December 12, 1995 "Fighting for 'the brave' Personal injury lawyer loves to take on deep pockets" USA Today, by Andrea Stone Ego is knowing 'you're doing the right thing' Corboy 'makes the other side. . .believe it will be less expensive to settle' CHICAGO - "There are a minimum of six entities to sue," Phil Corboy begins. The railroad. The commuter train line. Two school districts. The bus driver. The inspector of the traffic signals. Far from the railroad crossing in McHenry County where seven students died when a commuter train hurtled into their school bus, the lawyers of Corboy & Demetrio study a yellow toy bus and figure out who will pay. Ultimately, Corboy and his team will argue that officials knew there was a problem with the crossing's signals and failed to fix it. But for now, Corboy is more concerned about getting around Illinois' new tort reform law and its $500,000 cap on damages for pain and suffering. "These cases cannot be settled," he says. "We have to prepare as if they were going to the Supreme Court." For those who seek help along the wheelchair-accessible halls of Corboy & Demetrio, no amount of money can satisfy the longing for a dead husband, a lost child or a body unbowed by traumatic injury. But if money is a balm, Corboy is a healer extraordinaire. One of the nation's top plaintiff's personal-injury lawyers, Phil Corboy is a self-styled fighter for the little guy, arguing "on behalf of brave and damaged people in genuine need of advocacy." He says he lives to take on "organized money" — the manufacturers and the insurance companies. He is also a multimillionaire with a knack for self-promotion and an ego as large as his settlements. Whether mesmerizing jurors in a closing argument or barking orders to subordinates, Corboy is in control. "He's the ultimate of personal-injury lawyers," says Terry Murphy, head of the Chicago Bar Association. "He's the best of the best." Name a disaster and it's likely Corboy has represented a plaintiff. He took on Johnson & Johnson after seven people died from tainted Tylenol and helped change the way products are packaged. He takes on airlines when their planes crash and hopes his settlements make air travel safer. And with the McHenry school bus crash, in which he's representing three of the families, he is taking on tort reform that would limit monetary awards to his clients and to him and his law firm. "I'm on the side of the people. That has molded my life," says Corboy 71, who grew up working class in Chicago's Rogers Park. "Tragedy is omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent. I'm here to soothe." In the last 27 years, he has lost one case. That 1985 medical malpractice case was reversed on appeal. Since 1974, Corboy has won 253 out-of-court settlements or jury verdicts of $1 million or more. Among them was one of the largest wrongful death awards ever: $25 million to Pat Bierlein, whose husband Gary died in the 1989 crash of a United Airlines DC-10 in Sioux City, Iowa. The average wrongful death award is $500,000. "I can't give an arm back. I can't give a child back," says Corboy. But "doing good for other people is a very satisfying accomplishment." Take the case of Steve Rickerson, left brain-damaged, quadriplegic and unable to speak after a 1981 car crash killed his mother and younger brother. Represented by Corboy, a jury awarded Rickerson $12 million, money that bought a specialized van, motorized wheelchair and an addition to the house. Rickerson, now 25, receives 24-hour nursing care and will for the rest of his life. "You always hear the outlandish stories, like the coffee in the lap," says Dave Rickerson, Steve's father. But without such a large award, Steve would "be off in some warehouse nursing home," he says. Corboy credits the three Cs for his success: competence, credibility and charisma. He says they are crucial to winning a jury's confidence. He says he possesses them all. He is not a shy man. To those who inquire, he sends a 2 1/2 -inch-thick box of articles about himself. Faxes fly to reporters. No detail about himself is too small or old to include. For this story, he had an aide call his college for a copy of a school magazine article he wrote in 1943. He calls it marketing and goes to great pains to distinguish it from advertising, which he considers sleazy. "Ego is nothing more than self-esteem and pride in what you're doing," he says. "It's an awareness that what you're doing is the right thing. Clients come to him Corboy is no ambulance chaser. He never calls new clients. Others have fewer scruples. Dennis and Patty Clark got a phone call from a national law firm one day after they buried their 16-year old son Jeffrey, who was killed in the McHenry crash. The Clarks were appalled. Ronald and Susan Romanski were similarly disgusted. After their 18-year-old son Jarett was electrocuted last year at a Sheraton Hotel in Texas, a Fed Ex package of glossy brochures arrived. In a form letter, a law firm soliciting their business said it could "understand" their