Meltzer, Purtill & Stelle LLC is pleased to welcome new associates Albert Pali and Jordan Stewart to its growing team of attorneys.
Pali will join the litigation team, while Stewart will focus on commercial real estate and banking and finance.
Pali graduated from the University of Wisconsin Law School, where he was a recipient of the Law-in-Action scholarship. As a law student, Albert completed internships with the Wisconsin Department of Justice Civil Litigation Unit, the Gloucester County Prosecutor’s Office in Woodbury, NJ, and with Judge Debra Seaton in the Chancery Court of Cook County.
Stewart graduated from the University of Illinois College of Law, where he was a Dean’s Scholar and served as the membership editor for the Journal of Law Technology and Policy. He also served as the vice president of the Jewish Law Student Association and competed on the University of Illinois Trial Team.
Both served as MPS summer associates in 2024 and impressed leadership with their curiosity and work ethic.
“My summer associate experience showed me how entrepreneurial MPS is and how willing they are to set their young attorneys up for success,” Pali said. “They assigned me to projects as quickly as possible, and I gained the experience needed to really hit the ground running when I joined the team this fall.”
“I loved the mentorship that MPS provided,” Stewart said. “As a summer associate, I had good, hands-on experience with clients. I worked with every practice group and touched on every aspect of law that the firm covers. It was rewarding and sparked my enthusiasm for joining the firm this fall.”
The MPS Summer Associate program invites law students to the firm each summer, where they work with associates and partners across MPS’s practice areas. The program allows MPS partners and associates to help develop young attorneys and educate them to help serve clients in the long run.
“We bring in law students who are curious, proactive, and devoted to excellence,” said J.L. Cherwin, Jr, MPS partner and director of the summer program. “We ask our summer associates to roll up their sleeves and work as an associate, which gives them a taste of what MPS does best and allows us to see whether they are a good fit for the firm.”
The goal is to develop successful attorneys who will join the firm and find success in the long term. Holly Shuman, a partner whose practice includes commercial leasing, commercial finance, acquisitions, dispositions, and general real estate matters, first joined the firm as a summer associate in the summer of 2013. After graduating law school, she became an associate at the firm.
Less than a decade later, she made partner and has developed a growing practice. “I learned a lot that summer, and I knew they would give me as much work as I could handle,” she said. “Our firm does a great job of letting attorneys rise to the challenge, so I kept on taking new challenges and getting more and more experience, which helped me work my way up. That’s one of the great reasons to become a part of a successful mid-sized firm like MPS.”
In a field where success is typically measured in terms of growth, Meltzer, Purtill & Stelle is that rare law firm where success is defined solely by the needs and satisfaction of the clients it serves. Founded in 1996, the firm maintains offices in Chicago and Schaumburg, with 46 attorneys working in 14 select practice areas focused on real estate, secured lending, litigation, and corporate law.