Looking to the future: 10 trial lawyers on the rise

By Maria Kantzavelos

There’s a special breed of lawyer that thrives on the courtroom battle.

For them, arguing a case in front of a jury can be the most thrilling aspect of practicing law.

Every generation has seen its gifted trial ­lawyers. And while there may be fewer oppor­tunities today — particularly in the civil arena — than there were for the lawyers who honed their trial skills in the courtroom decades ago, there are promising young lawyers who are rising above that challenge.

Chicago Lawyer spoke with veteran trial lawyers, law firm partners, judges and other prominent people in the legal community to find some of the stellar trial lawyers of the next generation, those in their 30s and early 40s who bear watching in the years ahead.

There are many young trial lawyers who are showing excellence in the courtroom. We believe the ten profiled here are among them.

Joseph W. Balesteri

When Joseph W. Balesteri travels out of town for depositions in cases of catastrophically ­injured clients, cab rides become the ­perfect time to put a case to the test.

“I talk to cabbies all the time,” said Balesteri, an associate at Power Rogers & Smith who ­focuses on representing plaintiffs in medical malpractice cases. “They’ll ask questions that are important that maybe you didn’t think were important, things that are bothering them about the fact pattern.”

Those discussions with cabbies can make for good practice later on, Balesteri said, when the captive audience is 12 jurors.

“The [medical] terminology is foreign to everyone in the courtroom, and it has to be explained in a delicate, fair, yet comprehensive way,” Balesteri said. “You have to go back to how you would sit down over a glass of wine and explain something to your wife, and you pretend you’re doing that with the jury.”

Balesteri, 37, estimates that the cases he has worked on have resulted in verdicts and settlements exceeding $200 million.

“He does a very nice job of explaining a case to the jury,” said Joseph A. Power Jr., founding partner of the firm. “Joe is a very bright ­individual, and he is very tenacious. He has a good grasp of the medicine, and he gets to the bottom of every problem.”

Growing up as the son of a cardiologist, Balesteri knew in high school that he wanted to be a lawyer. But he never thought he’d end up suing doctors for a living. He first worked as a law clerk for Power Rogers & Smith just to “learn from the best people who do it.”

After law school, he joined Hinshaw & ­Culbertson, following through with his plan to defend physicians. His five years there turned out to be a “great training ground” for what would come in 2000. That’s when he was asked to sign on to the plaintiff’s firm of Power Rogers & Smith.

He accepted the offer, but not before checking with his dad.

“I got clearance from the tower,” Balesteri said. “It was an offer I would never refuse. They have the best cases in the country and they’re great trial lawyers, so I’d be insane not to work here. But if it was going to embarrass my dad, I wouldn’t have switched.”

Richard H. Donohue, a veteran defense ­law­yer at Donohue Brown Mathewson & Smyth who specializes in catastrophic injury claims against hospitals and physicians, has opposed Balesteri in a few cases.

“He’s got wonderful mentors there, two of the best lawyers in town, probably in the state and the country,” Donohue said. “He’s got the fire, the brains, he has had very good training. But he’s able to be himself — that’s kind of the trick of it.”

Joseph A. Camarra, a partner at Cassiday Schade who defends hospitals and physicians, has seen Balesteri in action.

“I think he’s going to be one of the leading people on the plaintiff side in this business,” Camarra said. “He’s always prepared. He knows medicine, which in this business is essential, and he’s a straight guy.”

Mark M. Burden

For Mark M. Burden, the anxiety that comes with gearing up for trial tends to subside when the judge says: “Okay, Mr. Burden, you can ­address the jury.”

“You’re nervous up until the point when the judge calls your name. Once you get going and in your zone, it’s a lot of fun,” Burden said. “Once the whistle blows, and the game starts and you’re in front of the jury, it’s like playing a sport. You’re just totally focused and everything else falls out of your mind, and it’s ­actually enjoyable.”

Burden, 40, has served as first chair in all but two of the 20 civil trials he has handled in his career. As a partner in Donohue Brown Mathewson & Smyth, Burden, the son of a urologist, focuses on defending professional negligence cases — primarily cases against doctors and hospitals — as well as product ­liability actions.

