Napleton & Partners: The Firm That Publishes What Happened After the Verdict

Attorney advertising. This profile was not paid for, commissioned, or reviewed by the firm before publication. Awesome Attorneys is not a lawyer referral service and does not endorse, recommend, or warrant any firm. Results described below are attributed to their published source; past results do not guarantee or predict the outcome of any future case. Nothing here is legal advice.

A note on the name before anything else. This firm was known for twenty-five years as Motherway & Napleton, LLP. It was renamed Napleton & Partners in 2024. Most of the internet has not caught up — Avvo, Martindale, Yelp, Glassdoor and a dozen directories still carry the old name, and the old domain now redirects to the new one. Same lawyers, same suite, same phone. If you were looking for Motherway & Napleton, this is it.

At a Glance

Firm	Napleton & Partners (formerly Motherway & Napleton, LLP; originally Motherway & Glenn)
Founded	1982 as Motherway & Glenn; Napleton name added 1999; renamed Napleton & Partners in 2024 (per the firm’s own timeline)
Office	140 S. Dearborn Street, Suite 1500, Chicago, IL 60603 — single office, no suburban satellites
Focus	Medical negligence; trucking and vehicle collisions; product liability; birth injury; premises and construction; wrongful death
Side of the docket	Plaintiff only
Size	Thirteen attorneys, all registered at the Dearborn Street address
Signature result	$54,155,900 judgment, Denton v. Universal Am-Can, Ltd., Cook County 2017 — affirmed in full, 2019 IL App (1st) 181525
Peer standing	Robert J. Napleton and Nicholas J. Motherway, Fellows of the American College of Trial Lawyers; Napleton on the ITLA Board of Managers, 2026–27
Fee model	Contingency (per the firm)
Disciplinary record	No public discipline on file with the Illinois ARDC for any of the fourteen current and former attorneys we checked

I. June 1, 1987

Robert J. Napleton started at this firm as a law clerk on June 1, 1987 — a date his own bio gives, not a rounded year. He was between his second and third years at Loyola, clerking for Nick Motherway and Bob Glenn, the two men whose names were on the door. He had gone to Brother Rice High School on the South Side, then Loyola for both degrees, and during law school he clerked for the Hon. James E. Murphy in the Circuit Court of Cook County. He became an associate in November 1988.

The ARDC puts his admission at November 10, 1988. The dates line up to the month, which is more than can be said for most firm histories we check.

Thirty-seven years later he is the managing partner and the firm carries his name. Nicholas J. Motherway, who hired him, is now listed by the ARDC as retired and not authorized to practice — and the firm’s own history timeline, oddly, skips straight from 1999 to 2011 to 2017 to 2024, never mentioning the name “Motherway & Napleton” under which it litigated nearly everything it is known for.

II. The Mechanism: Publishing the Appeal, Not Just the Verdict

Almost every plaintiff’s firm in Chicago advertises a results page. Very few of them tell you what happened to the number afterward.

This one does, and it is the single most unusual structural fact about it. The firm maintains dedicated pages explaining the gap between a jury’s award and what the client actually received. One is headed “Appeals Exhausted — $34 Million Dollar Judgment Paid,” and it walks through how a $27.67 million February 2012 verdict in Hoffman v. Joseph T. Ryerson & Son became a $34 million payment only after interest, costs and co-defendant settlements, with the Illinois Supreme Court denying leave to appeal on September 25, 2014. Another explains that a $16 million October 2003 birth-injury verdict was paid out at $18,294,774.73 in March 2006, per a Cook County Probate order, once the appeals ran out. A third discloses that a $14.6 million Livingston County result was apportioned 75/25 and reduced by a $1.2 million setoff.

We have now verified the advertised track records of roughly fifteen Chicago plaintiff firms. The ordinary pattern is a headline number frozen at the moment the jury spoke, with the appellate history — reversal, remittitur, vacatur — left off entirely. We found no instance of this firm advertising a figure that was later cut. That is not a compliment about character; it is a verifiable habit, and it is the reason a reader can take this firm’s results page at closer to face value than most.

It is worth being precise about the limit of that praise. The habit is inconsistent. The firm’s $216 million stabbing verdict is presented in a headline that does not mention the split, and the body text — which does disclose that $214,517,300 of it is punitive damages against three individual defendants and that the firm “intend[s] to vigorously attempt to collect” — is where the candor lives. A reader who stops at the headline gets a number that will almost certainly never be paid.

