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Power Rogers: The Founders Who Met at a Gas Station and the Crash Case That Exposed a Governor

The firm’s own account of how its two founders met is that Joseph Power Jr. was a regular at a Chicago gas station where Larry Rogers Sr. was working to support his family, that Power kept bringing in a beat-up car, and that Power encouraged Rogers to go back to law school. The public record is consistent with it: Power was admitted to the Illinois bar in November 1977, Rogers in November 1983, nine years after finishing college. They opened a firm together in 1993. Eleven months later, six children of the Willis family were killed in a crash on I-94, and the case Power brought on their behalf uncovered a scheme selling commercial driver’s licenses for bribes — the investigation that ended with a former Illinois governor in federal prison.

At a Glance

FIRM	Power Rogers, LLP (formerly Power, Rogers & Smith, 1993–2020)
FOUNDED	1993, by Joseph A. Power Jr., Larry R. Rogers Sr. (1947–2023) and Todd A. Smith
OFFICE	70 West Madison Street, Suite 5500, Chicago, IL 60602 (Three First National Plaza) — a single office
PRACTICE	Plaintiff-side: medical malpractice and birth injury, trucking and commercial vehicle, aviation, product liability, civil rights, sexual abuse, qui tam
SIZE	13 living attorneys on the firm’s roster
INTAKE	Runs an explicit attorney-referral program; states it offers “competitive referral fees”
RANKING	Ranked first in Illinois by dollars recovered in the Chicago Lawyer / Jury Verdict Reporter annual settlement survey in most recent years
AGGREGATE CLAIM	“Over $6 billion” (per the firm; its own blog elsewhere says more than $5 billion)

Origin and Background

The firm launched in 1993 as Power, Rogers & Smith. Todd Smith withdrew as a partner in January 2020, remained through April to transition clients, and co-founded Smith LaCien LLP with another departing partner; the firm became Power Rogers, LLP. Larry Rogers Sr. died in January 2023 and is still listed on the roster. Rogers Sr. was the first African American president of the Illinois Trial Lawyers Association and served on DePaul University’s Board of Trustees from 2010 until his death. A Better Business Bureau record dating the business to 1983 conflicts with the 1993 founding the firm and independent bar reporting both give; Awesome Attorneys uses 1993.

What Makes the Firm Structurally Different

The mechanism is that this is a referral firm rather than a volume firm: thirteen lawyers, an explicit intake channel aimed at other attorneys rather than at injured people directly, and a docket built from cases other lawyers hand over when they are actually going to trial. Power states the reasoning bluntly — “probably 95 percent of lawyers don’t actually try cases. So, when a case is really going to trial, they seek out the few lawyers who have the experience.” The second mechanism is visible in the case record rather than the marketing: this firm assembles recoveries out of multiple defendants rather than chasing a single policy limit. The Willis recovery was built from six separate corporations. A $95.5 million verdict for a truck driver who lost both legs above the knee ran against three corporate defendants. A $40 million recovery for the City of Dixon after a comptroller embezzled $54 million was taken not from the embezzler but from the city’s auditors and its bank. Power’s own framing of case evaluation is “who owns them? What’s their culpability, in fact or in law?”

Practice Areas

Medical malpractice and birth injury. Wrongful death. Truck and commercial vehicle collisions. Aviation. Premises liability. Product liability. Construction. Civil rights. Sexual abuse and assault. Qui tam and whistleblower. Contingent commercial litigation.

Track Record

Matter	Result	Verification
Truck driver, bilateral above-knee amputation from improperly loaded steel tubing, Cook County No. 2014-L-008096	$95,477,464 verdict, November 2, 2017; reduced post-trial to $85,929,717.60	Independently verified (national Top 100 Verdicts listing)
Pedestrian pinned against a convenience-store front, bilateral above-knee amputations	$91 million settlement, February 2023	Independently reported, and described in that coverage as the largest pretrial recovery for an injured person in Illinois history
Willis family — 1994 I-94 crash killing six children	$100 million settlement against six corporations	Independently reported
City of Dixon — claims against auditors and a bank following a $54 million municipal embezzlement	$40 million settlement, 2013	Independently reported (ABA Journal)
Medical malpractice — failure to oxygenate during a bronchoscopic biopsy, resulting in brain damage	$55,439,269.59 verdict, including a $15 million loss-of-consortium award	Firm-reported as an Illinois record; corroborated in secondary coverage but not verified against a verdict reporter
Teenager rendered incompletely quadriplegic after a vehicle struck an unmarked gravel mound during a utility project	$229 million pre-trial settlement, 2022	Per the firm only — see note below