“I can empathize with a physician who’s­ being accused of having harmed somebody, when they were really just trying to help,” he said.

Burden was the youngest of the associates in the litigation department at Baker & McKenzie who followed Richard H. Donohue, Donald J. Brown Jr., J. Kent Mathewson, and Robert W. Smyth Jr. in 1995, when the partners formed their litigation boutique.

Burden jumped at the chance to follow Donohue when he asked the third-year associate to join the new firm.

“[Donohue's] one of the top, if not the top, trial attorneys in what we do,” Burden said. “I thought to myself, if I want to be a trial lawyer I should go with these guys, because these guys are going to be trying a lot of cases.”

“He’s been everything we hoped he would be,” Donohue said. “He’s certainly not afraid to try a case, and he has been successful doing it.”

Of the 20 cases he had tried to verdict as of early January, Burden only lost one. Another resulted in a hung jury.

“The way I do it is, when you’re working a case up and going through discovery, you try and develop a theme, or two themes. What one or two things do I want to prove to a jury, and if I prove these things will I win?” Burden said. “The sooner you do that, the better.”

David R. Barry Jr., a partner at Corboy & Demetrio, described Burden as a passionate advocate, with a great command of the facts and the law, a credible jury presence, and with keen insight into an opponent’s case.

“He recognizes where the weaknesses are in your case and he drums on them. It’s a very smart way to approach a case when you’re a defense attorney,” Barry said.

“You can tell his arguments come from the heart, and that type of empathy resonates well with jurors,” Barry said. “You have to really ­believe in the righteousness of the position you’re taking, because you can’t fake it. If you really believe in it and the jury finds you credible, that’s a recipe for success. He does that.”

Jennifer F. Coleman

For Jennifer F. Coleman, a prosecutor who specializes in domestic violence cases, one of the most challenging aspects of her job can also be the most rewarding.

As an assistant Cook County state’s attorney in the felony Domestic Violence Division, she has tried many murder cases involving children as witnesses to brutal crimes against one ­parent, at the hand of another.

“If you have a child who’s going to testify against an adult who was their parent, it can be very emotional and difficult for them,” Coleman said. “It’s tough. But at the same time, the kids, when they’re done, I think they sometimes feel empowered by it. I love dealing with the kids that way.”

At 38, Coleman, herself a mother of two children who is expecting a third child, said the domestic cases involving children left ­essentially orphaned by a parent’s murder are the ones that stay with her.

“On holidays I always think about them and how hard that would be, on that first Mother’s Day when it’s a little more raw than any other day,” Coleman said.

Then there are the cases involving children as murder victims, she said, like the one she tried a few years ago, when a jury found the mother of a 5-year-old boy guilty of child ­endangerment and her boyfriend guilty of first-degree murder for beating the boy to death.

“There was something about that kid — it just seemed like he didn’t have a chance,” Coleman said. “His real father was in jail, ­serving a long sentence. His mom hooked up with this guy, she wasn’t protecting [her son] from him. His grandparents were wonderful, but they got shut out of his life. I just always wondered what he’d be doing today if he had a different start in life.”

Coleman joined the office after law school in 1995, making her way into a felony trial courtroom by 1999 and rising to first chair in 2002.

She estimates that she has handled about 50 jury trials, about half of them murder trials.

Cook County Associate Judge Jorge L. Alonso, a former assistant Cook County public defender, opposed Coleman as a defense ­attorney several years ago.

“She was always hard-working, prepared, an excellent litigator. If she told you something you could take it to the bank that it was true. She was very open and trustworthy,” Alonso said. “You could tell even back then that she was going to be a superstar in the ­office. I think she’s on her way.”

In 2004, Coleman landed her assignment in the felony Domestic Violence Unit, where she handled 25 to 30 homicide cases at a time.

This past summer, she was promoted to deputy supervisor of the division of specially trained prosecutors who handle both ­mis­demeanor and felony domestic-related cases.

“She’s so good at what she does that she’s
a wonderful tool for the younger ASAs. She’s a great role model,” said Karin Dooley, the ­division’s supervisor.

