Kenneth J. Sophie, Jr.
Ken has devoted his entire 32 year legal career to representing people in catastrophic injury and wrongful death cases. In 1991 he was the lead trial attorney in a case that resulted in the highest verdict reported in DuPage County, Illinois. The verdict in that case exceeded the previous high for a single plaintiff by more than two million dollars.
In 1992, Ken brought his experience and success to the Harrington firm where he continues to concentrate his practice on personal injury and wrongful death cases. Since coming to the Harrington firm, Ken has successfully tried and settled many million dollar FELA cases, as well as a variety of million dollar cases involving automobile accidents, defective products, medical negligence, construction accidents and other work-related injuries. Ken's diversified background and experience has been instrumental in helping our FELA and non-FELA clients deal with complex insurance questions and legal issues that are often encountered in serious injury cases.
Ken is licensed as an attorney in Illinois and in Michigan and he has been admitted to practice before the United States Supreme Court and in federal district courts in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, and Wisconsin. He routinely handles cases in state courts in Illinois, Michigan and Ohio and he has been admitted pro hac vice in cases pending in state courts in Indiana, Ohio and Wisconsin. He is a member of the Illinois Trial Lawyers Association; the Illinois State Bar Association; the Michigan Bar Association, the American Association for Justice, the AAJ Railroad Litigation Group and AAJ Motor Vehicle Collision Litigation Group. He also holds an AV rating by Martindale-Hubbell, the highest possible rating of legal ability, experience and ethics.
At the appellate level, Ken has filed Briefs with the Illinois Supreme Court, the Illinois Appellate Court, the Michigan Supreme Court, the Michigan Court of Appeals and the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. On a pro bono basis, Ken has filed Amicus Curiae Briefs with the United States Supreme Court and the Illinois Supreme Court.
Like all of the lawyers in the Harrington firm, Ken believes that it is important to volunteer his time to help preserve the right to trial by jury. He has served on the prestigious Amicus Curiae Committee of the Illinois Trial Lawyers Association where he prepared and filed Amicus Curiae briefs on significant legal issues before the Illinois Supreme Court and was a member of the FELA Jury Instruction Committee created by the United States District Court for the Seventh Circuit. He has published peer reviewed articles on important legal topics and he has served as a member on the Judicial Evaluation Committee of the Illinois Bar Association and the Northwest Suburban Bar Association. He has also been an active member of the Civil Practice and Procedure Section Council of the Illinois State Bar Association and was asked to testify as an expert witness before the Illinois Legislature in support of a dram shop bill that was designed to assist victims of drunken drivers.
Ken graduated from John Carroll University in Cleveland in 1972. He worked in the construction industry before enrolling at John Marshall Law School in Chicago where he graduated with honors in 1977. While in law school he received the Corpus Juris Secundum award for significant legal scholarship and served as the Executive Research Editor of the John Marshall Law Review.
Ken is a life-long resident of Chicago. When not working on cases, Ken volunteers his time as a youth football coach and serves on the Athletic Board for his community grade school.
Ken is admitted in the following states and federal district and appellate courts:
- United States Supreme Court
- State of Illinois
- State of Michigan
- United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois
- Federal Trial Bar for the Northern District of Illinois
- United States District Court for the Northern District of Indiana
- United States District Court for the Southern District of Indiana
- United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan
- United States District Court for the Western District of Michigan
- United States District Court for the Northern District of Ohio