III. Practice Areas

• Medical negligence, including birth injury
• Trucking and commercial vehicle collisions
• Automobile collisions
• Product liability
• Premises liability and construction injury
• Nursing home neglect
• Police misconduct
• Train and commercial aviation crashes
• Wrongful death

The firm states it “focuses exclusively on representing individuals and families that have been injured or killed.” Super Lawyers classifies it as Personal Injury — Plaintiff; the American College of Trial Lawyers lists Napleton’s practice as medical malpractice, personal injury and product liability, all plaintiff-side. We found no current defense work. Two attorneys disclose defense careers on their own bios before joining: Bradley Schulman “began his career defending doctors and hospitals” before coming over in 2013, and L. Michael Tarpey co-founded a firm defending medical negligence and product liability cases until 2008. Both say so themselves.

IV. Track Record

Past results do not guarantee or predict the outcome of any future case. Each figure below is identified by its source, and figures we could not confirm outside the firm’s own website are marked as such.

$54,155,900 — affirmed	Denton v. Universal Am-Can, Ltd., Cook County 2017: $19,155,900 compensatory plus $35,000,000 punitive in a semi-truck collision. Affirmed in full by the Illinois Appellate Court, 2019 IL App (1st) 181525 (Sept. 24, 2019). Not reduced, not vacated. This is the firm’s anchor result and it survives checking intact — which, in this market, is rarer than the number itself.
$27,670,000 verdict → $34,000,000 paid	Hoffman v. Joseph T. Ryerson & Son, February 2012. Affirmed; Illinois Supreme Court denied leave September 25, 2014. The $34M figure is verdict plus interest, costs and co-defendant settlements — the firm explains this itself on a dedicated page rather than leaving the reader to reconcile it.
$16,000,000 verdict → $18,294,774.73 paid	Birth injury, October 2003 verdict; paid March 7, 2006 per Cook County Probate order after appeals were exhausted. Firm-sourced, with the mechanics disclosed.
$14,600,000	Livingston County road worker. The firm discloses a 75/25 fault apportionment and a $1,200,000 setoff for a prior settlement. Firm-sourced.
$216,663,013	July 2023 stabbing of an off-duty Chicago police officer near the Mark II Lounge in West Rogers Park; the underlying incident is corroborated by CWB Chicago, ABC7 and FOX 32. The verdict amount has no independent corroboration we could find. It breaks down as $2,145,713 compensatory and $214,517,300 punitive against three individual defendants — a figure whose collectability the firm itself does not assert.

An attribution gap. The published Denton opinion names four lawyers for the plaintiff: Napleton, Christopher T. Theisen and James M. Roche of Theisen & Roche, and Lynn D. Dowd of Naperville. The firm’s write-up credits Theisen and Roche. It does not name Dowd, and its results index attributes the $54 million to Napleton alone. Appellate co-counsel on a case affirmed on appeal is not a footnote.

No aggregate claim. The firm advertises no “$X billion recovered” banner anywhere — only “hundreds of multi-million-dollar verdicts and settlements since our founding in 1982.” Two small internal inconsistencies: an About-page counter reads “100” multi-million-dollar results while the paragraph beneath it says “hundreds,” and that same counter still headlines “$54 MM+ Record high verdict” while the news section carries the $216 million figure. The results index has not been synced to the newsfeed.

V. Client Voice

There is almost no independent client record for this firm, and we are not going to manufacture one.

Avvo shows Robert Napleton at a 10.0 “Superb” rating with zero client reviews behind it — the score is algorithmic, built from self-supplied profile data and two peer endorsements. FindLaw states plainly: “There are currently no reviews for Napleton & Partners.” Glassdoor carries a single review, filed under the old firm name and miscategorized under “Accounting & Tax.” Google and Yelp both blocked retrieval, so we do not know the firm’s Google rating or review count and will not guess at it; the Yelp listing is in any case still titled “Motherway & Napleton.” The BBB gives an A+ with no complaints surfaced, though the firm is not accredited.

The only client voice available anywhere is eight initials-only testimonials on the firm’s own website, which is not a source. So: no one-star pattern, no credible negative reviews with specifics — and no corpus at all. For a firm that has been trying cases in Cook County since 1982, that absence is itself the finding. It means a prospective client cannot check this firm the ordinary way, and will have to ask for references directly.

VI. Beyond the Courtroom

We looked for a community involvement page, a pro bono program, a scholarship, a sponsorship, a charitable fund. The firm’s site has none, and a search of the site for “community,” “pro bono” and “board of” returns nothing. No outside source surfaced any charitable or civic activity at firm level.