Three cautions belong with this table. The firm’s results page lists both $95.4 million and $85 million as separate entries; they are the same case, the gross verdict and the reduced judgment, and are counted once here. The $229 million settlement is stated only by the firm, and Awesome Attorneys found no independent confirmation of it in news coverage or verdict reporting — which matters because the firm separately describes the $91 million settlement as the largest pretrial recovery in Illinois history, a claim outside press repeats. Both cannot be true. The firm’s aggregate recovery figure is given as “over $6 billion” on one page and “more than $5 billion” on another. Past results do not guarantee or predict a similar outcome in any future case.

Client Voice

Aggregated across Facebook and Google, the firm’s public rating is 4.9 across roughly 108 reviews. A reviewer identified as Eugene Wilson wrote that his lawyer’s “perseverance, determination, and diligence in finding out what happened was truly outstanding.” A reviewer identified as Angela Matney wrote that “during the most difficult time we ever had to face, this firm somehow managed to make it easier for us.” Awesome Attorneys found no negative client reviews on any platform it could read, and states the limit of that finding plainly: Yelp’s fourteen reviews were inaccessible, and the firm’s own testimonials page publishes only selected reviews. Two data problems are worth noting for anyone weighing the reviews. The firm’s testimonials page carries the identical sentence about the same attorney under two different reviewer names, two months apart. And a FindLaw listing for this firm carries reviews praising a lawyer who does not work here and runs a different Chicago firm; those reviews should not be read as this firm’s.

Beyond the Courtroom

The bar-office record is unusually dense. Joseph Power Jr. served on the Illinois Supreme Court Rules Committee from 1995 to 2003 and chaired it from 1996 to 2000; he was president of the Illinois Trial Lawyers Association in 1992–93, of the Illinois chapter of the American Board of Trial Advocates from 2013 to 2015, of the Inner Circle of Advocates in 2018–19, and of Trial Lawyers for Public Justice in 1998–99. Larry Rogers Sr. was president of the Cook County Bar Association in 1991–92 and of the Illinois Trial Lawyers Association in 2000–01, the first African American to hold the latter office, and sat on the boards of the Legal Assistance Foundation of Chicago and DePaul University. Larry Rogers Jr. was ITLA president in 2020 and a past president of the Cook County Bar Association. Kathryn Conway was president of the Women’s Bar Association of Illinois in 2020. Devon Bruce served as president of the Teachers’ Retirement System of Illinois from 2018 to 2021. Awesome Attorneys did not identify a firm-wide pro bono program, hours commitment or foundation.

Recognition

Illinois Rule of Professional Conduct 7.4(b) provides that the Supreme Court of Illinois does not recognize certifications of specialties in the practice of law, and 7.4(c) restricts the words “certified,” “specialist” and “expert.” Awesome Attorneys does not use specialist language for Illinois firms.

Invitation-only or peer-conferred: Joseph Power Jr.’s fellowship in the American College of Trial Lawyers (1995) and the International Academy of Trial Lawyers (1996); membership in the Inner Circle of Advocates, capped at 100 members nationally, held by Power and by Larry Rogers Jr.; membership in the American Board of Trial Advocates, which requires jury-trial experience; the Chicago Bar Association’s Justice John Paul Stevens Award and its Earl B. Dickerson Award, both to Larry Rogers Sr.; the Illinois Trial Lawyers Association’s Leonard M. Ring Lifetime Achievement Award; and the offices listed above. Independent data rankings: first place in the Chicago Lawyer / Jury Verdict Reporter annual settlement survey, which counts reported settlements over $500,000. Hybrid: Best Lawyers, peer-balloted but commercially licensed, lists ten firm attorneys, with Power listed continuously since 1987. Commercial or fee-based, kept separate: Super Lawyers, the Leading Lawyers Network, Elite Lawyer, The National Trial Lawyers, the National Association of Distinguished Counsel, a Marquis Who’s Who lifetime achievement award, and Better Business Bureau accreditation, which is a paid membership. Avvo’s 10.0 rating is algorithmic, not peer-conferred.

