Our People

Donald E. Stellato, who has over 30 years of defense/trial experience, founded the firm in July of 1989. He graduated from the University of Illinois College of Law (1973). He has been published in the Illinois Bar Journal and has contributed articles in other legal publications. He has lectured on trial practice and tactics at various Bar Association and continuing legal education seminars regarding such subjects as expert witnesses, jury selection, and the trial of the automobile collision case. He is a member of the Illinois State and Chicago Bar Associations, the Justinian Society of Lawyers, the Illinois Association of Defense Trial Counsel, the Defense Research Institute, and the Trial Lawyers Club of Chicago. He is a member of the CBA Tort Litigation Committee, the CBA Civil Practice Committee, the American Arbitration Association Commercial Panel, and is an associate member of the ISBA Tort Law Section Council. His Martindale-Hubbell rating is the highest available, an "AV" rating, and he is designated a Leading Lawyer in the state of Illinois. He is an experienced trial lawyer intimately familiar with the law, strategy, and discovery tactics for defense, settlement and trial of personal injury and wrongful death matters. He has personally tried or supervised hundreds of jury trials to verdict involving cases with damages of the most severe kind. He is licensed in Illinois to practice in both our state and federal courts and is a member of the Federal Trial Bar. In 1996, he was admitted before the United States Supreme Court. Also in 1996, Mr. Stellato was featured in a Wall Street Journal Article about one of his retailer slip and fall cases and the use of a certain expert. As the holder of the Illinois record for the largest percentage of comparative fault assessed by a jury against a plaintiff (99%), in 1995, 1996 and again in 1998, Mr. Stellato was recognized by the Chicago Lawyer Magazine for having obtained favorable verdicts in the top ten cases for the respective years. Furthermore, according to the distinguished publisher of the Illinois Jury Verdict Reporter, an authority on jury trials in Illinois, one of his trials was chosen in 2010 as one of the five most noteworthy defense verdicts in the past 15 years. On a personal note, as an avid, nascent golfer, he is a member of Medinah Country Club. Finally, in connection with his continuing work and mentoring for his alma mater, the University of Illinois College of Law, Mr. Stellato is a member of the President's Council, the Board of Visitors and the Cribbet Society.