Lawyer of the Hour

When you first walk into his firm located on the seventh floor of 2 North LaSalle, you get the idea that you are walking into the big leagues of Chicago law practice. The waiting area itself is an octagon with mural-like drawings of some exotic location.

But when you see Robert Clifford, the man who created this legal firm, you're a little surprised. For one thing, he's not wearing a tie, power or otherwise. ("An advantage of owning your own office," he says later.) And in this formal office, Clifford, who grew up on Chicago's South Side, is like a breath of fresh air; there is no sense of any pretentiousness, he has a firm handshake, and you quickly realize that Clifford , who doesn't mince words, can get right to the heart of the matter. In short, Clifford is a lawyer who talks to you, not at you.

Despite the office and his success, you may not be familiar with Robert Clifford , a personal injury lawyer, yet. He has had his share of success; during the first six months of this year alone, he has brought in verdicts totaling near $9 million. He has lost just two and a half cases in over a decade of practicing law. One of those winning verdicts was delivered in April as he won the highest verdict in Kane County history for $2.1 million in a medical malpractice suit involving a brain damaged child. Today, he is going to be sworn in as the third vice president of the Illinois Trial Lawyers Association.

Clifford, who graduated with a B.S. in commerce from DePaul's College of Commerce in 1973, and with a Juris Doctor from DePaul's College of Law in 1976, is also very concerned about the university. In fact, he just became the youngest member of DePaul's Board of Trustees ever at 35.

Oh, yes. Clifford is also representing the family of Nancy Clay, the woman who phoned the fire department to come to her aid at One Illinois Center in the "911 Fire," as it has come to be called. That is the fire that has gathered the attention of the media for the past week now, the fire that took Nancy Clay's life through smoke inhalation. The fire where Clay dialed 911 three times, and is now causing many to question the competency of 911 operators.

Certainly, it is the most media attention that Clifford , who has gotten his share of the media in the past, has ever received. He believes that it will work out for the best in the long run. "I had cases that have had a substantial amount of media coverage," he says. "The difference about the Nancy Clay case is it's one of those rare cases that will raise the public's consciousness about two primary issues. First, we all live in a major metropolitan area that relies on the effective operation of a 911 system. The case calls into question the efficiency of the effectiveness of this city's response to a high-rise fire. When you have poor response to a high-rise fire, it could spell a major catastrophe for the city."

Clifford believes that the Nancy Clay case is "forcing the issues to surface and to be debated and that is going to result in some very positive benefit for this community."

However, he admits that while he hopes that all the attention will help the city in the long run, it's not making his job any easier for the immediate future. "To say it's distracting is an understatement," he says. "The questions that I need to answer from a litigation point of view, and from a public policy point of view, I need to answer on a time frame that generally lawyers don't have to work with. It's really preoccupied my time. Luckily, I have a staff that I can rely on when it gets like this."

It's a staff that Clifford has spent the better part of the past three years establishing. When Clifford left the firm of Philip Corboy and Associates in 1984, the city's most prominent personal injury attorneys-at-law, he set about on fulfilling the course that he had chartered for himself. In fact, when you talk to Clifford you get the impression that money, reputation, status - whatever you want to call it - had very little to do with the break. It was simply critical to the sort of responsibility he wanted to have.

"It may sound corny, but I first thought about law because I knew it would give me an opportunity to work with the public in a positive way. And I think personal injury work is exciting if you're doing it at the level I'm doing it at," he says. "It's work that gets you involved in a myriad of different issues. This year, I have dealt with issues ranging from how to make steel to how we deliver babies. It's such a wide-ranging set of issues that you're dealing with that you can't help but be stimulated. There hasn't been a day in years where I've gone home with a sense of boredom about work."

Not only hasn't there been boredom, (in three years he has traveled to 43 states, in ten months he has traveled 60,000 miles) but Clifford will tell you that there are a number of cases that he feels represent his work, and his profession, at its best.

Such was the case that he settled nearly three years ago with a kid named David Evans. Evans was a diver at Glenbrook South High School, who became a paraplegic in a diving accident that revolved around a group activity. "It was around the time of the tort reform movement. As a result of what happened to David, they stopped the swimming program at Glenbrook," he says. "They said Ôthe swimming program has all been stopped because of a lawsuit.' Well, that was a case they couldn't even defend. I got the current Olympic swim coach at the time, to be an expert, and he agreed to serve without charge because what happened was so blatantly irresponsible."

Now Clifford is trying to pass along the ideologies of his profession as he sees it. "Just this morning, one of our attorneys who joined us a few months ago was going to go to court, and he asked me for advice one more time. I told him that credibility was critical. Success is attained by making an honest and credible presentation of the facts. I believe that you can't hoodwink a jury. That's what's so rewarding about winning; 12 people say you've made a credible presentation of the facts."

Clifford also will admit to you that success has had its costs. "It's a double edged sword, of course. With the success, comes baggage." Besides always being under a watchful eye, the Inverness resident, who was president of DePaul's Alumni Association from 1983-85, was forced to give up his involvement with the university for a couple of years to devote more time to his practice.

"It's good to get back to my involvement with DePaul. The Board of Trustees under [former chairman] James R. Wolf really enhanced the stature of the university. It's done nothing but bring positive results. Things have been done in a way that has been deliberate, slow, and precise. It's professionalism. As a member of the Board now, I hope to keep that image of the university well-entrenched in Chicago."

In the meantime, much of Clifford's remaining time for the next few months will be immersed in the "911 Fire." Beyond that, as he will tell you, he'll be looking for another case that "will have to have some meaning for me, the community, and the people around me. I just can't be a mechanical person."