What does exist is bar service, and some of it is verified by the conferring body rather than by the firm. Napleton sits on the Illinois Trial Lawyers Association Board of Managers for 2026–27, confirmed on ITLA’s own roster, and his bio claims service on the ISBA Board of Governors from 1994 to 2000. Daniel Madigan serves on the University of Illinois College of Law Advisory Board; John Goldrick holds a Southwest Bar Association board seat. That is the whole of it. We would rather state the gap than fill it.

VII. Credentials and Recognition

Peer-reviewed and invitation-only, verified against the conferring body:

• Robert J. Napleton — Fellow, American College of Trial Lawyers, “Fellow Since March 10, 2007,” Illinois-Upstate chapter. Confirmed on ACTL’s own roster. Fellowship is by invitation and capped at roughly one percent of a state’s bar.
• Nicholas J. Motherway — Fellow, American College of Trial Lawyers. Also confirmed on ACTL’s roster.
• Robert J. Napleton — ITLA Board of Managers, 2026–27, confirmed on the association’s own site.

Peer-based but firm-claimed only, which we could not confirm: ABOTA membership for Brion Doherty, Patrick Giese and David Gallagher; Brian Fetzer’s International Academy of Trial Lawyers fellowship and ACTL membership; Michael Tarpey’s Martindale AV Preeminent rating (Martindale blocked verification); and Napleton’s ISBA Board of Governors service. One claim we tested and could not match: Fetzer’s bio states that “The Best Lawyers in America has recognized him since 2006,” and a Best Lawyers search for his surname returned no results. We flag the conflict rather than resolve it.

Paid or nomination-driven marketing programs, which should not be read as peer honors: Super Lawyers and Rising Stars, including “Top 100 Illinois Super Lawyers”; Leading Lawyers Network and its “Emerging Lawyer” designation; the Chicago Daily Law Bulletin “40 Under 40”; National Trial Lawyers “Top 100 Trial Lawyers”; and “America’s Top 100 Personal Injury Attorneys.”

VIII. What We Checked and Did Not Find

We ran every one of the thirteen current attorneys, plus the retired Nicholas J. Motherway, through the Illinois ARDC. All fourteen returned live records reading “Public Record of Discipline and Pending Proceedings: None.” No suspensions, censures, probations or pending proceedings. Every current attorney is registered at 140 S. Dearborn, Suite 1500 — no phantom lawyers, no one on the roster who is not in the roll, and no deceased attorney presented as practicing.

We validated our ARDC queries against a control surname that returns a real disbarment record before relying on any null result, because the ARDC’s search interface returns a deceptive “no results” page to naive queries even for attorneys who have been disbarred.

No malpractice suits, no sanctions, no ethics findings were located against the firm or any attorney at it.

The smaller items we did find are administrative rather than substantive: Motherway remains in the results page’s attorney filter and at a live orphan bio URL despite being ARDC-retired; the ARDC registers three attorneys to “Robert J. Napleton, P.C.” while others show “Napleton & Partners,” and LinkedIn indexes a third variant, so the relationship between trade name and legal entity is not clear from public records; and the BBB dates the business to January 1, 1984 against the firm’s stated 1982 founding.

One thing worth naming for a Chicago reader: Ed Napleton Automotive Group, a large Illinois car-dealer chain, paid $10 million in an April 2022 FTC and Illinois Attorney General settlement over junk fees and discrimination against Black consumers. We found no connection of any kind between that company and this law firm, and we mention it only because the surname now dominates Illinois search results and a reader is likely to encounter it.

IX. The Illinois Legal Backdrop, in Plain English

General information, not legal advice. Statutes below were verified against the Illinois General Assembly, the Illinois Courts, or the current Illinois Compiled Statutes as noted; deadlines turn on facts a lawyer has to look at.

Illinois does not recognize legal specialists. Illinois Rule of Professional Conduct 7.4(b) states that “The Supreme Court of Illinois does not recognize certifications of specialties in the practice of law, nor does it recognize certifications of expertise in any phase of the practice of law by any agency, governmental or private, or by any group, organization or association.” Rule 7.4(c) bars a lawyer from using “certified,” “specialist” or “expert” to describe their qualifications, except to identify an actual certificate or award — and then only with a disclaimer stating that the Supreme Court of Illinois does not recognize specialty certifications and that the credential is not a requirement to practice law in Illinois. Registered patent attorneys are the single carve-out. No lawyer at this firm is described as a specialist anywhere in this profile, and any Illinois firm that describes itself that way is telling you something about its compliance habits.

Two years, usually. 735 ILCS 5/13-202 gives two years from accrual to file a personal injury action.

Fifty-one percent ends the case. Under 735 ILCS 5/2-1116, a plaintiff more than 50% at fault recovers nothing. At 50% or below, damages are reduced by the plaintiff’s share. No contributory fault may be attributed to a plaintiff suing over childhood sexual abuse.