grief. "I would never tell you, 'I know how you feel,'" says Corboy. " All tragedy is personal." Bobby Corboy is never far from his father's mind. The youngest of Corboy's five children, Bobby was killed in 1976 at age 12 when a car jumped the curb and hit him. The driver was uninsured; Corboy did not sue. Out of this experience, says Ronald Romanski, comes Corboy's "compassion." "He's always felt with hard work, ambition and street smarts you could accomplish anything," says Corboy's oldest son Philip Jr., a partner in the firm. But when Bobby died, the man Chicago magazine rates among the city's "power" lawyers "felt very powerless." "It was different because it was mine," says Corboy. "I have five fingers, five children," he says, holding up his hand. "You'll never know how I miss that finger," he says, bending down the pinky. Still, Corboy refuses to use Bobby "to acquire a rapport" with clients. "What I was looking for in a law firm was somebody who had a reputation for being well-prepared, knowledgeable in (transportation) and one that puts up a good fight," says Dennis Clark. "The name that came to the top of the list every time was Phil Corboy." Pat Bierlein was one of the 35 families that hired Corboy to represent them in the Sioux City plane crash, a case that some dubbed "Sue City." "He's sympathetic and empathetic, " says Bierlein, "yet he has the ability to...make you realize not everyone will see your story and your loss the same way you do." Corboy's reputation drew in the families of three of seven people killed in the 1982's notorious Tylenol tampering case. Relatives of victims in the crashes of USAir Flight 427 near Pittsburgh and American Eagle commuter planes in Charlotte, N.C., and Roselawn, Ind., also were attracted by the firm's track record. Long before the O.J. Simpson trial's state-of-the-art use of props, Corboy was driving faulty forklifts into court. Before jury consultants became de rigueur, he staged mock trials to gauge juror reaction. Once, he asked an associate to write a brief responding to the defense's opening statement — three months before the trial. Contingency always a risk Like most personal-injury lawyers, Corboy works only on contingency. If he wins a case, he gets up to a third of the damages, plus expenses. If he loses, he gets nothing. It's a risky business. Expenses can range up to $200,000 per case. For the 17 families he represents in the 1994 Pittsburgh crash, Corboy has hired his own aeronautical engineers to study the disaster. Officials have yet to determine a cause. But Corboy isn't worried about the why. "When a plane falls from the sky, it speaks for itself." The case of Joan Karsten, the medical malpractice case he lost in 1985, was far less clear. At 46, the mother of four children was left brain-damaged and an invalid following complications after an appendectomy six years before. A jury in DuPage County didn't buy Corboy's argument that her caregivers messed up. "It wasn't his fault," says Edward Karsten, Joan's husband. "I thought he had blown them away." I was devastated. I just couldn't understand it," says Corboy of the Karsten loss. Corboy says now he "misjudged" in using an expert witness who — he didn't learn until too late — was a "hired gun" who testified in trials for a living. Still, the case was reversed on appeal. Karsten received an undisclosed amount that, Corboy says, exceeded $1 million — more than the defendants originally offered. Medical malpractice is often difficult to prove. Corboy's law firm rejects 19 of 20 prospective cases. With 1,600 active cases, the firm can afford to be picky. Its 22 lawyers do not handle large class action suits involving tobacco or asbestos. They also don't take workers compensation cases. Corboy likes to stick to cases of death or severe injury where there is clear liability. And he won't sue unless there are deep pockets to pick. Forbes magazine says he made $10 million last year. "I wish he would retire...leave a little for the rest of us," groans lawyer Terrence Lavin, once a Corboy associate and now a competitor. "He's the 1,000-pound gorilla, the Hoover vacuum of personal-injury business." But Corboy has no plans to retire. He rises every morning before dawn to work out on his Airdyne bicycle, and still possesses what a friend calls "laser beam energy." "When we were young children, my father worked 18 hours a day, seven days a week. My mother was the on-site parent," says Corboy's daughter Joan, a Cook County Circuit Court judge. "He started with absolutely nothing and earned everything he got." Gossip columnists guessed Doris, Corboy's wife of 36 years, got a chunk of it after an ugly, publicized 1985 divorce. Some friends reportedly joked that Doris made him a millionaire, but that the day before he was a multimillionaire. Corboy, a regular at Sunday Mass, secured a church annulment and in 1992 married Mary Dempsey, who is 30 years his junior. The next year, Mayor Richard Daley appointed Dempsey library commissioner. In a city where politics