Robert A. Clifford was inducted as the 135th President of the Chicago Bar Association. He will serve as President of the 25,000-member group for 2011-12 with a number of initiatives on his agenda that promote the bar, the bench and the Chicago community. Recognized as a leader among his peers, Bob Clifford has been inducted into the nation's most prestigious legal organizations. In 2005, he was inducted into the International Society of Barristers, an honor society of outstanding trial lawyers chosen by their peers on the basis of excellence and integrity in advocacy. The Inner Circle of Advocates also invited Mr. Clifford to join its prestigious group which is comprised of outstanding trial attorneys from across the country who share their expertise and ideas. He also was elected to the American Law Institute, a group of 3,000 prominent judges, lawyers and academics from around the world who are selected on the basis of professional achievement in the law. Justice Benjamin Cardozo and Justice Learned Hand were among its early leaders. Mr. Clifford was elected to a second term in 2008 as the Illinois State Delegate to the House of Delegates of the American Bar Association (ABA).

He is Past President of the Illinois Trial Lawyers Association and a Past President of the Chicago Inn of Court which upholds the highest of principles of the profession. He has been inducted into the prestigious American College of Trial Lawyers and the exclusive International Academy of Trial Lawyers. He has been selected to be a member of the National Judicial College, a select assembly of legal and corporate leaders from across the country dedicated to furthering the education and training of judges. Robert Clifford serves on the Board of Overseers of the Rand Institute for Civil Justice, a California-based think tank.  He was appointed a member of the Illinois Supreme Court Committee on Civility which was established to discover and promote appropriate ways to promote civility among Illinois lawyers. He also was elected to be a trustee of the Supreme Court Historical Society, a non-profit organization supporting historical research and publications of the Supreme Court of the United States.

Robert Clifford was named the 2012 Lawyer of the Year in Plaintiffs' Personal Injury Litigation in Chicago.  He also was named the Top 2010 Lawyer of the Year in Medical Malpractice in Chicago by the oldest peer-reviewed organization in the country which featured him on the cover of their guide.  Best Lawyers in America also named Mr. Clifford the 2009 Personal Injury Attorney Lawyer of the Year based upon his particularly high ratings for his ability, professionalism and integrity.  Clifford Law Offices received a First Tier Ranking by U.S.News-Best Lawyers Best Law Firms in 2011 and 2012.  Leading Lawyers of Illinois has named him one of the Top Ten Attorneys in the state, where he, in fact, always has ranked upon the top three.  He was profiled in a lengthy article in Chicago Magazine in March, 2011, that detailed his work in aviation law, an area where he perhaps has made the greatest impact in Chicago, around the country and, indeed, around the world.

Robert Clifford served as liaison counsel in the property damage claims in the destruction of the World Trade Center on 9/11 which settled 10 years later in 2011 for $1.2 billion.  These complex cases were brought on behalf of insurance companies and business interests from around the globe who suffered financial losses after the Twin Towers collapsed that tragic morning.  He recently was recognized with a Jury Verdict Reporter Award for an $85 million settlement in a qui tam case in which he was among the firms representing the whistleblower.

Chicago Lawyer Magazine named Clifford Law Offices the top plaintiffs' firm in the state, topping the charts with $100.70 million in settlements in 2009, $136.85 million in 24 settlements in 2002, and again was the leading firm in 2005 with settlements topping $86 million. Robert Clifford was singled out as the leading individual attorney with the highest total dollar figure in settlements at $77.32 million in 2002. Robert Clifford consistently garners multi-million dollar settlements and verdicts in aviation litigation, representing those injured or killed in every major commercial airline crash in the United States in the last two decades and currently representing 17 families in the Turkish Airlines crash in Amsterdam in 2009 and five families who lost loved ones in the Buffalo plane crash as well as the runway crash in Lexington, Kentucky, of a Comair flight that killed all but one aboard.

He was named as one of the Top 10 Attorneys who Raised the Bar Over the Last Decade in Chicago by the Law Bulletin Publishing Company. He was selected as one of the "five most respected and feared plaintiffs' attorneys in the country by Corporate Legal Times in 2004, calling him "the best of the bad." He was featured on the cover of the inaugural 2005 issue of Illinois Super Lawyers where they called him "Chicago's Most Likeable Tough Guy." The feature story headlined him as "Chicago's Most Feared Attorney – Bob Clifford is a lamb who turns into a lion when he's confronted by injustice." He was the cover story of the 2009 Leading Lawyers' Consumer Edition. In 2011 Mr. Clifford was again one of the few lawyers named to Crain's Chicago Business' top civic, cultural, and professional leaders in Chicago which recognizes 750 individuals that the organization believes everyone "needs to know." The National Law Journal named Mr. Clifford's firm on the "Plaintiffs' Hot List: 20 Go-To Teams" in 2004 as well as in 2003. He was named one of the Top Ten Litigators in Illinois in 1999 as well as one of the nation's Top Ten Litigators of 1993 by the prestigious National Law Journal. American Lawyer Media recognized Mr. Clifford as one of the Top Ten Most Influential Lawyers in Illinois in 2000.

Mr. Clifford endowed the first Chair on Tort Law and Social Policy to his alma mater, DePaul University College of Law. This generous gift provides for an annual symposium where academicians, lawyers and judges from across the country gather to speak on a timely topic dealing with the relationship between tort law and societal needs. He also sits on the Board of Directors of WTTW, Chicago's public television station, where he sponsors closed captioning. Robert A. Clifford is principal partner of Clifford Law Offices, a nationally recognized personal injury law firm in Chicago concentrating in aviation, transportation, personal injury, medical negligence and product liability law.