Our Attorneys
WILLIAM F. FITZPATRICK
William Fitzpatrick is a veteran Chicago trial lawyer with 30 years of experience. A graduate of Loyola Law School in Chicago, he has been admitted to practice in the state courts as well as the Federal District Courts and the Federal Court of Appeals. He is also admitted to practice before the United States Supreme Court. During his legal career, Mr. Fitzpatrick has represented the rights of injured or deceased persons, including those killed as a result of medical negligence and/or exposure to dangerous products or drugs. He is currently in litigation with Merck Corporation over the safety and use of its VIOXX drug. He is also engaged in ongoing litigation with the federal government over the use of Agent Orange.
In the past, he has secured verdicts or settlements in excess of millions of dollars for clients and their families, including a case involving the administration of an unsafe asthma medication to an asthmatic child ($3,000,000.00), a case involving negligent anesthesiological care to a young mother ($2,700,000.00), a case in which a woman suffered a degloving injury to her hand while operating a dangerous printing press in the course of her employment ($1,200,000.00), a case involving a young woman who sustained serious injury from the deployment of a defective air bag ($1,300,000.00), a case involving a young girl who suffered serious injuries while riding an allegedly defective three wheeler ATV ($1,300,000.00), a case involving a man whose vision was damaged due to a delayed diagnosis of temporal arteritis ($1,200,000.00), a case involving a man who sustained serious back injuries in an automobile collision ($2,200,000.00), a case involving a woman who died as a result of a failure to make a timely diagnosis of an abdominal aortic aneurysm ($2,000,000.00) and a case involving serious injury to a man as a result of the failure to make a timely diagnosis of a dissecting aortic aneurysm ($1,400,000.00).
William Fitzpatrick has also recovered over four million dollars for children and adults who suffered brain injuries from medical negligence in Cook, Lake, and Peoria counties. He is considered one of Illinois' leading trial attorneys.
JOAN N. HARROP
Prior to attending law school, Joan Harrop worked as a paralegal for the law firm of Gomien, Root & Rigazio in Morris, Illinois. After graduating from law school in 1995, Ms Harrop began practice as an attorney with the law firm of Gomien, Harrop & Sobol, also in Morris, Illinois. She practiced as an attorney with the firm of Gomien & Harrop Ltd., until the merger that created Fitzpatrick & Harrop, Ltd. Joan Harrop is a life-long resident of Grundy County, Illinois.
Ms Harrop is an experienced litigator in personal injury, wrongful death and medical malpractice law. She handles all other types of civil litigation as well, together with real estate transactions, estate planning and probate work. She is also a certified divorce mediator.
Joan's recent accomplishments include a 1.68 million dollar settlement for the wrongful death of a 9 month old child in Grundy County, Illinois, and a two million dollar verdict for the wrongful death of a 65-year-old woman in LaSalle County, Illinois. She is counted among the top women litigators in Illinois.
Ms Harrop is a 1995 graduate of IIT-Chicago Kent College of Law in Chicago, Illinois. She is a member and former president of the Grundy County Will County, Chicago, Illinois State and Wisconsin State Bar Associations, and a member of the Illinois Trial Lawyers Association and the American Association for Justice. She is admitted to practice in the Northern District of Illinois, the State of Wisconsin, and the United States Supreme Court.
JOHN Q. FITZPATRICK
Since graduating from Loyola Law School in Chicago in 2000, John Fitzpatrick has established a record of fighting aggressively and successfully for his clients in both civil and criminal court. At the conclusion of a recent personal injury trial, the jury returned a verdict in favor of his client that was more than seven times the last settlement offer made by the defendant's insurance company and in excess of the defendant's auto insurance policy limits. After this verdict, he was able to make the insurance company pay his client more money than the amount of coverage available under the defendant's insurance policy. Mr. Fitzpatrick has obtained impressive jury verdicts for his clients in civil cases as well as not guilty verdicts and acquittals in criminal cases. Over the last year he has recovered nearly $1,000,000 for his clients.
While in law school, Fitzpatrick worked as a clerk in the Cook County State's Attorney's Office. He believes that a lawyer has an obligation to the community, part of which involves protecting the rights and liberties of individuals against corporate greed and undue encroachment from governmental authorities.
He is licensed to practice before the Illinois Bar and the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, where he is a member of the Federal Trial Bar. He is also a member of the Illinois State Bar Association, the Chicago Bar Association, the Public Investors Arbitration Bar Association, and the Illinois Trial Lawyers Association.