Injury Cases We Handle Across Chicagoland

These are the injury cases we handle across the seven Chicagoland counties, each one prepared for trial from the first week rather than packaged for a quick settlement, so you do not have to know the legal name for what happened to you before you can find the right place to start.

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Brass balance scale with a judge’s gavel on a desk near a window

Clear Legal Direction When You're Not Sure Where to Start

You do not have to pick the right practice area before you call. Describe the accident and we will tell you what kind of claim it is, who is likely liable, and which deadline applies to you.


We have practiced as Chicago accident lawyers since 1993, and every practice area on this page is work we handle in this office rather than send elsewhere. Over more than thirty years of Chicago courtroom practice, that has meant clients from Cicero to Waukegan to Naperville and a record built in front of juries.

  • Admitted in the Illinois state courts, the Federal District Court for the Northern District of Illinois and the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals
  • Member of the Illinois Bar Association, the Illinois Trial Lawyers Association and the Federal Trial Bar for the Northern District of Illinois
  • Work covered by the Chicago Tribune, the Chicago Sun-Times and the Chicago Daily Law Bulletin
  • Cases handled from 311 N. Aberdeen in Chicago, ten blocks west of downtown with parking and access from the CTA Blue and Green lines
What Sets Us Apart

What Working With Our Firm Actually Looks Like

When an injury turns your life upside down, you need more than a list of legal services. You need a clear sense of what happens next and someone in your corner who has been here before. Here is what clients experience when they work with us.

More Than Thirty Years in Chicago Courtrooms

Practicing here since 1993, in front of Cook County juries and in the Federal District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.

Built for Negotiation, Ready for Trial

Every case is prepared as though it will be tried, which is the only version of a file an insurance company takes seriously.

A Published Record in the Millions

Multi-million-dollar verdicts and settlements in transit, truck and serious-injury cases, listed by case type rather than described in the abstract.

No Fee Unless We Recover Compensation

The case evaluation is free. If you hire us, the fee is one-third of what we recover in a personal injury case and 20 percent in a workers' compensation case, and it comes out of the recovery at the end, not out of your pocket while you are treating. If we recover nothing there is no fee and no case expenses to repay. Here is how a contingency fee works and what it costs.

Injury Cases Our Firm Handles

These are the personal injury cases we handle in Chicago and across the surrounding counties. Each practice area below opens onto a page that covers who is usually liable, what the claim involves, and the deadline that runs on it.

Car Accidents

Car accident claims in Chicago and the collar counties turn on how fast the injury is documented and how much coverage sits behind the driver who hit you. We handle rear-end, intersection and left-turn collisions, including cases where the at-fault driver carried no insurance or left the scene.

Black sedan parked on a rooftop lot with tall city buildings in the background

Bus Accidents

Bus crash claims run against a carrier with counsel on retainer and a vehicle back in service within days. We investigate school bus, charter and tour coach, intercity and private shuttle collisions, and a claim against the Chicago Transit Authority has to be filed within one year instead of the two years an ordinary crash claim gets.

Rainy city street with tall buildings, a bus, and a statue at sunset, with glowing streetlights reflected on wet pavement

Motorcycle Accidents

Motorcycle accident claims begin with an adjuster who has already decided the rider was at fault. We rebuild what actually happened from the scene evidence and the treating records, then put it in front of a jury when the insurer will not move.

POV of a motorcyclist speeding down a dark road at night, with headlights and blurred traffic ahead

Truck Accidents

Truck accident claims involve more than one liable party, the driver, the motor carrier, the broker and the maintenance shop, and evidence that starts disappearing on a retention schedule. We move for the driver logs, the electronic control module data and the maintenance file early.

Semi-truck driving on a dark highway at dusk, with a twilight sky and mountains in the distance

Rideshare Accidents

Rideshare crash claims are decided by what the app was doing at the moment of impact, which determines whether a commercial policy or the driver's personal policy responds. We establish which layer of coverage applies before the carriers start pointing at each other.

Yellow taxi speeding through a city street at night, with wet pavement reflecting streetlights

Workers' Compensation and Workplace Injuries

Workers' compensation claims in Illinois pay medical treatment and wage benefits without any proof of fault, and they are decided at the Illinois Workers' Compensation Commission rather than in circuit court. We handle the petition, the disputed treatment and the permanency award.

Firefighter in orange gear standing beside a black van on a city street at dusk
Two dogs running on a tree-lined dirt path, one white in the foreground and one black in the distance.

Dog Bite Injuries

Dog bite claims in Illinois do not require a prior bite or a particular breed. The Animal Control Act at 510 ILCS 5/16 makes an owner liable for an unprovoked attack on someone lawfully present, which moves the case to what the injury is worth rather than whether there is a case at all.

Wrongful Death

Wrongful death claims belong to the surviving family and are brought through a personal representative of the estate, with the recovery distributed among the spouse and next of kin. We handle the estate filing and the claim together so a family is not managing two processes at once.

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Bicycle lying on its side on a paved path in a wooded area, with a kickstand visible.

Bicycle Accidents

Bicycle accident claims are where our published record is strongest, with a $527,000 arbitration award for an injured cyclist and $275,000 for a rider hurt on a Divvy bike. We handle dooring, right-hook and bike-lane collisions on Chicago streets and on suburban shoulders and trails.

Slip-and-Fall and Premises Injuries

Slip-and-fall claims turn on notice, meaning whether the property owner knew or should have known about the hazard and how long it sat there. We move quickly for the incident report, the maintenance log and the surveillance footage before it is overwritten.

