Riley Safer Holmes & Cancila LLP (RSHC) welcomes new partner Kalia Coleman to the firm’s Government Enforcement, Investigations & White Collar Criminal Defense practice. 

Coleman joins the firm following nearly six years with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Illinois, where she most recently served as Deputy Chief of the General Crimes Division. 

Coleman is the third former Assistant U.S. Attorney to join the firm in the last several months. Georgia Alexakis, formerly Deputy Chief of Appeals in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Illinois’ Criminal Division, joined RSHC in August. Abigail Peluso, former Deputy Chief in the General Crimes Section, joined RSHC in September. 

“We are proud to welcome Kalia to the firm,” said RSHC Managing Partner Patricia Brown Holmes. “She is a tremendously accomplished trial lawyer and investigator with great insights into the workings of government enforcement actions around complex state and federal statutes. With this addition, our White Collar team is truly in a class of its own, unmatched for depth and diversity of experience.” 

RSHC is nationally ranked for white collar criminal defense by Chambers USA and the 2022 U.S. News – Best Lawyers® “Best Law Firms” list. In 2020, legal industry consultants BTI Consulting Group honored the firm as a “Midsize Heavyweight,” one of just 37 midsize firms nationwide that business clients said give them “the same level of confidence and reliability as the big firms.” RSHC’s success in white collar work comes from the long experience of a deep bench of talent unmatched among mid-sized and even many global firms. RSHC’s ranks now include seven former Assistant U.S. Attorneys, a former prosecutor in the New York District Attorney’s Office, a former federal defender, a former Department of Justice trial lawyer, and multiple former state prosecutors. 

“I am thrilled to be joining such an outstanding group of lawyers,” said Coleman. “RSHC is an innovative and dynamic place to be, and I’m excited to launch the next phase of my career here.” 

At the U.S. Attorney’s office, Coleman led trial teams through multiple federal jury trials, briefed and argued multiple appeals before the Seventh Circuit, and supervised other Assistant U.S. Attorneys in handling investigations and prosecutions around narcotics and money laundering, racketeering, bank robbery, and various white collar fraud issues. Before serving as a federal prosecutor, she was an Assistant State’s Attorney for the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office where she litigated over one hundred bench trials and numerous jury trials. 

Coleman earned her undergraduate degree from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and her law degree from Loyola University Chicago School of Law. 

About RSHC 
Fortune 500 and other market-leading businesses turn to the elite trial teams and C-Suite advisors of Riley Safer Holmes & Cancila LLP (RSHC) to handle their most pressing challenges. Noted by the Chambers Diversity & Inclusion Awards as “a true diversity and inclusion pioneer for the profession,” the firm draws from its authentic diversity to assemble bespoke teams for each engagement, incorporating multiple perspectives to craft legal strategies and deliver business insights that create success in both the courtroom and boardroom. RSHC attorneys are united by a culture of excellence that is relentlessly client-focused, dynamically innovative, and passionately committed to winning. Learn more about RSHC.