Attorneys & Staff

LARA A. CLEARY, a partner in the law firm of Whitted, Cleary + Takiff, LLC, formerly practiced with Foran & Schultz. Ms. Cleary received her law degree from DePaul University School of Law and her B.S. in education summa cum laude from the University of Missouri-Columbia. Before becoming an attorney, she was a special education teacher for the Chicago Public Schools.

Ms. Cleary's practice is concentrated in the areas of child welfare, mental health and other disability law, special education, confidentiality of information, and representation of individuals, parents of children with disabilities, hospitals, schools and mental health professions.

Ms. Cleary is a popular speaker on the topic of special education law and is an adjunct professor at the University of Illinois College of Medicine, where she teaches a mental health law course for first-year residents. She has served on non-profit boards and was a past appointee of the of the Illinois State Bar Association's Education Law Section Council.