One correction: Joseph Power Jr.’s biography on the firm’s website lists him as President of the American Bar Association from 1998 to 1999, along with earlier ABA vice-presidency and board service. He did not hold that office; the ABA presidents in those years were other lawyers. The entry appears to duplicate his genuine Trial Lawyers for Public Justice offices with the organization name changed, and reads as a website error rather than a claim he makes elsewhere. Awesome Attorneys flags it rather than repeating it.

Illinois Legal Backdrop

An Illinois action for damages for personal injury must generally be commenced within two years after the cause of action accrued, under 735 ILCS 5/13-202. Under 735 ILCS 5/2-1116, a plaintiff is barred from recovering damages entirely if the trier of fact finds the plaintiff’s contributory fault is more than 50 percent; below that threshold, damages are diminished in proportion to the plaintiff’s fault. Where the injured person was a minor, 735 ILCS 5/13-211 allows two years after the person turns 18. Substantially shorter deadlines apply to claims against some public bodies, and medical malpractice has its own limitation and repose rules. None of this is legal advice, and in a case with multiple potential defendants — which is this firm’s characteristic kind of case — different deadlines can run against different parties at once.

Awesome Attorneys Assessment

What distinguishes this firm is a referral-driven model that keeps it small while keeping it first in Illinois by dollars recovered, and a habit of building recoveries out of every defendant with a duty rather than the most obvious one. The Dixon case is the cleanest illustration: the money came from the auditors and the bank, not the thief. The honest trade-offs are several and a prospective client should weigh all of them. A thirteen-lawyer firm that takes referrals from other lawyers is not structured for direct intake of ordinary claims. The firm’s own published record needs care — one case appears twice under two figures, two different settlements are each called the largest pretrial recovery in Illinois history, the aggregate recovery is stated two ways, and a founding partner’s biography claims an American Bar Association presidency he did not hold. None of that is misconduct, but it means the firm’s numbers should be read as firm-reported rather than established. Separately, and more seriously, the Cook County Board of Ethics found in 2021 that Larry Rogers Jr. violated the county ethics ordinance in three cases by holding an economic interest in his firm’s representation of plaintiffs against Cook County while serving as an elected Commissioner of the Cook County Board of Review, fined him $3,000, and noted he had been warned in 2010; enforcing the underlying subpoena required a court petition after the firm resisted it. He was re-elected in 2024 after a contested primary in which the Cook County Assessor funded a committee against him. For a catastrophic-injury or medical-malpractice case that another lawyer has already worked up and that genuinely needs a trial firm, this is one of the strongest names in Illinois. For a client who wants a firm whose own published claims all reconcile on first reading, the record here asks for more checking than most.

Methodology and Sourcing

Researched from the firm’s own site, including attorney biographies, results, testimonials and attorney-referral pages, cross-referenced against the Illinois Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission’s public records, which were checked individually for Joseph Aloysius Power Jr., Larry Robert Rogers Sr., Larry Robert Rogers Jr., Devon Campbell Bruce and Kathryn Lynn Conway, and returned no public discipline for any of them. Office address independently confirmed against ARDC registered-address records. The 2017 verdict was verified against a national Top 100 Verdicts listing; the 2023 settlement, the Willis recovery and the Dixon settlement against independent news reporting, including the ABA Journal. The Cook County Board of Ethics finding was read in the Board’s own published Notice of Determination in case 16 I 06, which records violations of sections 2-571 and 2-579 of the county ethics ordinance and a $3,000 fine entered May 20, 2021. The American Bar Association presidency discrepancy was checked against the published list of ABA presidents. Illinois limitations, comparative fault and minority-tolling provisions were verified against the Illinois General Assembly’s published text of 735 ILCS 5/13-202, 5/2-1116 and 5/13-211. Yelp review content could not be retrieved.

Publisher Disclosure and Independence Notice

Awesome Attorneys is an independent legal directory and editorial publication. This profile was not paid for, commissioned, or reviewed by Power Rogers, LLP prior to publication. Awesome Attorneys may in the future offer sponsored placement products to attorneys and firms, including this one, but sponsorship has no bearing on the editorial content, inclusion, or findings of this profile. Facts in this profile are current only as of the research date and may change.