is almost a religion, few are as well-connected as Corboy. Chicago's Cardinal Joseph Bernardin sought his counsel when a seminary student accused him of molestation, a charge later recanted. The day before Thanksgiving, Bernardin stopped by the law firm to pick up a second $1million pledge by Corboy to Chicago Catholic schools. Reputation precedes him It is clear from the eclectic mix of French, Chinese and Art Deco furniture in his 65th-floor apartment over-looking Lake Michigan that Corboy is a statement in the making. Automatic blinds rise and lower with the sun on Picassos and Chagalls that share wall space with floral oils picked up at street fairs. Nothing is subdued about Corboy. "The insurance companies are more afraid of him than they are other people. They'll pay more to him," says insurance defense lawyer William Johnson, who faced Corboy in the Karsten case. "He makes the other side think and believe it will be less expensive to settle the case then it is to litigate it," says Victor Schwartz of the American Tort Reform Association. Corboy's firm goes to trial in 15% of its cases, far higher than the 4% average for Cook County. But only 3% of those cases end in a jury verdict. Defendants often settle. On a recent day, Susan and Ronald Romanski, the parents of Jarett, are at the law firm to discuss a possible settlement of their case. When they first brought the lawsuit 18 months before in the death of their son, they were briefed on how the law assigns value to their loss. Because Jarett was a student, a jury must decide what his potential earnings might have been. Boxes of Jarett's belongings, intended as evidence, clutter a nearby office. His certificate of admission to Harvard University. His state championship football ring. His report cards. His comic books. If the case is not settled out of court, all these things will be shown to a jury to help them decide how much his family will receive. Riding in his chauffeured Lexus hours later, Corboy says $4.5 million would be a "palatable" amount. Mark Langdale, president of Posadas USA, which manages the South Padre Sheraton where Jarett was electrocuted, says his company has reached an agreement with the family, but it has not been finalized. Still, Corboy is preparing as if he's going to trial. Today, he's working with Leo Shapiro, a jury consultant, on whether would-be-jurors in Cameron County, Texas would have "any animus toward Chicago lawyers." Shapiro will present a scenario nearly identical to Jarett's in a poll of 1,200 people. He'll then rate their answers on a "friendliness" scale, noting demographic characteristics. The results will help Corboy "de-select" real jurors who might side with the defense. "We try to eliminate jurors who won't listen," says Shapiro. These days, though, Corboy rarely faces a jury. He is slowly handing the reins to his name partner, Tom Demetrio, his son and younger partners. More than anything, he doesn't want his firm and its mission to die when he does. "I've seen in my lifetime how lawyers from my lifetime are no longer remembered" after they're gone, he says. Then, sighing, he adds, "I'll be remembered by some." Lawyer on the front lines in battle over tort reform As lawmakers push for tort reform to stem the spiraling growth of personal-injury judgments, the man responsible for some of the biggest awards is pushing back. Phil Corboy brags he first achieved "real tort reform" when he challenged an Illinois law that capped pain and suffering damages at $10,000. That 1968 case -- he sued on behalf of a student injured at school -- led to the state's damages' cap being declared unconstitutional. He also helped lift a $30,000 limit in wrongful death cases. Since then the numbers have climbed, as have efforts to slow them. Illinois was one of 30 states that passed tort reform this year. Similar bills are moving through Congress. The cry for tort reform has been fueled by a handful of high-profile cases. First among them is the case of the woman awarded $2.9 million after she was burned when she spilled a cup of McDonald's coffee. Though a judge reduced the award to $490,000, it is the quintessential "horror story" reformers highlight. Corboy is dismayed when such unusual cases are used to justify limits. He has lobbied relentlessly against tort reform, even buttonholing President Clinton on the issue. Corboy immediately dropped the medical malpractice case of a Republican state senator after the lawmaker voted for tort reform. "He comes to the tort-reform wars sincere," says Victor Schwartz of the American Tort Reform Association. He says most lawyers who oppose tort reform are more interested in their purse than principles. Corboy is fighting Illinois' new law that caps punitive damages and limits non-economic awards -- for pain and suffering -- to $500,000 for an individual. "We wouldn't accept that," Corboy says. "$500,000 for the death of a child? Oh my God."   © 1995, USA TODAY. Reprinted with permission.
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