Mr. Latherow is a veteran trial lawyer who has attained multiple million-dollar verdicts and settlements for his clients in cases involving medical malpractice, vehicular and construction liability, products liability, personal injury, brain injury and airplane crash cases.
Has been selected as one of the top 100 attorneys in Illinois two of the last three years by the Illinois Super Lawyers committee. He has been recognized by the National Law Journal as obtaining one of the top 100 verdicts in the country, $21 million (reduced to $18.9 million due to the co-pilot's comparative negligence), including $18 million for loss of society damages as a result of a private jet crash, a then record verdict in Illinois for loss of society damages. Mr. Latherow has been interviewed for news coverage by local affiliates of NBC, ABC, CBS and Fox News regarding various cases he has handled, including high profile cases involving medical malpractice where surgical sponges were left inside a patient, and sexual abuse cases involving clergy and school employees. His cases have also been reported in the Wall Street Journal, Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun-Times, Daily Herald, Bloomberg News and a number of legal industry publications. He lectures frequently to other attorneys regarding trial practice technique and strategy.
Mr. Latherow is a member of the Illinois Leading Lawyers, having been selected by his peers as being in the top 5% of all personal injury, professional malpractice and transportation attorneys in Illinois.
He is AV rated by Martindale-Hubbell, the authoritative resource for information on the legal profession and its practitioners. The AV rating, as defined by Martindale-Hubbell, is "a testament to the fact that a lawyer's peers rank him or her at the highest level of professional excellence".
He is extremely active in various Bar associations. Being a member of the Board of Managers of the Illinois Trial Lawyers Association, which he presently serves as Treasurer, and as a 6-year member of the Executive Committee. He presently serves in his sixth overall term on the Assembly of the Illinois State Bar Association where he served 2 terms on the Political Action Committee, having been the Chair of that Committee for 1 year. Additionally, he just completed a term on the Board of Managers of the Chicago Bar Association where he previously sat as Chair of the Aviation Law Committee. He is also a member of the American Association for Justice (formally known as the Association of Trial Lawyers of America) where he is a member of the Aviation Law Committee. He is also a member of the Trial Lawyers for Public Justice, Society of Trial Lawyers, American Bar Association and the American Bar Foundation.
He received the Loyola University School of Law Leadership and Service Award, and is also the recipient of Loyola's St. Robert Bellarmine Award for distinguished service to the legal profession. He is the former President of the Loyola University Law Alumni Association and also served on that Association's Board of Governors for 6 years.
He has lectured in his areas of expertise at Loyola University School of Law, Illinois Institute of Continuing Legal Education, Chicago Bar Association, Lorman Education Services and Illinois Trial Lawyers Association.
He began his legal career as a Cook County Assistant State's Attorney, where he was promoted to the Felony Trial Division within 2 years of being hired. He was assigned the majority of his time in that Division to prosecute cases in the highly visible Repeat Offender Trial Courts where he tried 25 jury trials to verdict, including a death penalty case. After nearly six years serving the public, Mr. Latherow joined the personal injury law firm of Corboy & Demetrio in 1982. He founded his own firm, Latherow Law Office, in 1985.
