$14.2M
Jury verdict: trucking collision
Cook County Circuit Court, 2023. Defence offered $900,000 on the eve of trial. Eleven days of evidence; verdict returned in four hours.
Trial Attorney · Chicago, Illinois
When the outcome decides everything, you want the one who tries cases.
Most lawyers settle because they have never stood in front of a jury. I have done it three hundred and twelve times. That difference is the entire negotiation.
Adrian Vale
Admitted 1998 · Ill. Bar No. 6229104
Cook CountyCircuit & Federal
FeeContingency · no recovery, no fee
ResponseSame day, always
Scroll
$0M
Recovered for clients
0
Cases taken to verdict
0
Years at the trial bar
0%
Favorable outcomes
01 · Practice
What I take on
-
01
Personal Injury
Vehicle collisions, premises, product defects. I build the damages case from day one so the number at mediation is not a guess.
-
02
Criminal Defense
State and federal. Suppression motions win more cases than closing arguments. Most of the work happens before a jury is ever picked.
-
03
Wrongful Death
The hardest files in this office. Handled quietly, with an economist and a life-care planner retained in the first month.
-
04
Appeals
Preserving the record is a trial skill. I take appeals from my own trials and from other lawyers who lost one they should have won.
-
05
Medical Negligence
Reviewed by a practising physician before I sign a complaint. If the medicine does not hold, I will tell you in week one, not year two.
02 · Process
How a case actually moves
-
Step 01 · Day 0-2
The call
You speak to me, not an intake screener. Thirty minutes, no charge, and you leave knowing whether you have a case worth filing.
-
Step 02 · Week 1-6
Investigation
Scene, records, witnesses, experts. Evidence disappears fastest in the first month, so this is where the file is won or lost.
-
Step 03 · Month 2-9
Filing & discovery
Complaint, depositions, motions. The other side finds out early that this file is being prepared for trial, not for a discount.
-
Step 04 · Month 9-14
The real number
Mediation, with a trial date on the calendar behind it. Every offer comes to you with my honest read and my recommendation in writing.
-
Step 05
Trial
If the number is wrong, we try it. That willingness is the only real leverage a plaintiff has, and it is the reason this office exists.
03 · Results
Verdicts & settlements
Past results do not guarantee a similar outcome.
Acquittal
Federal wire fraud: 14 counts
N.D. Illinois, 2021. Directed verdict on six counts; not guilty on the remainder after a three-week trial.
$8.6M
Settlement: hospital negligence
Confidential mediation, 2022. Resolved eight days before jury selection after the treating physician's deposition.
$5.1M
Jury verdict: premises liability
Cook County, 2024. Property manager had refused to pay anything for four years. Verdict exceeded the last demand by 6×.
Reversed
Appellate: new trial ordered
First District, 2020. Defence verdict vacated for improper exclusion of expert testimony. Retried and won in 2021.
Next
Thirty minutes, no charge
Bring what you have: a police report, a bill, a letter, or nothing at all.
Start a case review
04 · About
One lawyer. Your file.
I opened this office in 2004 after six years as an assistant State's Attorney, where I learned what a case looks like from the other chair. Since then I have kept the practice deliberately small: no associates handing your file to each other, no marketing department, no volume.
That means I turn work away. It also means the person who answers your questions in March is the person standing up in front of the jury in November.
“A file that is not being prepared for trial is being prepared for a discount.”
Adrian Vale
- 1998 J.D., Northwestern Pritzker School of Law
- 1998-2004 Assistant State's Attorney, Cook County
- 2011 Fellow, American College of Trial Lawyers
- 2019 Illinois Trial Lawyer of the Year, nominee
05 · Case review
Thirty minutes, no charge
Three questions. It goes straight to my desk, and you hear back the same day.