John H. Brassil, a prosecuter who has partnered with Coleman on many cases, described her as a tough trial lawyer who can think on her feet.

“Jenny brings a great deal of compassion to her work, and that’s why she’s so good at what she’s doing,” Brassil said. “She’s very strong-willed, and loves to speak out for victims who can’t speak for themselves.”

Robert W. Johnson

As a member of the Cook County Public Defender’s Homicide Task Force, almost every murder trial Robert W. Johnson handled ­involved witnesses who claimed they saw his client commit the slaying.

In one case, Johnson recalled, his client had the victim’s blood on his shoes and a ­news­paper clipping of the crime in his pocket when he was arrested.

“There was quite a bit of evidence against him,” Johnson said. “I thought it was going to be tough. But you don’t go to trial without thinking you’re going to win, no matter how bad it is.”

That trial resulted in a not guilty verdict. So did 80 percent of the many murder trials of the indigent clients Johnson defended in his three years on the task force, its chief, Crystal H. Marchigiani, pointed out.

But Johnson, 41, isn’t quick to talk about his impressive win/loss record.

“You kind of lose your edge if you are resting on your laurels,” he said. “I enjoy it for a day, and go on to the next case.”

In October, after 13 years in the public ­defender’s office, Johnson opened his own practice, with a focus on major felonies and civil rights.

An “Air Force brat” who grew up in Omaha, Neb., Johnson spent his boyhood summers visiting relatives in Topeka, Kan. That’s where his mother attended elementary school during the historic challenge to school segregation in Brown v. Board of Education.

“My family used to talk about that when I was growing up. That intrigued me. It kind of let me know, you can really change things if you’re effective in the courtroom,” he said.

Johnson knew early on that he wanted to become a trial lawyer, and “fell in love” with the idea of defense work.

“I think it has some unique challenges that kind of fit my personality,” he said. “I never liked bullies, and the idea of the little guy not having someone to advocate for them who’s of high quality, I wanted to change all that.”

At more than six-feet-two-inches tall, Johnson is admittedly quiet in social settings.

“People can’t even believe I’m a trial attorney. If we were at a cocktail party, I probably wouldn’t be talking to anybody,” he said. “Give me a case in front of a jury and I have a hard time shutting up.

“It’s just the adrenalin, the excitement up in front of a jury, thinking on your feet,” Johnson said. “There’s always something unexpected that comes up and you have to deal with it on this public stage. You have to react to it and not look surprised because the jury is watching, the people in the gallery are watching, and someone’s life is on the line.”

In court, said Marchigiani, Johnson has “that thing all trial lawyers want.”

“It’s charisma,” she said. “He’s very charming. He’s a big, handsome guy with a soft voice and a soft presentation and, yet, what it makes you do is lean forward to hear him.”

What jurors hear, Marchigiani said, is the culmination of Johnson’s hard work in pre­paring a case.

“I think what juries respond to is his sincerity and integrity. He has always investigated a case completely,” Marchigiani said. “He knows how to take a look at a case so that if you look at it one way it looks like the client was ­involved, but if you look at it another way he wasn’t.”

Johnson has tried murder cases in the ­court­room of Michael P. Toomin, a supervising judge in the criminal division of the Cook County Circuit Court.

“He is routinely well-prepared. He has ­excellent trial skills, both in examination of witnesses and arguments to the jury,” Toomin said. “His appeals to the jury reflect considered analytical abilities and understanding of jury dynamics.”

Elizabeth A. Kaveny

Elizabeth A. Kaveny’s approach to representing a plaintiff in a personal injury case is to make it personal.

It all starts, she said, with her work-up of a case, and her relationship with her client.

“I like to pride myself on becoming intimately involved with my clients and their lives, so that I feel what they have been through, and I feel their injury,” said Kaveny, a partner in Propes & Kaveny, which she co-founded in 2000 with veteran trial lawyer Lorna Propes.

In the case of a woman whose physician is accused of failing to timely diagnose her cervical cancer, for example, that means Kaveny keeps close tabs on her client’s battle with the disease — from the woman’s initial experiences with an oncologist and surgeries, through chemotherapy, radiation treatments, and counseling sessions.

