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Overview
Matthew Sims is a shareholder with the firm and a trial lawyer who represents victims and their families in catastrophic personal injury and wrongful death cases. He has litigated cases in jurisdictions across the country and has tried cases to verdict in several states...
Matthew Sims is a shareholder with the firm and a trial lawyer who represents victims and their families in catastrophic personal injury and wrongful death cases. He has litigated cases in jurisdictions across the country and has tried cases to verdict in several states...
Matthew Sims is a shareholder with the firm and a trial lawyer who represents victims and their families in catastrophic personal injury and wrongful death cases. He has litigated cases in jurisdictions across the country and has tried cases to verdict in several states.
Matthew regularly handles high-profile and complex cases, including traumatic brain injury cases, explosions, commercial trucking accidents, defective product cases, construction injuries, medical malpractice, and commercial aviation crashes.
He is currently involved in numerous high profile cases, including the Boeing 737 Max 8 litigation arising out of the crash of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302, where he serves on the Plaintiffs' Executive Committee, the Husky Superior Refinery explosion litigation, where he is the court appointed lead plaintiffs' counsel, the 2019 Henry Pratt Mass Shooting litigation, and the 2020 Soldotna Alaska Midair Collision.
Recently, he served as co-lead counsel in the crash of US Airways Flight 1702 and in the 2019 Ketchikan Alaska Midair Collision. Matthew is a published author and presenter on aviation crash litigation and also serves on the Executive Committee for the American Association of Justice's Aviation Section. He has been recognized by National Aviation Trial Lawyers' "Top 10".
Some of Matthew's recent recoveries on behalf of his clients have included:
• $7.75 million for a worker's burn injuries
• $7.6 million for workers poisoned by lead in a shipyard
• $6.4 million in a product liability case involving bleeding complications from a defectively designed medical device
• $5.75 million for a passenger who walked away from a commercial airplane crash but later developed back problems
• $4.9 million in a slip and fall that resulted in a fractured leg and eventual death of a woman at work
• $4.3 million record-setting highest hand amputation compensation ever recovered in Illinois following an industrial work accident. The worker's hand was reattached and he regained function despite the injury.
• $3 million first-of-its-kind jury verdict against a global pharmaceutical company for concealing the suicide risks of its drug after a man took his life while on a generic version of the drug
• $3 million in a product liability case where a factory worker was killed while operating a defectively designed machine
• $2.3 million in a case involving the malfunction of an airport service vehicle that pinned a worker against an aircraft.
• $2.25 million record-setting highest personal injury recovery ever for any injury in that jurisdiction for a client who suffered a fractured femur and burns in a car accident.
• $2 million record-setting recovery for an ankle injury in that jurisdiction. The original offer from the defendants before expert discovery commenced was 25 cents.
• $1.075 million record-setting settlement for a 95-year-old woman who suffered a broken hip. The recovery is the highest injury settlement ever for a nonagenarian in the state of Illinois.
• $1 million for the family of a motorcyclist killed in an unwitnessed collision with a truck
• $1 million for a husband and wife struck by a truck in their minivan.
• $939,000 record-setting settlement for a broken ankle in a trucking accident that also set a record as the highest ever in that jurisdiction.
Matthew has also handled numerous airplane and helicopter accidents that have resulted in substantial confidential recoveries on behalf of his clients.
Due to his experience in representing his clients, Matthew has been selected as an Illinois Super Lawyer Rising Star every year for eight years straight, from 2014 to 2021, a distinction limited to only the top 2.5% of lawyers under the age of 40 in the State of Illinois. He has been recognized by Best Lawyers in America "Ones to Watch." He has also been repeatedly selected by the National Trial Lawyers as a "Top 40 Under 40" attorney practicing in the field of plaintiff's personal injury, in 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2021.
In addition to representing the injured and their families in the trial court, Matthew has experience with appellate matters in the Illinois Appellate Court, the Illinois Supreme Court, the Wisconsin Court of Appeals, the Court of Special Appeals of Maryland, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, and the Supreme Court of the United States.
Matthew originally hails from the western suburbs of Chicago where he grew up and attended high school. He received his bachelor's degree from Purdue University, earning a Certificate of Superior Achievement from the Department of History, before returning to Chicago to attend law school.
Matthew graduated from The John Marshall Law School (now known as the University of Illinois Chicago Law School) with his Juris Doctorate, as well as a Certificate in Trial Advocacy, which was awarded to less than 3% of graduating students. In law school, he won the school-wide Dean Herzog Moot Court Competition. In addition to winning the overall competition which included oral arguments, his legal brief was also recognized as the best written brief of the competition. During law school, he was also chosen from a select group to study abroad in the field of trial advocacy at The Honorable Society of the King's Inn in Dublin, Ireland. Supplementing his formal education during law school with practical experience, he clerked for the Cook County Public Defender's Office, as well as the Presiding Judge of the Fifth District of Cook County.
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