Salvi, Schostok & Pritchard celebrates 40th anniversary

CHICAGO – Salvi, Schostok & Pritchard, P.C. is proud to celebrate 40 years of providing personal injury and medical malpractice clients with the highest level of legal representation, according to a news release.

Over the past four decades, this commitment has led to many record-breaking verdicts and settlements.

In 1978, just after graduating from Notre Dame Law School, Patrick A. Salvi began his legal career working for his father, Albert Salvi, in Lake Zurich.

During his first few years in practice, Patrick Salvi primarily was a general practice lawyer who represented clients in real estate and divorce matters. In an effort to gain trial experience, Salvi began working with the Lake County Public Defender’s Office shortly into his career.

In January 1982, Salvi established his own law firm, The Law Office of Patrick A. Salvi, P.C., to focus his practice on his passion for trial law and helping injured victims. Within the first few years in business, Salvi won several major, groundbreaking cases. In one case, Salvi represented a hotel manager who suffered a back injury as a result of a traffic accident. During trial, Salvi brought in an economist to prove loss of earnings, and at the time, he was one of the first attorneys in Lake County to do so. This exemplified his cutting-edge tactics that would become a theme for the firm for years to come.

Through the success of each case and as more clients requested his legal services, Salvi brought on more people to assist him. One of those people was his friend and business partner, the late Michael J. Schostok, who joined the firm as an associate, later was Salvi’s first partner and paved the way for the firm name transition to Salvi & Schostok, P.C. in 1998. Schostok passed away in 2012 after a battle with brain cancer, but his legacy lives on and his son, Michael P. Schostok, joined the firm as an attorney in 2019.

In 1999, the firm name changed once again when attorney David Pritchard joined the team and helped establish a Chicago office. He remained with the firm until he retired in 2014.

Today, Salvi, Schostok & Pritchard has 18 lawyers and is supported by more than 30 staff members. The firm has earned a reputation as one of the top-ranked firms in Illinois, recovering more than $1.5 billion for injured individuals and their families. In 2017, Salvi led a trial team that won a $148 million jury verdict for a young woman who was paralyzed at O’Hare International Airport. The verdict is the highest jury verdict ever awarded to an individual plaintiff in Illinois history.

Over the years, Salvi has become a nationally recognized attorney who has been named among the Best Lawyers in America, The Top 10 Leading Lawyers in Illinois and the Top 10 Illinois Super Lawyers. In 2021, Salvi became the 26th individual to be presented with the Illinois Trial Lawyers Association’s prestigious Leonard M. Ring Lifetime Achievement Award, which honors a trial lawyer who has devoted their life and legal practice to the work ethic and high professional standards of the award’s name bearer. The same year, Salvi was one of only 11 attorneys throughout the country to be named to Law360′s “Titans of the Plaintiffs Bar” list. In 2017, Best Lawyers named Salvi the Plaintiff’s Personal Injury “Lawyer of the Year” in Chicago.

Salvi, the father of five, is perhaps most proud and thankful for the opportunity to work alongside his sons, Patrick who joined the firm in 2007, and Brian, who joined the firm in 2013. Salvi’s daughter-in-law, Eirene, joined the firm in 2015.

“I am very grateful for the tremendous work put in by my lawyers and staff over the past four decades. I am humbled by their loyalty and the blood, sweat and tears they have given me throughout their careers,” Patrick A. Salvi said. “I am looking forward to continuing the firm’s legacy of success and fighting for the rights of injured victims with my dear colleagues here at Salvi, Schostok & Pritchard.”