“My trial strategy is to now put the jury in that position. Give them that knowledge so that they, too, feel this person’s injury and feel what they have gone through,” she said. “If I can convey it well enough, and they can feel it strongly enough, then they will automatically do the right thing and provide my client with the justice they deserve.”

Kaveny, 42, estimates that she has tried about 20 civil cases to verdict — with no losses in the last 10 years.

This past fall, she co-tried a civil rights case alongside former Illinois Appellate Court ­justice R. Eugene Pincham. In the case, a high school principal claimed she was falsely ­arrested by the Chicago police after placing
a 911 call seeking help in response to a girls gang fight.

“When [Kaveny] made the opening statement it was superb, persuasive and convincing,” Pincham said. “She made a dynamic opening statement, and then she followed through with the witness — the plaintiff — and I almost had tears coming out of my eyes.

“You see a lot of lawyers out there, they talk the big game, but they’re as phony as a three-dollar bill,” Pincham said. “Beth is genuinely sincere, and the jurors detect it. It causes them to repose a degree of high confidence in her.”

Kaveny said she knew before law school that she wanted to be a lawyer battling it out in court.

“I knew my personality was more of a trial attorney than an academic type of lawyer, ­because I’m a bit of a drama queen,” she said.

Raised in Pittsburg, Pa., she moved to Chicago after law school, and started trying criminal cases when she went to work for Cook County Judge James R. Epstein, then a partner in the small trial firm of ­Epstein, Zaideman & Esrig.

“I just wouldn’t take no for an answer,” she said. “I told them I would work for them for a month for free, and if they didn’t like me I would walk away.”

Five years later, Kaveny joined Propes & Garippo, where she ­handled plaintiff’s personal injury cases. The firm merged with Cahil Christian & Kunkle, where Kaveny rose to partner before she and Propes left to form Propes & Kaveny.

Scott C. Bentivenga, a medical malpractice defense lawyer with Bollinger, Ruberry & Garvey who opposed Kaveny in a 2004 trial, said she is an “extremely well-prepared” trial lawyer.

“She was a very tough opponent. Nothing was going to get past her,” Bentivenga said. “But she’s also a very nice person.”

Kaveny is also the mother of four children, including twin girls, Kathleen and Meredith, who were born on Jan. 9.

Chris Lind

Armed with a bachelor’s degree in economics, Chris Lind entered law school with the idea of venturing into the business world.

“I didn’t believe an MBA, educationally, was as worthwhile as a law degree. I went to law school thinking I’d leverage the law degree into the business world,” he said.

But that plan quickly changed.

“As soon as I got to law school, I enjoyed the debate and trial side of it,” said Lind, who graduated first in the class of 1994 at Northwestern University School of Law. “I quickly learned it would be a heck of a lot of fun to be a trial lawyer.”

At 39, Lind, who is a partner in Bartlit Beck Herman Palenchar & Scott, has successfully represented major corporations and Big Four accounting firms in big-ticket litigation — mostly on the defense side — in trials involving patent infringement, accountant liability, ­antitrust, and other commercial disputes. He has also had success on the plaintiff’s side, and was appointed special trial counsel to the U.S. Department of Justice in 2001 in its antitrust action against Microsoft.

“This allows me to have the adversary process of being a trial lawyer, but at the same time learn about how lots of different businesses work, and still being immersed in the business world,” Lind said. “Instead of running the company, you’re helping companies solve their problems.”

Lind estimates he has handled dozens of cases, including approximately 10 trials, half of which he served in a first-chair role.

“It’s an unbelievable adrenalin rush and high. It’s the most exciting and satisfying part of practicing law,” Lind said.

On a month-long trial, he said, except for Saturday nights and sometimes Friday nights, “I probably sleep three or four hours a night — for 30 days straight.

“You’re on your feet, paying close attention to everything that ­happens the whole time,” Lind said. “It’s truly a physical, as much as mental, battle. But that makes it fun.”

His recent victories include two wins for United Technologies’ Hamilton Sundstrand division against Honeywell International, Inc.: the reversal of a $46.5 million jury verdict in a patent infringement case, and a defense verdict in a patent infringement case where ­Honey­well was seeking $135 million.

