MEGHAN E. TEPAS
Partner

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Meghan Tepas is a Partner in the Croke Fairchild Duarte & Beres Litigation & Investigations and Private Client Services practice groups. 

Meghan is passionate about litigation and approaches each case with creativity, out-of-the-box thinking, and determination. Meghan’s practice focuses on trust, estate, and fiduciary disputes where she represents beneficiaries, trustees, executors, and family-business owners. She has successfully litigated controversies involving breach of trust, trustee removal, and intra-family disputes relating to family businesses, as well as numerous general commercial litigation, breach of fiduciary duty, restrictive covenant, and breach of contract disputes.  

Meghan’s representation of her clients often begins in the early stages of a conflict, counseling and advising on how best to avoid litigation, particularly for matters involving families and personal relationships. However, when litigation is unavoidable, Meghan handles matters zealously through trial and post-trial appellate proceedings. Meghan also represents clients in private arbitration hearings. 

Prior to joining CFDB, Meghan Tepas was a partner in the Litigation, Trust and Fiduciary, and Labor & Employment Practice Groups of Smith, Gambrell & Russell, LLP. Prior to that, she was a partner with Freeborn & Peters, which combined with SGR in 2023. 

Outside of work Ms. Tepas loves her all women-lawyers book club, learning French, and practicing yoga. 

REPRESENTATIVE MATTERS 

Trust and Fiduciary Litigation 

• After substituting in as counsel when the client was on the eve of judgment being entered against it, Ms. Tepas was successful in having a Corporate Shareholder Derivative lawsuit dismissed in its entirety, with prejudice, for lack of standing, and successfully defended the dismissal on appeal. 

• Successfully defeated motion to dismiss against trust beneficiary client in a multi-million-dollar Breach of Trust action against regional corporate trustee. 

• Represented family business client in five-day mediation in contentious Breach of Fiduciary Duty action and secured favorable settlement. 

• Secured dismissal of multi-count lawsuit alleging Breach of Fiduciary Duty, Fraud, Shareholder Oppression, Breach of Employment Agreement on behalf of Illinois asset management company, which was affirmed on appeal. 

• Obtained preliminary injunction against trustee barring its use of trust assets to defend pending Breach of Trust claims.

Commercial Litigation 

• Secured dismissal, with prejudice, of complaint alleging Breach of Business Brokerage Contract on behalf of North Carolina technology company. 

• Obtained dismissal of lawsuit and appeal of Breach of Contract action on behalf of regional financial institution client. 

• Defended national residential alarm services company in multiple Lanham Act lawsuits alleging Unfair Competition and False Advertising (Federal Court, Florida). 

• Successful in securing dismissal of complaint alleging violations of Illinois Securities Law, Breach of Contract, and Conspiracy related to capital investments in local start-up.  

• Successfully defended national corporation client against multi-million-dollar claw-back action relating to Stanford Ponzi Scheme, and submitted amicus brief to the Texas Supreme Court in related class-action litigation (Federal Court, Texas). 

Employment Litigation 

• Drafted, argued, and won motion to dismiss on behalf of public employer entity accused of violating former employees’ contractual and constitutional right to retiree health care benefits. 

• Served as part of the litigation team for global corporate client in a multiple-plaintiff, multiple-defendant child sex abuse case. 

• Successfully defeated requests for Temporary Restraining Order based on alleged violations of Non- Compete, Non-Solicitation, and Non-Disclosure agreements. 

• Conducted months-long investigation and counseled client board of directors through leadership transition following multiple allegations of sexual harassment. 

• Obtained summary judgment on behalf of national health care client in case filed by employee alleging ADA and FMLA violations (Federal Court, Indiana).