Carly Olson

Carly Olson (she/her/hers) heads up Bielski Chapman’s Estate Planning practice, as well as practicing in the areas of real estate and litigation. She is licensed to practice law in Illinois, Wisconsin, and the Northern and Southern Districts of Illinois.

Prior to joining Bielski Chapman, Carly practiced litigation for seven years, during which she handled matters such as product liability and toxic torts and, as national counsel for a corporation, oversaw Texas and Wisconsin litigation. She also created an original system of discovery management that saved a client thousands of dollars via minimization of redundancies and increased informational organization. She wrote a motion for summary judgment that was granted in the Southern District of Illinois, leading to the dismissal of seven of her client’s cases.

As Law Clerk to the Honorable John H. Ehrlich, working in the Motion Section of Cook County’s Law Division, Carly researched issues of fact and law and drafted memorandum opinions and orders on common law tort matters from their inception until they went to trial. She worked on matters including personal injury, professional malpractice (legal and medical), construction, and premises liability.

Carly graduated from the Northwestern University School of Law (now the Pritzker School of Law) in 2012. There, she received the Wigmore Scholarship, Northwestern’s highest scholarship. She served as a Note & Comment Editor for Northwestern’s Journal of Technology and Intellectual Property, where her article, Changing Tides in Music Licensing? BMI v. DMX and In re THP, was published. While in law school, Carly externed for the Honorable Virginia Kendall of the Northern District of Illinois, where she observed court proceedings and researched and drafted memoranda. She also worked as a volunteer law clerk with the appellate division of the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office.

Prior to law school, Carly graduated cum laude from Northwestern University with degrees in Theatre and English. There, she was selected as a participant in the Fiction Writing program, a two-year creative writing intensive. She has continued performing and writing thereafter, and her short plays have been produced by the Gift Theatre and the American Theatre Company. She graduated from the Second City Conservatory and has performed improv and sketch comedy at improvOlympic, Second City, the Apollo Theater, and the Gift Theatre.

In her free time, Carly volunteers with the National Lawyers Guild, PAWS Chicago (Pets Are Worth Saving), the Special Olympics, and various political campaigns and community organizations.