Except for a one-year clerkship with Judge A. Raymond Randolph on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, Lind has spent his ­entire 14-year law career with Bartlit Beck.

In court, said Philip S. Beck, Lind is a “spectacular” cross-examiner.

“He has the whole package, but the most difficult thing in trial work is cross-examining witnesses. You’re doing battle with some very savvy, smart people. You’re basically arguing economics with an economist, or you’re arguing engineering with an engineer,” Beck said. “That’s really where Chris shines.”

C. Barry Montgomery, of Williams Montgomery & John, worked with Lind on a case in which his firm partnered with Bartlit Beck. He said Lind’s “combination of intellect, demeanor, ease in the courtroom, and work ethic make him one of the most effective trial lawyers I know.”

Bradford P. Lyerla, of Marshall Gerstein
& Borun, who opposed Lind on a case, said, “His ability to make arguments, his ability to respond to the inevitable little, surprising ­disputes that come up daily in a trial — he graded very highly in all that stuff, better than some of the more experienced lawyers I’ve seen.”

Jon Loevy

When civil rights attorney Jon Loevy ­decided to go on his own after less than two years at Sidley Austin, he opened up shop without an office, let alone a legal pad.

In 1997 it was just Loevy, with a computer and a phone, he said, working out of his garden apartment in Lakeview.

“My business model was to keep my overhead very, very low. That way, if I made a little money I could pay the rent,” Loevy said.

He also had no trial experience.

Loevy never took a trial advocacy class in law school. And during his stint at Sidley — where he learned “the right way to practice law” — he never sat in a courtroom.

For experience, he took a few trials handed to him by personal injury lawyer friends.

“I did three or four of them in state court just so I could figure out the rules … just to ­figure out where to stand,” he said. “I watched what other people were doing. I did what they did, and then I trusted myself.”

Loevy, 40, has come a long way from his Lakeview apartment. He and his wife, Danielle, formed Loevy & Loevy, which has grown to 14 lawyers focusing on representing plaintiffs in civil rights cases, including police ­mis­­conduct and wrongful convictions.

Loevy estimated that he has handled more than 20 civil rights trials in federal court, ­winning 14 of the last 16. He has won eight verdicts of at least $1 million, and won seven of the last eight appeals in civil rights cases before the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

“We settle plenty, but I think more so than most firms, we’re willing to say, ‘We’re not going to go away for what you’re offering. We’ll stand trial,’” Loevy said.

When he started out, Loevy said, “I just ­applied the same level of legal work that got applied at the Sidley Austins of the world to these cases. Cases people said really couldn’t be won, we won. Once we started winning, we started growing. If you start winning, ­people start coming to you.”

Chief U.S. District Judge James F. Holderman called Loevy an “outstanding trial lawyer” whose “ability belies his years of experience,” praising Loevy’s trial skills in a 2003 opinion dealing with the issue of legal fees in the case of George Garcia v. City of Chicago.

“Jon Loevy’s poise, analysis, and demeanor in front of the jury, as well as his rapier-like cross-examination style, are reminiscent of the trial skills displayed by some of the nationally recognized trial lawyers in this community when they were the age that Jon Loevy is now,” Holderman wrote.

One of the first cases he tried in federal court was Regalado v. Chicago in 1999, which resulted in a $28 million verdict for his client, a man who alleged he was beaten into a coma by two Chicago police officers. In one of his more recent cases, the city agreed to pay $4 million, avoiding the damages phase of a trial in which a federal jury found two Chicago police officers liable for putting a screwdriver into his client’s rectum during a traffic stop.

Andrew M. Hale, a partner in Rock Fusco, has opposed Loevy in several cases.

“He’s very, very persistent in trying to make a point. He does not give up very easily. He’s so confident that he’ll just plow on,” Hale said. “He’s very smart. And, since he’s done so many trials, he’s very comfortable and confident in the courtroom. For him, it’s like being in his living room.”