Person walking down snowy outdoor stairs in blue jeans and black boots
Woman in gray sweats standing at a crosswalk in a city street

Pedestrian Accidents

Chicago pedestrian accident representation starts with the crosswalk and the signal timing, because the driver's insurer will argue the walker stepped out. We handle crosswalk, turning-vehicle and parking-lot strikes, including transit and municipal claims that carry their own shortened deadlines.

Construction Accidents

Chicago construction site injury representation usually runs on two tracks at once, a workers' compensation claim against your employer and a third-party negligence claim against the general contractor, the property owner or an equipment supplier. Both have to be built together, because what happens on one affects what you keep from the other, and we handle the workers' compensation side of it in the same office.

Construction worker resting beside an overturned orange hard hat on a concrete floor

Where You Live Decides Where Your Case Is Filed

Service is one way to find your case on this site. Geography is the other. Where the accident happened determines which courthouse hears the claim, which police agency holds the report, and in some counties how long the case takes to reach a trial date. We take injury cases across the seven counties of the Chicagoland region and file each one where it belongs.

  • Cook County, including Chicago and Cicero
  • DuPage County, including Naperville
  • Lake County, including Waukegan
  • Will County
  • Kane County
  • McHenry County
  • Kankakee County

Cicero, Waukegan and Naperville each have their own page with the local courts, roads and claim patterns we see there. Start with the communities and counties we serve, or call and tell us the intersection.

Verdicts, Settlements, and the Clients Behind Them

Every figure below belonged to a person with a specific injury and a specific kind of case. Three of the largest came out of collisions involving Chicago Transit Authority buses, which is the record we are best known for in this market.

  • $11 million for a passenger struck by a CTA bus
  • $8 million jury verdict for a woman struck by a CTA bus
  • $5 million for a University of Chicago student struck by a CTA bus while riding a bicycle
  • $3 million for a woman struck by a garbage truck
  • $2.2 million for a client who needed a lumbar fusion


Results depend on the facts of each case, and no two injuries carry the same value. You can read the full list of verdicts and settlements by case type.

Chris Gutierrez

Debbie Reyes

Susana Chaires

Melanie Ramirez

Thomas Duncan

Take the First Step

The Clock Started the Moment Your Accident Happened

The deadline on your claim began running on the day you were hurt, not on the day you decide to call a lawyer. Which deadline applies depends on who caused the injury.


  • Two years from the date of the accident for an Illinois personal injury claim, under 735 ILCS 5/13-202
  • Two years for a wrongful death claim, under 740 ILCS 180/2
  • One year from the date the cause of action accrued to sue the Chicago Transit Authority, under 70 ILCS 3605/41
  • One year for a claim against most other local public entities, under 745 ILCS 10/8-101


The transit deadline is the one that catches people. A rider hurt on a CTA bus gets one year, not the two years that apply to a crash with another driver, and that year runs from the day of the accident, so a claim against the Chicago Transit Authority is worth reviewing early rather than at the end. Waiting also costs evidence, because surveillance video is overwritten and witnesses stop remembering the light.

You Deserve a Straight Answer

Tell us what happened and we will tell you what kind of claim it is, what has to be proven, and how long you have to bring it. That is the free case evaluation, and it commits you to nothing.

Call (312) 492-7700 or email info@lsblaw.net. If you cannot travel to 311 N. Aberdeen, we will come to your home or your hospital room.

Get Your Free Case Evaluation
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Common Questions About Injury Cases

  • What types of injury cases does your firm handle?

    Car, truck, motorcycle, bicycle, bus and CTA, rideshare, pedestrian, construction, slip-and-fall and dog bite claims, along with workers' compensation and wrongful death. Illinois recognizes personal injury claims wherever someone else's negligence caused harm, plus strict liability claims such as dog bites and no-fault workers' compensation benefits. If your accident does not obviously fit one of those categories, describe it and we will tell you which one it is.

  • Which kind of injury lawyer do I need for my accident?

    One who handles your claim type in the county where it will be filed, and you do not have to identify that yourself before calling. Some accidents are two claims at once, such as a construction fall that runs as both a workers' compensation claim and a negligence claim against the general contractor. We handle every case type on this page, so the answer does not change who you call.

  • Do you handle injury cases in DuPage County or only in Chicago?

    We handle cases across Cook, DuPage, Lake, Will, Kane, McHenry and Kankakee counties. A DuPage claim is filed in the Eighteenth Judicial Circuit in Wheaton, a Lake County claim in the Nineteenth Judicial Circuit in Waukegan, and each has its own judges and scheduling practice. Living in the suburbs does not mean driving into the Loop to be represented.

  • How long do I have to file an injury claim in Illinois?

    Generally two years from the date of the accident under 735 ILCS 5/13-202, and two years for a wrongful death claim under 740 ILCS 180/2. Claims against public entities run shorter. A suit against the Chicago Transit Authority has to be commenced within one year of the date the cause of action accrued under 70 ILCS 3605/41, and most other local public entities also run on one year under 745 ILCS 10/8-101. Because the shorter deadlines are the easiest to miss, have your date checked early.

  • What happens if the accident was partly my fault?

    Under 735 ILCS 5/2-1116, your claim is barred only if your own share of the fault is more than 50%. At any share below that, you can still recover, with the award reduced by your percentage rather than eliminated. People talk themselves out of real claims over this more often than any other single misunderstanding.

  • Do you offer free consultations and contingency fees?

    Yes to both. The case evaluation costs nothing whether or not you hire us, and if you do, the fee is a percentage of what we recover, paid out of the recovery rather than up front. If there is no recovery, there is no fee.

  • Will you come to me if I cannot travel to your office?

    Yes. We hold consultations at a client's home or hospital room when an injury, a treatment schedule or the loss of a vehicle makes travel impractical. Call(312) 492-7700and tell us where you are.