PRESS RELEASE

JOSEPH R. CURCIO AWARDED
LEONARD M. RING LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD

Joseph R. Curcio of Chicago will be awarded the prestigious Leonard M. Ring Lifetime Achievement Award at the Illinois Trial Lawyers Association (ITLA) Convention on Friday, June 5, 2009. The convention will be held at the Oak Brook Hills Marriott Resort in Oak Brook, Illinois.

The criteria of the award is as follows:

"This award is given annually at the convention banquet to someone selected by a committee appointed by the president. The recipient is someone who has devoted, as Leonard did, a substantial part of their life and their practice to ITLA, someone who has done more than is called for. Someone who had the standards of Leonard, the work ethics of Leonard and the commitment to ITLA that Leonard had. At the same time, it keeps alive the memory of Leonard Ring."

Joseph Curcio was raised in Chicago in the old Italian neighborhood along Grand and Damen Avenues on Chicago's Westside. The son of a shoemaker, Mr. Curcio learned very early the importance of hard work and paid his own way through college at DePaul University and law school at John Marshall working various night jobs, including repossessing cars. Upon his graduation from law school in 1956, Joe had a very brief (and unfulfilling) stint as a claims adjuster for an insurance company before striking out on his own as a solo practitioner.

From the beginning stages of his career, he had a passion and talent for trial work, and by the early 1960's his practice became focused almost exclusively upon representing plaintiffs in personal injury litigation. In doing so, Mr. Curcio has enjoyed great success as a trial lawyer over the course of his career and is well known in the legal community as a fierce opponent and determined advocate on behalf of his clients. Many of the verdicts he has obtained at trial and successfully defended on appeal continue to serve as precedent in Illinois today, including the landmark case of Simpson v. General Motors which first recognized a plaintiff's comparative fault as merely a damage reducing element of a claim rather than serving as a total bar to recovery.

Mr. Curcio has been a proud and active member of ITLA throughout his career and was elected to serve on the Board of Managers in 1983. He has been an active participant on both the Rules Committee and the Executive Committee and has lectured and authored numerous articles for ITLA and IICLE. In 1998, he was appointed by the Supreme Court of Illinois to serve as member of the Illinois Pattern Instruction Committee, which is composed of distinguished lawyers and judges throughout Illinois and authors and publishes the instruction that judges give to juries in every civil lawsuit in Illinois. Mr. Curcio is also an active member of the American Board of Trial Advocates, the American Association of Justice, the Illinois State Bar Association, the Chicago Bar Association and Public Justice. He is especially proud to be recognized as a leader in the fight to protect consumers and fend off efforts by the insurance industry to impose tort reform in Illinois.

Mr. Curcio resides in Chicago's Near North neighborhood with his wife Tracy and youngest son, R.J. He is an avid boater and longtime member of the Chicago Yacht Club. It is on Lake Michigan during the city's warm months where he finds peace, and is the only place other than the inside of a courtroom and with his family where he feels truly at home. Despite receiving the benefits and rewards of a successful career that has now spanned over 50 years, Mr. Curcio has never lost sight of his roots on the Westside and still sees the world through the eyes of a "shoemakers son," a humble perspective on life and a common touch that has served to endear him to the juries that decide his clients cases as well as the judges and fellow lawyers that have had the privilege to work with him.

Past Leonard M. Ring Lifetime Achievement Award recipients include Jon G. Carlson, Rex Carr, Robert J. Cooney, Philip H. Corboy, George J. Cullen, David A. Decker, James Thomas Demos, Geoffrey L. Gifford, William J. Harte, Thomas F. Londrigan, Philip F. Maher, Nat P. Ozmon, Eugene I. Pavalon, John G. Phillips, and Curt N. Rodin.

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