Todd S. Pugh

In the summer of 1995, then-Northwestern University law professor Lawrence Marshall and a team of lawyers led by criminal defense attorney Thomas M. Breen were preparing for the retrial of former Death Row inmate Rolando Cruz, who would be acquitted later that year of the murder of Jeanine Nicarico.

Todd S. Pugh was a first-year student at De Paul University College of Law, referred to Marshall for summer work in death penalty advocacy.

“He was a tall guy with two pierced ears and I said to myself, ‘Oh my God, what have they done to me by assigning him to me?’” Breen recalled. “I gave him some tasks and saw that he was a work machine. We ended up spending a great deal of time together. His work product was just phenomenal.”

After over a decade of working alongside Breen, Pugh, 40, has risen to partner in Breen Pugh & Associates.

“It’s gotten to the point over the years where I know everything he’s going to do before he does it, and vice versa. He has an ability to stay up on the law much better than I do,” said Breen, adding that Pugh’s common-sense ­approach to juries and his ability to relate well to clients are some of his greatest attributes as a trial lawyer.

From the start, said Pugh, Breen has been his role model.

“I thought his presence in the courtroom and the way he prepared a case to be everything I wanted to do,” Pugh said. “When I saw him in the courtroom the first time, he was a giant in the courtroom.”

Pugh became attracted to the law and criminal defense work when he was a student at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton, where he served as an intern with the Palm Beach County Public Defender’s office.

“To me, criminal law is really the highest-stakes game there is in the practice of law,
as opposed to litigating money and property ­issues,” Pugh said. “As a criminal defense attorney or a prosecutor, we really litigate lives.”

That’s what he likes about the practice, he said, but it is also what he hates about it.

“It puts knots in my stomach, and it keeps you awake at night,” he said. “But the highs are better than the lows. There’s a lot of adrenalin associated with it, and I think most of the cases I try, I put a lot of my own person into it.”

His latest trials include the trial of a former city of Chicago employee who was acquitted of charges of first-degree murder and aggravated vehicular hijacking, but convicted of second-degree murder in the 2005 killing of a cabdriver stemming from a fight over a fare; and the trial of Jeanette Sliwinski, who was charged with first-degree murder, but found guilty of reckless homicide for killing three musicians when she drove her car into another in an apparent suicide attempt.

In representing the lead defendant in the trial of three men accused of involuntary ­man­slaughter in the 2003 E-2 nightclub stampede that killed 21 people, he worked on a brief in support of a motion for acquittal of all the ­defendants after the state rested its case, which the judge granted.

“He was very thorough, very well-prepared, and very good on his feet,” said Robert R. Egan, an assistant Cook County state’s attorney who prosecuted the E-2 case. “Add to that the fact that he was a gentleman, and very professional in his comportment with the court and other counsel, which unfortunately, we don’t see enough of these days.”

Julie B. Ruder

Julie B. Ruder by 2003 had risen to non-share partner at Kirkland & Ellis, where she was working on commercial cases in the litigation department of a firm she really liked.

She knew her next move in the years ahead could take her into the ranks of equity partner. She also knew she had reached a crossroad.

The single mother of two young children recalled sitting in an airport during one of her travels for the firm, when she began to question the nature of her work and the time she was spending away from her kids.

“I never seriously contemplated not working at all — that wouldn’t suit me,” Ruder said. “It was more about, how can I use my time and devote my career to something that is not only productive for my family, but also something that is meaningful for me — something I think is important and good?” Ruder said.

At 35, Ruder now spends her time fighting public corruption and child exploitation as an assistant U.S. attorney. She joined the office in March 2004.

“This job I’m doing now, this is as real as it gets,” Ruder said. “When you indict somebody, that is very serious business. The consequences for being convicted of a crime are dire — you go to jail, you lose your liberty.”

In nearly four years in the U.S. Attorney’s office, Ruder has tried seven jury trials, showcasing her legal skills in some of the most complex and high-profile federal cases in Chicago in recent years.

She was part of the team of prosecutors who handled the four-month-long trial of Conrad Black, delivering a closing argument that lasted seven hours.

