Law Office of Christopher Patrick Ford

01/01/2025

Shout out to generous supporters, like the Law Office of Christopher Patrick Ford, for their selfless effort year after year. Every child in Hammond deserves access to a quality public education. With the support of our donors, we have awarded nearly two million dollars in scholarships, classroom grants and district-wide programs. Ring in the new year by sharing this post and learning how you can support our cause: https://www.hammondeducationfoundation.org/donate

07/05/2024

After turning eighteen in 1974 and on and off for the next three years, I worked as a union meat cutter’s apprentice and member of Local Union #1 in a processing plant in Hammond, Indiana, an industrial city wedged between the South Side of Chicago and Gary, Indiana. My job really didn’t entail any skill. Most mornings found me standing about 1 and 1/2 feet away from a floor to ceiling band saw which was used to cut the quarters of cattle in half. My job was to pick up the two halves (each weighing about 150-175 pounds) from my side of the band saw table and toss them about two feet away onto another table. The only safety device around was my focused fear that if I slipped on the puddle of cow blood that was always about 1/8 of an inch deep on the floor, I might lose a piece of me on the band saw.

Fast forward about seven and 1/2 years and I was in the first few months of working my first job as an attorney for an insurance defense firm. The managing partner of the firm assigned me a case defending a manufacturer against a young Hispanic woman who had caught her hand in a chicken skinning device causing her to be skinned from wrist to armpit. She was also a member of Local Union #1. I told the managing partner of the firm that I was not going to work on the case, to which he responded that - as a first year associate - I was in no position to say what cases I would or would not handle. He told me that if I refused to work the case it would cost me my job.

My personal life philosophy (refined after a long conversation with my close friend, Greg Barnes, which is another story for another day) is that if you want something in life, you cannot rely on anyone else, you have to just reach out and take it.

And so, after my conversation with the managing partner, I walked out of the office and across the loop to Phil Corboy’s office. Mr. Corboy was the best known Irish attorney in Chicago. At the time, though, I was unaware of his status as the “Dean of the Chicago Plaintiff’s Bar.” I had not attended law school in Chicago, and only knew of Mr. Corboy because of an educational film put out by the American Bar Association in which he participated. All I really knew was that Mr. Corboy was an attorney who worked for people, not corporations.

When I walked up to the receptionist desk and asked to speak with Mr. Corboy, Sue Gittleson who was working the desk told me that I could not just walk off of the street and talk to Mr. Corboy. Properly chastised, I headed back towards the elevator when it occurred to me to return to ask if I could drop off a resume the next day. When I returned to the office, Mr. Corboy was standing at the reception desk going through the mail. I introduced myself and said that I wanted to work for him. Instead of sending me away, Mr. Corboy invited me into his office, and along with Tom Demetrio, interviewed me for an hour.

After a couple more interviews the following weeks, Mr. Corboy told me he had promised a judge that he would hire the judge’s son, and he had to keep his word. He told me not to worry as he and Tom Demetrio had arranged for me to meet Mr. Corboy’s protege, Al Hofeld, the next afternoon. I was hired by Al Hofeld the next day at their recommendation.

Because of a series of events that I need not go into here, Mr. Corboy and I developed a friendship. When I started my own law practice five years later, Mr. Corboy would give my name out to prospective clients who he could not represent due to conflicts.

Mr. Corboy passed away in the late Spring of 2012. A couple weeks later I was taking a lunch time walk around the Loop when I ran across a young lady, Sarah Dunne, standing at the corner of Dearborn and Wacker who appeared lost (and who was actually lost). I approached her and asked if she needed directions. Sarah responded that what she really needed was a job, and did I know any lawyers who might be hiring.

At that time, Gaelic Park Irish Club on the South Side would sponsor men and women’s Irish Football and Hurling teams, competing with other Irish clubs around the country. The club provided airline tickets and a two bedroom house with mattresses covering all of the floors for the twenty Irish women they recruited for the Summer team. If the ladies wanted to eat, they needed to bring some money along or find a summer job. Sarah was one of the recruits.

Sarah - besides being a star on the Kilkenny Women’s Hurling team - was in her last year of law school in Ireland. She was bound and determined to use the Summer trip to find a summer clerkship in a law firm. When I ran into her, she had dropped already dropped off a couple dozen resumes, but had not gotten past the reception desk.

Given the kindness Mr. Corboy had shown me years before, his recent death, and the coincidence of the meeting, I thought that I better not risk the wrath of the Irish Gods, old or new, by walking away. Sarah started working with us the following morning. As it so happened, my paralegal, Michelle Konieczki, and I had just finished two long back to back trials and we actually did need some help in the office. Sarah was a delight to have around the office, and made our Summer a special one.

