The most prominent lawyers in the field in this state, those who have successfully handled a high volume of high-profile cases over time and achieved eight-figure verdicts more than once, still are all male, says Lorna E. Propes, widely considered to be one of the leading female practitioners. Among those who would have to be included in this group, she said, are Robert A. Clifford, Philip H. Corboy, Thomas A. Demetrio, Albert F. Hofeld, Joseph A. Power, Jr., Howard Schaffner and Todd A. Smith, all based in Chicago.

"While there are definitely women who would stand shoulder to shoulder with those men in terms of courtroom ability and results in a given case, there aren’t any that have been successful at that level of practice," said Propes, a partner of Cahill, Christian & Kunkle Ltd. in Chicago. "There just aren’t any comparable female lawyers who have developed a practice to that level."

Among other well-regarded PI attorneys, however, a number of women in addition to Propes now are widely recognized as highly skilled, winning trial lawyers.

Although the field has "certainly been dominated by men in the past, there have always been some outstanding women trial lawyers," Clifford said.

In addition to Propes, another prominent female PI attorney that immediately comes to mind is Patricia C. Bobb.

Susan J. Schwartz, a partner of Corboy & Demetrio, was featured in a Chicago Lawyer article last year along with Propes as one of two leading female plaintiff’s personal-injury lawyers in the state, based on the size of reported settlements obtained. She won a $1.4 million settlement in a medical malpractice case, while Propes brought in $10.6 million, putting her fifth among attorneys with the highest settlement earnings for the year.

And Naperville PI attorney Kathleen T. Zellner, to whom Clifford has served as a mentor, may be a still-rising star. She won a personal-best $11.7 million in three jury verdicts last year, and is on track to exceed that figure this year.

Both Zellner and Bobb also are noteworthy for heading their own offices and Bobb is well-known, too, as a past president of The Chicago Bar Association.

Other female PI attorneys whose names come up routinely as leading practitioners included Karen McNulty Enright, Valerie A. Leopold, Susan E. Loggans, Margaret M. Power of Corboy’s office, Kathleen Reynolds, Jeanine L. Stevens and Nancy A. Zettler. All work in Chicago.

Among the less-experienced women lawyers in his own office, associate Michelle E. Meklir "obtained a $550,000 verdict when she was out of law school less than a year," Corboy said of the 1997 Loyola University of Chicago School of Law graduate. "She’s going to be a superstar."

Elizabeth A. Kaveny, a partner in her own office, and Marina E. Ammendola, an associate in Bobb’s, are also outstanding trial lawyers, Propes said.

The bottom line, though, is that there just aren’t that many women doing plaintiff’s personal-injury work.

Of the approximately 2,000 attorneys who are members of the Illinois Trial Lawyers Association, only about 25 percent are female, according to James M. Collins, executive director of ITLA.

And most of these women do not work as plaintiff’s personal-injury lawyers.

Clifford’s 17-lawyer office recently named its first female partner, Susan Capra, and has four female associates. Corboy’s firm, Corboy & Demetrio, now has one woman partner (Schwartz) and two women associates among its 24 attorneys.

"Truly, the number of women who have done this in Chicago is really a handful," Propes said. "There are a very few women, compared to the number of men."

Opinions varied as to the reasons why so few women have become plaintiff’s trial lawyers.

Several PI attorneys, both male and female, cited the difficulty of combining a demanding trial practice with personal and family life.

Even more so than other practice areas, personal-injury work often requires long hours that cannot easily be scheduled for the attorney’s convenience, those interviewed for this article agreed.

It’s relatively easy for men to focus most of their attention on their work, because their wives tend to take a disproportionate amount of family responsibility, Clifford said. "I think that men, in many respects, have an easier road to travel in this regard because they don’t have as many competing personal issues.

"Just look to what’s occurring right now with [British] Prime Minister Tony Blair. His wife, a lawyer, is pregnant. ... Just compare her needs to give birth and to recover and to get the initial rearing of the child done to her husband - he’s moaning about taking a week or two off, and she doesn’t get a choice, she’s stuck. That’s a glaring example."

Zellner, who is married, feels that having children would be incompatible with her trial practice. However, Propes and Bobb are married and have children.

