker. Executives negotiating exit terms, employees denied overtime, workers pushed out after taking leave, and people reporting fraud all appear in the topics the firm names. The Chicago location and the state law focus point to Illinois employment matters as the core of the docket.

Someone weighing this firm will find a small team with a founder who has held office in the state plaintiff employment bar, an attorney of more than a decade's standing, and two lawyers hired in 2023. The firm handles both single-plaintiff cases and group claims, and it takes matters through trial and appeal. The site was last described as operating from Monday to Friday during standard business hours, and it has done employment work under one founder since 2001.