Children get the clock back. 735 ILCS 5/13-211 gives a person injured before turning 18 two years from their eighteenth birthday.

Medical negligence runs on its own clock. Under 735 ILCS 5/13-212, a claim against a physician, dentist, registered nurse or hospital must be brought within two years of when the claimant knew or should have known of the injury, and in no event more than four years after the act or omission — the outer four-year bar can extinguish a claim before the patient discovers it. For a person under 18, the period runs eight years from the act but the suit must be filed before the person’s twenty-second birthday.

Public bodies are far shorter. Under 745 ILCS 10/8-101(a), a claim against a local public entity or its employee — a city, a park district, a school district — must be filed within one year. Subsection (b) gives two years, with a four-year repose, only for claims arising out of patient care. Missing the one-year deadline is the most common way a good Illinois case dies.

The CTA is one year, and there is no longer a notice requirement. 70 ILCS 3605/41 gives one year from accrual to sue the Chicago Transit Authority. The six-month written notice requirement that older articles still describe was repealed effective June 1, 2009 by P.A. 96-12. It is not current law.

Wrongful death. Under 740 ILCS 180/1 and 180/2, the action is brought by the decedent’s personal representative for the exclusive benefit of the surviving spouse and next of kin, generally within two years of death — five years where the death resulted from violent intentional conduct, or one year after final disposition of a related criminal case for certain charged offenses.

X. The Awesome Attorneys Assessment

The specific thing Napleton & Partners does that its competitors mostly do not is tell you what the verdict became. Its anchor result — $54,155,900 in Denton — was affirmed in full by a published appellate opinion, and its other headline numbers come with their own explainer pages walking through interest, setoffs, apportionment and the years of appeal in between. We spent this session checking Chicago firms whose advertised verdicts had been vacated, remitted by 93%, counted three times, or won at another firm entirely. This one’s held up. Thirteen lawyers, one office, two American College of Trial Lawyers fellowships, a clean ARDC record across every attorney, and forty-four years of continuous Cook County practice behind it.

The trade-offs are real and they are mostly about what you cannot see. There is effectively no independent client record — no Google rating we could retrieve, no Avvo reviews, no Glassdoor to speak of, nothing but eight initialed testimonials the firm published itself. A prospective client who wants to know how this firm treats people has nowhere to look, which is a different problem from a firm with mixed reviews and a worse one to solve. There is no visible community or pro bono footprint at all. The firm’s own history page has quietly erased the name it practiced under for twenty-five years, which makes its record harder rather than easier to trace. And the $216 million headline — 99% of it punitive damages against three individuals — is the one place where the firm’s otherwise careful habit slips.

This firm is right for someone with a serious, contested case who cares more about what gets collected than what gets announced — a trucking catastrophe, a medical negligence claim, a death case that will be fought through appeal. It is a poorer fit for someone who chooses a lawyer by reading reviews, because there are none to read, or for someone who wants the reassurance of a large bench: thirteen lawyers in one office is a real constraint on how many hard cases can move at once.

Methodology & Sourcing

Research conducted September 14, 2026. Attorney admission dates, registered business addresses and disciplinary status were taken from Illinois ARDC registration records, not from the firm, using a query method validated against a control surname returning a known disbarment before any null result was relied upon. The firm’s identity and rename were established from its own history timeline, from the 301 redirect of its former domain, and from the ARDC-registered firm names of all thirteen current attorneys. The address was confirmed on the firm’s own live contact page and cross-checked against thirteen independent ARDC registrations. The Denton verdict and its affirmance were verified against the published opinion of the Illinois Appellate Court (2019 IL App (1st) 181525) as issued by the Illinois Courts. The 2023 stabbing was corroborated as an event by CWB Chicago, ABC7 and FOX 32; the verdict figure is firm-sourced and identified as such. ACTL fellowships were verified on the American College of Trial Lawyers’ own fellow directory, and ITLA board service on ITLA’s own roster. Statutes were verified against the Illinois General Assembly (735 ILCS 5/13-202, 5/2-1116, 5/13-211), the Illinois Courts’ official rule text (Ill. R. Prof’l Conduct 7.4), and the current Illinois Compiled Statutes as published by secondary repositories carrying the governing Public Act notes (735 ILCS 5/13-212, 745 ILCS 10/8-101, 70 ILCS 3605/41, 740 ILCS 180/1–2), the Illinois General Assembly’s own site being unavailable on the research date. Claims we could not verify are marked as unverified rather than softened or omitted.

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