The next Corboys: Rising stars of Chicago's personal injury bar By Steven R. Strahler, September 16, 2013

Craig Mannarino, Partner Kralovec Jambois & Schwartz 60 W. Randolph, 4th Fl. Chicago, Illinois 60601 312-782-5236

Craig Mannarino will gladly take you to trial. Last year, the Kralovec Jambois & Schwartz partner demanded $2 million for misdiagnosis of a fungal infection. The defense balked at settling. The jury's verdict, now on appeal: $3.2 million. Two years ago, he sought $3 million on behalf of a man injured in a trench collapse that killed his father. Verdict: $8.6 million, upheld last month on appeal. In 2010, he won $1.75 million after seeking $450,000 for loss of an eye after glaucoma surgery. Mr. Mannarino, 44, doesn't win them all, but when he does it can be by a good margin. Some awards, of course, shrink in post-trial settlements, such as the $12.7 million he secured in 2007 related to a fatal shooting by Chicago police.

The $3 million settlement, though, was three times what city attorneys initially had offered. Medical malpractice claims tend to go to trial more frequently than other personal injury cases, he says: “Doctors are more apt to defend their conduct. They know, overall, the statistics favor them at trial.” Moreover, without adequate preparation, a plaintiff's attorney “can very easily be embarrassed at trial by a skilled physician.” Yet, like many of his peers, on behalf of his clients Mr. Mannarino will settle three or four cases for each one he tries. He has two on the docket this fall. The lanky Connecticut native, who clerked at a Washington law firm before enrolling at DePaul University's law school, is the antithesis of a flamboyant trial attorney. He worked at a Chicago defense firm known today as Cassiday Schade LLP before joining

Kralovec, where he had clerked during law school. Kralovec doesn't do late-night TV ads— “We barely have a functioning website,” he says. The secret is work, work, work—“I'm not going to wow people with a 'Columbo' moment at trial,” says Mr. Mannarino, who confesses to a bit of lingering stage fright: “I'm now less nervous than the jurors.”