My wife, Linda, and I are on a cruise that took us into Dublin for a day. I wrote an email to Sarah the night before arrival to see if she was around town and had time to meet with us. Sarah and her wonderful husband, Gareth, spent an unusually sunny Dublin afternoon with us, taking us to a traditional Irish Pub in the mountains just outside of Dublin.

Sarah is now a successful attorney specializing in Intellectual Property for the Dublin Office of DLA Piper (the third biggest law firm in the world).

At the end of the day the real value in life is the people who have touched our lives. This is just a story of a couple people who have touched my life. I am thankful that they did.

15/11/2023

https://topverdict.com/lists/2022/united-states/top-20-medical-malpractice-settlements

We are pleased to present to you the list of top 20 medical malpractice settlements obtained in the United States in the year 2022.

08/04/2022

On November 6, 2017, Alice presented to Cook County’s Provident Hospital with a painful, swollen big toe. Alice was also a Type II Diabetic, anemic, and her foot films demonstrated significant atherosclerosis. Alice was given IV antibiotics for a “Great Toe infection,” and awaited a consult from an Attending Podiatrist. Instead of an Attending Podiatrist, Alice was only seen only by junior resident Podiatrists before discharge.
According to the medical records, Alice checked herself out of the hospital “AMA” (against medical advice). Alice understood, or perhaps, misunderstood from the resident Podiatrists that it was an acceptable alternative for her to return home with oral antibiotics. However, the medical records also claimed Alice failed to pick up and take the oral antibiotics prescribed for her, and further claimed she failed to follow other medical advice. Alice insisted that the medical records were wrong and that she did, in fact, pick up and take the antibiotics as prescribed.
Alice continued to see the Podiatry service in the Cook County system for another three months during which her peripheral pulses to the foot went from palpable on physical exam, to palpable only with a Doppler device, to absent. No treatment was given for the anemia or atherosclerotic disease. In February 2018, her foot was amputated due to gangrene.
Two sets of attorneys came to meet Alice in the rehabilitation center where she was convalescing, and both sets of attorneys advised her that she had no case due to the discharge “AMA” and the failure to take the prescribed antibiotics.
Alice did not give up, calling the Chicago Bar Association Lawyer Referral Service. The Chicago Bar Association contacted me, and I met Alice at her home on the South Side. We looked through the records and saw the discharge “AMA” and the disputed issue regarding the oral antibiotics. Alice asked me to believe her when she said that she had picked up and taken the antibiotics.
To resolve the issue regarding the antibiotics, I obtained the pharmacy billing records believing that if a pharmacy gave Alice antibiotics, they surely charged for them. Lo and behold, the pharmacy bills confirmed that Alice purchased the oral antibiotics that very night.
Alice is one of those naturally sweet persons who we are blessed to meet in life who can find a smile despite significant adversities. She looked me straight in the eye and said: “You will help me now, won’t you Mr. Ford.” It was not within me to say no.
As we took the deposition of the multiple medical care providers, we learned that an out of context statement about Alice’s failure to take antibiotics took on a life of its own as it passed from one medical provider to the next in the three months of treatment, sort of like the game “Telephone” that children play in a circle whispering from one ear to the next until the story changes and is no longer credible. Even the name of the antibiotic changed as the story was passed down through the records.
We simplified the case. Antibiotics only eradicate infection if the blood carrying the antibiotics and appropriate oxygen nutrition actually make their way down to the toes. The pathology studies of the amputated foot showed that one of the two foot arteries was completely closed off with atherosclerosis plaque. Nothing had been done to attempt to treat the atherosclerosis by stent or other procedure, and nothing was done to treat the anemia – the diminished oxygen carrying capacity of the blood.
After each side was able to objectively and professionally assess the relative positives and negatives of the case, a $2,500,000.00 settlement was reached on Alice’s behalf.