“She did extremely well,” said Ronald S. Safer, managing partner in Schiff Hardin who defended Mark S. Kipnis, a co-defendant in the Black case. “She has a straightforward, earnest manner that I believe plays well with the jury. She did a good job of organizing a massive record, and delivering it to the jury.”

Not long after joining the office, Ruder was assigned to the federal investigation of the city’s Hired Truck Program, which expanded into an investigation into City Hall fraudulent ­hiring practices, yielding numerous convictions, including that of Mayor Richard M. Daley’s former patronage chief, Robert Sorich.

“She’s really been launched to the stratosphere. She’ll be one of the best that office has ever generated,” said Perkins Coie partner Patrick Collins, a former top assistant U.S. ­attorney who supervised Ruder.

Ruder was part of the trial team that prosecuted Sorich.

“Julie really has a very firm understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of her case and presents her case in a way that doesn’t overstate or understate it,” Collins said. “She develops an enormous rapport and credibility with the jury. When Julie gets up to speak, the jury ­begins to say to themselves, ‘We’re going to hear the truth from her, she’s going to tell us how it ­really happened — the good and the bad.’”

Aiju C. Thevatheril

Aiju C. Thevatheril has a two-part modus operandi for defending doctors and hospitals accused of medical malpractice.

First, know more about the medicine at issue than the opposing counsel. Second, strive to know at least as much medicine as the ­expert you’re about to cross-examine.

That second part, he said, is key.”In that particular area of medicine, you should know at least as much medicine as that physician who has gone to medical school,” Thevatheril said. “You’re never going to match their knowledge base, but you should at least try to match their knowledge base.”

With that goal in mind, said Thevatheril, “You hit the books hard. You hit them just like a physician who is in subspecialty training.”

That’s likely what he would have been doing if he had chosen to enter medical school, an idea he was contemplating in college.

But Thevatheril, who emigrated from Bhopal, India, to the U.S. when he was a teen, wanted more.

“If I went to medical school, I would’ve just been doing medicine. This ­allows me the opportunity to get up and speak in front of a jury, and talk about medicine as well as law,” he said. “I love it. You get the intellectual fulfillment of learning new areas of medicine, and then putting them together with law.

“Trial work is great because you get to be an advocate for your client’s ­position. It’s my job to explain the different concepts of medicine to the jury and make hard-to-under­stand concepts easier to understand,” he said.

At 34, Thevatheril, now a partner at Swanson, Martin & Bell, has built a knowledge base in obstetrics and neonatal medicine as he has carved out a specialty in birth trauma cases.

“I’d like to do the same with my other areas of medicine — radiology, ­pulmonology, orthopedics — all the different specialties,” said Thevatheril, who also practices in the areas of product liability and health care law.

At his firm, he has been selected to work on major cases alongside senior med-mal defense attorneys such as Kevin T. Martin.

“He’s impressed the heck out of me. To tell you the truth, he knows more than I do in terms of the medicine,” Martin said. “He has an affinity for ­medicine. This guy understands all aspects of it. Not just birth deliveries, but also the chemical processes that go on.”

Thevatheril, who estimates that he has had a hand in about a dozen ­medical malpractice trials and numerous out-of-court settlements, has also impressed those he has opposed.

Kevin G. Burke, a plaintiff’s lawyer and a name partner in Burke Mahoney & Wise, said Thevatheril has exceptional skills in bringing a case to trial.

Plus, Burke said, Thevatheril has the type of personality that a jury will like.

“He’s open, very straightforward, and very honest,” he said.

In his firm, the young trial lawyer has also gained the confidence of clients.

“You can’t take a case to trial if the client says you’re too green. He’s beyond that point,” Martin said. “I have seen him evolve, I’ve seen his judgment sharpen, and I’ve seen his analysis become more keen.

“He knows his stuff backwards and forwards,” Martin said. “Within the next decade, he certainly will be up there with the name brands, the more marquee names.”

Opening Statement: Presenting the 2007 ‘Julies’

By Julian Frazin
Michael Best & Friedrich • Entertainment Critic

May it please the court … Continuing its “what it means to be an American” theme, Steppenwolf Theatre, 1650 N. Halsted, recently presented the world premiere of Roberto Acquire-Sacasa’s “Good Boys and True.”

