Lance D. Northcutt

Lance D. Northcutt is a Trial lawyer and Partner at Salvi, Schostok & Pritchard, P.C. who focuses his practice on cases concerning catastrophic personal injury, wrongful death, civil rights, and mass torts. Mr. Northcutt is a tenacious courtroom advocate who revels in fighting for his clients and their families. Since joining the firm in 2020, Mr. Northcutt has recovered more than $1.1 billion on behalf of his clients. He has played a significant role in some of the firm’s most high-stakes cases, securing record-breaking results that include:

• $363 million jury verdict in his first trial with the firm for a woman who developed breast cancer from breathing toxic emissions from a Willowbrook medical device sterilization plant. The verdict is the largest jury verdict ever awarded to an individual plaintiff in Illinois history and includes $38 million in compensatory damages and $325 million in punitive damages. He later served as one of the lead negotiators in a global settlement involving more than 800 additional victims who sued the company.
• $241 million jury verdict in 2026 for the family of a Missouri man who died while transporting dry ice as part of his work as a courier. The verdict included $49.5 million in compensatory damages and $191.5 million in punitive damages.
• $79.85 million jury verdict in 2024 for the family of a 10-year-old girl who was killed following an unauthorized Chicago Police Department pursuit. According to the Jury Verdict Reporter, the verdict is the highest reported Illinois verdict for a police pursuit crash.
• $45 million settlement for a young man who suffered a traumatic brain injury following a vehicle pursuit.

In recognition for his outstanding work on the $363 million trial, Mr. Northcutt was honored with a 2023 Trial Lawyer Excellence Award by Law Bulletin Media. A former Cook County prosecutor and law enforcement officer, Mr. Northcutt draws upon his diverse background in complex litigation and legal knowledge to deliver results in his personal injury practice. He has tried to verdict hundreds of cases before judges and juries, including one of the first remote bench trials in Illinois, conducted entirely via a Zoom teleconference. Mr. Northcutt has represented clients in cases through trial, on appeal, and before the Illinois Supreme Court on a wide range of matters, including large-scale investigations and the representation of lawyers and judges before regulatory bodies.

As a legal educator, Mr. Northcutt has more than 20 years of experience teaching trial advocacy, evidence, and advocacy-related legal ethics in the United States and Ireland. An Adjunct Professor of Law since 2005, Mr. Northcutt served as the Assistant Director of Advocacy at The John Marshall Law School and now teaches at IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law where he leads Kent’s International Comparative Advocacy Program in Dublin, Ireland in cooperation with The Honorable Society of King’s Inns, the Bar Council of Ireland and the Irish Supreme Court. In 2013, he was named both Adjunct Professor of the Year and Outstanding Trial Team Coach at Chicago-Kent.

As a former faculty member of the Illinois Institute of Continuing Legal Education, Mr. Northcutt has taught courses to newly admitted lawyers on procedural and substantive law. He has been a moderator, panelist and featured speaker in multiple seminars before the bench and bar in the U.S and Ireland and is frequently called upon by national media outlets to comment on noteworthy cases.

Mr. Northcutt’s published works include an editorial that earned him a national award from the American Bar Association and others which have appeared in the Chicago Bar Association Journal and the Chicago Daily Law Bulletin. Two articles, “First, Do No Harm” and “Illinois Evidence: A Code at Long Last,” were featured in the Illinois Trial Lawyers’ Journal.

A Chicago native, Mr. Northcutt graduated in 2002 from the University of Illinois Chicago School of Law, formerly The John Marshall Law School, where he was a member of The John Marshall Law Review, a Morrissey Scholar, Editor-in-Chief of two publications and winner of the Hertzog Academic Scholarship and the Kissane Award for Public Service.

Mr. Northcutt has been honored by Best Lawyers in America, one of the oldest and most respected peer-review publications in the legal profession. Mr. Northcutt has also been named to the Illinois “Super Lawyer” list every year since 2021 and has been recognized as a “Leading Lawyer” by his peers.

In addition to his work at the firm and in academia, Mr. Northcutt serves on the Board of Directors for the International Institute for Animal Law and volunteers for FSMA (Families of Spinal Muscular Atrophy).

In 2022, Mr. Northcutt was appointed to the Illinois Supreme Court Committee on Professional Responsibility, which advises and makes recommendations on matters relating to legal ethics and professional responsibility. From 2015-2021, Mr. Northcutt served as a Commissioner on the Illinois Supreme Court’s Commission on Professionalism.

Additional credentials and distinctions include membership in the Illinois Trial Lawyers Association, Illinois State Bar Association, American Association for Justice, American Bar Association, and the Chicago Bar Association.