Thomas L. Knight - Wheaton, IL

Thomas L. Knight Overview

Tom Knightis one of the most experienced trial lawyers in Illinois. In his more than 37 years of active trial work, he has tried numerous cases, including well more than a hundred major jury trials. Before his career in civil practice, he spent 20 years as a public prosecutor in both the state and federal justice systems.

As first assistant to the Champaign County States Attorney for three years and chief of the criminal prosecutions division of the DuPage County States Attorneys Office for eight years, the many cases he has prosecuted were among the most hotly contested cases in those offices.

After 14 years as a state prosecutor, Tom became one of a select group of veteran prosecutors assigned to prosecute organized crime in Chicago on behalf of the United States Justice Department. There, for six years, he tried almost exclusively lengthy and complex racketeering cases against the Chicago Mob.

For the last 17 years, Tom has concentrated his skills primarily in the service of people throughout the Chicagoland area who have been seriously injured by the negligent acts of others, especially those who have been injured or killed by negligent medical practitioners. He has successfully tried and settled many such cases for his clients, securing settlements in several cases in excess of a million dollars. He obtained for a young couple and their severely handicapped child a medical malpractice settlement of $6,100,000.00. Shortly before that, he garnered for another client and his child a medical malpractice award of 1,200,000, which was the largest wrongful death settlement in Dekalb County, Illinois . He also was co-counsel in obtaining the highest medical malpractice settlement in Will County, IL ($5,735,000.00). More recently, Tom and two of his partners obtained a jury verdict in DuPage County for $1,730,000 for a client who had become wheel-chair bound as a result of a vitamin B-12 deficiency which was not timely diagnosed. Some of his more recent medical negligence trials and settlements have involved eye surgery, spine surgery, skin cancer and failure to diagnose pneumonia. Most recently, Tom settled a case for $1,000,000 for a ten year old girl, whose infection shortly after she was born was misdiagnosed, and which left her partially paralyzed on one side of her body.

In addition to medical negligence cases, Tom Knight has also successfully tried and settled cases for people who have been seriously injured in vehicular collisions. In one of his more recent cases, he obtained nearly a half-million dollars for one of his clients who had lost her legs in a collision with a guard rail.

Tom Knight is active in pursuing his continuing legal education and the betterment of attorneys as a profession, participating in frequent seminars and organizational activities of attorneys who do the kind of work he does. He served a term as Chairman of the Civil Law and Practice Committee of the DuPage County Bar Association, of which he currently is the Vice Chair. He has served on the Medical Negligence and Rules Committees of the Illinois Trial Lawyers Association, and is a member of the American Association of Justice, the American Bar Association and the Illinois State Bar Association.

Tom enjoys spending time with his wife and family, engaging in many outdoor recreational activities and working out regularly.

Current Employment Position(s)

• Partner