The title comes from the motto of St. Joseph Prep, a very old, established (1789) Jesuit school for boys, which provides the foundation for the sons of the very rich and privileged to be ­accepted at the very best universities.

The play is set in 1988, in a suburb outside Washington, D.C. Brandon Hardy, (Stephen Louis Grush), a top student and athlete, as well as one of the most popular boys on campus, has already been accepted, to the delight of his ­parents, by Dartmouth College. His father, a prominent doctor, has been spending all his time treating the sick in Third World countries, leaving his physician-wife, Elizabeth (played with great control and reserve by Steppenwolf’s artistic director, Martha Lavey) home alone. And so, she is forced to deal, single-handedly, with the shocking news that a student resembling Brandon is being seen on a video, having sex with a local girl (Kelly O’Sullivan).

When, at long last, Brandon admits that he is indeed the student involved, the Hardy family’s placid, idyllic world literally falls apart. Dartmouth withdraws its early-acceptance offer. Brandon questions his own sexual identity as his gay friend, Justin (Tim Rock, in an exceptionally fine Steppenwolf debut performance), becomes so angered by his classmate’s unwillingness to commit to their intimate relationship that he ­refuses to ever see him again. Meanwhile, his coach (John Procaccino) discloses to Brandon’s mother that for 20 years he has been harboring deep hatred and resentment for her husband ­because of hidden, brutal acts committed against him when both were students. Elizabeth, upon learning of her husband’s past reprehensible conduct, decides to leave the marriage and start a new life with Brandon. The audience is left to consider how one minor deviation or unwise decision can inalterably change a life.

This overly complex and convoluted plot, under the direction of Pam MacKinnon, is not helped by a bare-boned production … which brings me to my first-ever annual awards presentation - call them the “Julies” if you wish - looking back on highlights of 2007.

Certainly The Best Local Production has to go to Steppenwolf, for its presentation of Tracy Letts’ “August: Osage County.” The incredible ensemble acting prompted me to write: “Playing tennis with a superior player can often cause you to raise your game a notch to be competitive. The same can be said for these performers, ­representing the ‘best of Steppenwolf’s best,’ where each, led by Deanna Dunagan, as the ­alcoholic, pill-popping matriarch of a family of constantly squabbling siblings, drew out even better performances from the others.”

The Most Promising Company to Watch goes to House Theatre, especially for its production of “Sparrow,” an audience-interactive musical, about a teen-aged girl (Carolyn Defrin) with ­kinetic powers, written collaboratively by a very talented and imaginative ensemble cast with ­unusual staging of rear-screen projections, doll houses, and miniature furniture depicting a small Midwestern town. House Theatre provides a “happening” reminiscent of Chicago theaters of the ’70s like the old Organic and Kingston Mines.

Outstanding Virtually Non-Stop Performance goes to Jennifer Shin as the obsessive-compulsive adopted Chinese daughter of an American ­couple who seeks to reconnect with her birth mother but, because of her agoraphobia, is ­confined to her bedroom and her computer in Collaboraction’s production of “The Intelligent Design of Jenny Chow.”

The Best Second City Cast goes to the ­company of “Between Barack and a Hard Place.” A group of personable but ordinary-looking ­performers proved that you don’t have to look ridiculous to get a laugh if you have the talent.

A Special Award for Continuing Excellence goes to Jackie Taylor and the Black Ensemble Theater. Regretfully, I caught up with only one of her shows this past year, but “Those Sensational Soulful 60’s” in the Black Orchid Showroom at Piper’s Alley, with dead-on impressions of the likes of Aretha Franklin, Sammy Davis, the Temp­tations and the Supremes was “sensational.” Taylor’s shows, generally on her home court at 4250 N. Beacon, are consistently good, clean ­entertainment for the entire family.

And, finally, the award for Best of Broadway in Chicago is a three-way draw to “Jersey Boys,” “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” both at the LaSalle Bank Theatre; and “The Color Purple.”

I rest my case.

Final Verdict:

Good Boys and True: 2 gavels

The 2007 Season: 4 gavels

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