It is particularly hard for women to establish their own PI firms, Propes said, because cases for plaintiff’s attorneys are usually on a contingency-fee basis. Meanwhile, the lawyers must pay out of pocket to run their offices and develop their cases. So any lawyer who opens a personal-injury firm risks a lot of upfront costs followed by "a potential no-pay day," she noted. "Not very many women have been willing to take that risk."

"I think a lot of women want more security, and so you tend to find more in defense firms than you do as plaintiff’s lawyers," Bobb agreed. "Working on a contingent-fee basis is tough, especially around here, where things don’t move that fast."

But this isn’t the only barrier to women who want to establish their own firms, Propes continued. "It requires two things. One, the desire to take that financial risk, but also it requires the ability to get the business. And here, also, no question in my mind that it is still far easier for men to get business than women."

Clearly, a cultural bias favors male practitioners, Propes said. "It’s a male-dominated field ... and that’s encouraged by such things as continuing legal education programs where the faculty is either entirely men or dominated by men."

For instance, the University of Illinois College of Law recently offered a trial advocacy seminar on personal injury litigation in which seven faculty members were "all white men," Propes said. "You look at the brochure, and it’s just visually shocking. They can’t find a single woman to include. Now, why is this?"

A brochure like this, crossing the desk of most lawyers in the state, may be excellent advertising for the faculty while at the same time reinforcing the idea that the best trial attorneys in Illinois are men, she contended. And, since much of a PI attorney’s business comes from referrals by other lawyers, that stereotype is quite detrimental.

Clifford, for example, is an excellent trial attorney and won in violinist Rachel Barton’s train injury case "every penny out of it that any lawyer on earth could have gotten out of it." But part of what makes him such a success is that he is recognized as one of the best trial attorneys around, Propes said. Although perhaps a half-dozen other PI lawyers in the state might have achieved as good a result at trial as Clifford did, "he got the case. And a lot of other lawyers didn’t."

Few potential clients would go out looking specifically for a woman to take their personal-injury case, but quite a number would definitely want a man, Propes argues. Meanwhile, those who are willing to have either a male or a female attorney represent them in court are often being referred to men simply because male attorneys are the lawyers who first come to mind, she said. "Do I have the statistics to back it UP? No. But I have common sense and I look at what’s out there."

Even for someone like Clifford, though, his $29.6 million verdict in the Barton case was unusual. And "not too many people get a Rachel Barton," Bobb said.

In her own practice, "the luck of the draw" involved her in few trials last year, although she recently won a $1.8 million bench verdict in federal court on behalf of the family of an inmate who committed suicide at the Metropolitan Correction Center in Chicago, Bobb recounted. "I would have to say that that’s one of the better cases I’ve had recently."

Both Clifford and Corboy are routinely credited for the rise of many women in the profession.

Bobb got her start in Corboy’s office, which has "traditionally been the route to success for most of Chicago’s preeminent personal-injury lawyers," Propes says.

And Zellner views Clifford as an important mentor to her, even though she never worked for him. "He was just so helpful to me and so encouraging to me," Zellner said of Clifford, whose advice led her to try more cases. "He was telling me that attorneys settle their best cases and try their worst cases ... that was a big insight to me."

Maybe a bit ironically, many women have excellent people skills that can help them stand out as trial lawyers, perhaps even more than their male counterparts, some believe.

Zellner, for instance, thinks she is often at an advantage both with clients and before a jury because she is a woman.

Now, after almost 10 years at the helm of her own PI firm, she has found "you can be a trial attorney, you can prevail, and there’s no discrimination against you with jurors."

Representing rape victims in suits against building owners and lessees, Zellner won one jury verdict of over $2 million in Chicago last year and has settled another 10 cases in various states since 1992, she says.

Plaintiffs in cases like these generally prefer a female attorney, she believes. "I think a woman can convey the emotional part of these cases that I think a man may have more trouble doing."

Sometimes, her opposing counsel does underestimate her, Zellner feels, because, unlike some of their male counterparts, "women don’t come in blowing their own horn and blustering around."

This, however, is no problem for her, she says. "Being underestimated is always an advantage."