15/09/2021

https://www.24-7pressrelease.com/press-release/484844/christopher-patrick-ford-presented-with-the-albert-nelson-marquis-lifetime-achievement-award-by-marquis-whos-who

September 15, 2021 -- Mr. Ford has been endorsed by Marquis Who's Who as a leader in the fields of personal injury and medical malpractice law

15/12/2020

https://topverdict.com/lists/2019/united-states/top-100-medical-malpractice-verdicts

12/06/2020

Trial attorney Christopher Patrick Ford has obtained multi-million dollar recoveries on 33 separate occasions including the following jury verdicts:

• $17,555,957.00 in a medical malpractice case for 33 year old man who suffered a quadriplegia after open heart surgery.
• $5,267,581.31 in a medical malpractice case for a man who required an above-knee amputation due to the failure to diagnose appendicitis, leading to sepsis and arterial clot in the leg.
• $3,600,000.00 in a construction negligence case for a man who sustained an above-knee amputation in a tractor rollover.
• $6,000,000.00 against the City of Chicago for the death of a 25 year old graduate student killed in a police chase.
• $2,985,649.54 in a construction safety case for a night watchman who sustained 2nd and 3rd degree burns on his hands and torso while using a fire barrel to stay warm.
• $3,079,000.00 verdict on behalf of a factory worker who lost his foot in a forklift rollover due to a product defect.
• $4,752,000.00 verdict in a medical malpractice case in conservative Kane County, Illinois on behalf of a 61 year old man who sustained paraplegia due to a hospital and physician's failure to diagnose a spinal infection.
• $2,970,000.00 verdict in a medical malpractice case in conservative DuPage County, Illinois for a couple whose biracial daughter died 19 days after birth due to an intestinal infection known as necrotizing enterocolitis.

Mr. Ford has obtained settlements for his clients, including:

• $4,500,000.00 medical malpractice case involving treatment of a tumor, resulting in an amputation of a woman’s arm.
• $4,375,000 for the death of a 42 year old father against an ice cream company for lack of truck maintenance resulting in a collision with the truck.
• $2,750,000.00 in an emergency room malpractice case involving the failure to diagnose a coronary artery dissection resulting in the death of a mother.
• $2.500, 000.00 in a product liability case involving vitamin supplements causing injuries to a child.
• $2.500, 000.00 in a medical malpractice/product liability case involving improper treatment of myocarditis resulting in a death of a teenager.
• $2.500, 000.00 in a medical malpractice case involving failure to properly treat a diabetic foot infection resulting in a foot amputation.
• $2,000,000.00 in meat grinder product liability case where a meat cutter had his hand amputated
• $1,850,000.00 medical malpractice settlement for a 74 year old man who had neck surgery to cure numbness in his hands, and became a incomplete quadriplegic due to a post-surgical infection.
• $1,800,000.00 settlement against a power company for the placement of high voltage electric line resulting in paraplegia.
• $1,500,000 for the death of a daughter in a motor vehicle collision.
• $1,500,000 for abdominal injuries due to excessive abdominal adhesion formation following an exploratory abdominal surgery.

Christopher Patrick Ford was born in Chicago, Illinois and raised in the steel mill belt or "Region", running from the far South Side of Chicago through Hammond, East Chicago, and Gary, Indiana.

Mr. Ford is a graduate of Kalamazoo College in Kalamazoo, Michigan and Emory University School of Law in Atlanta, Georgia, working his way through school as an union apprentice meat cutter in a meat processing plant.

Mr. Ford worked in the early 1980’s for two of Chicago’s finest trial attorneys, before opening his own office in 1986.

Mr. Ford takes pride in the reputation he has earned for dedication, determination and perseverance in seeking justice on behalf of working families.

Mr. Ford has been "AV" rated by Martindale Hubbell since 1992, reflecting the legal community's evaluation of his high legal ability and ethical standards.

In 2014, U.S. News and World Report and Best Lawyers named Mr. Ford as Chicago Litigation Lawyer of the Year.

In July 2019, Mr. Ford was one of the featured attorneys in the 10th edition of Marquis Who’s Who in American Law and noted for his for dedication, achievements, and leadership in the legal profession.

In September 2021, Mr. Ford received the Albert Nelson Marquis Lifetime Achievement Award by Marquis Who's Who.

Mr. Ford teaches trial skills to law students at the Harvard University Law School Trial Advocacy Workshop and the Emory University School of Law Kessler-Eidson Program For Trial Techniques.

22/11/2019

For the past five years, I have represented Abby Grosshuesch and Justin Zormelo in their search of justice for their daughter, Isabella Zormelo. In Chicago legal circles it is often said that no one wins medical malpractice cases in conservative DuPage County. Having tried cases throughout the state, I believe that jurors everywhere simply try to do the right thing, and, given the right case, at the right moment, will do justice. The jury trial - and the courage of the jurors that serve - is our last bastion of liberty...

19/05/2017

16/05/2017

Congrats to the law firms and attorneys who have made the list of Top 100 Verdicts in Illinois in 2016: http://topverdict.com/lists/2016/illinois/100