Bill Schmalfeldt, a liberal journalist, who has been under attack by a right wing mob using tactics similar to GamerGate, has finally received legal representation from a very large Chicago law firm, the Timothy Cavanagh Law Group.
Timothy J. Cavanagh is the founding partner of Cavanagh Law Group in Chicago, Illinois. Mr. Cavanagh is a nationally known trial lawyer who concentrates his practice in plaintiff’s personal injury trial work and handles catastrophic injury, medical malpractice and wrongful death cases. His firm is included in U.S. News & World Report 2016 Best Law Firms listing and received a “Tier 1” ranking. Mr. Cavanagh is listed in The Best Lawyers in America and has been named one of the top 500 leading plaintiffs’ lawyers in the country by Lawdragon Magazine. He was named a Super Lawyer by Key Professional Media, Inc. through the research of Law & Politics in the years 2005–2016. Leading Lawyers, a Division of Law Bulletin Publishing Company, has named him a Leading Lawyer every year since its inception in 2003 – an honor that is limited to the top 5% of lawyers in Illinois. Mr. Cavanagh has been consistently named one of the top 100 consumer lawyers in Illinois and was named to the prestigious Irish Legal 100 by The Irish Voice Newspaper, from 2010 to present. He has received two Trial Lawyers Excellence Awards by the Jury Verdict Reporter for one record-setting verdict and one record-setting settlement. In 2001, he was selected by the Law Bulletin Publishing Company as one of the “40 Illinois Attorneys Under Forty to Watch.” He has appeared on all local television stations and as a guest on “The Today Show” on NBC, “The Abrams Report” on MSNBC, “The O’Reilly Factor” on FOX and the cable television program “Illinois Issues in Review.” He is a frequent lecturer and speaker at legal seminars in Illinois and around the country. Mr. Cavanagh has obtained over forty verdicts and settlements in excess of $1 million in his career, including the following recent results:
- $55 million railroad crossing verdict (recognized by the National Law Journal as one of the top 100 verdicts in the country in 2002);
- $14 million medical malpractice settlement;
- $13.7 million verdict;
- $10 million tractor trailer truck crash settlement;
- $9.75 million trucking settlement;
- $9.1 million railroad crossing settlement;
- $7.5 million medical malpractice settlement;
- $6.65 million wrongful death verdict;
- $6.3 million wrongful death settlement;
- $5.75 million auto-pedestrian settlement (highest reported uninsured motorist award in Illinois history);
- $5.5 million wrongful death settlement;
- $4.5 million product liability settlement;
- $4.5 million wrongful death settlement;
- $4.1 million automobile crash settlement;
- $3 million premises liability settlement;
- $3 million product liability settlement;
- $2.5 million birth injury settlement;
- $2 million wrongful death settlement; and
- $2 million verdict against the City of Chicago in police pursuit case.
Mr. Cavanagh earned a BA from John Carroll University in Ohio, and a JD from IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law. He is a member of the Board of Managers of the Illinois Trial Lawyers Association, where he currently serves on its Executive Committee. He is also a member of the Board of Regents of Mercy Home for Boys & Girls, the Board of Directors of the Irish Fellowship Club of Chicago, and is a director of the Western Golf Association Evans Scholars Foundation.
It seems that the tide has now turned in Mr. Schmalfeldt’s favor after a years long campaign of targeted harassment by a group of right wing nut-jobs who’ve tried everything from having him thrown in jail for the mere mentioning their twitter handles online, to chasing him out of his home in Maryland with constant death threats, having poop mailed to his residence, and constant police presence at his door serving bogus summonses that they filed against him in mass, and all because they didn’t like what he had to say about them. Now, that tide has turned.
Direct All Future Legal Correspondence to My Attorney https://t.co/KjyE8zaaZa pic.twitter.com/7OISMNkWT0
— Bill Schmalfeldt (@LiberalGrouch16) August 15, 2016
After Mr. Schmalfeldt fled his home in Maryland and ended up at a Wisconsin assisted living facility (Mr. Schmalfeldt is an elderly disabled Parkinson patient) they continued their harassment campaign at his new home. They tried almost daily to get him thrown out into the street by sending hate mail to the facility supervisors, as well as the usual calling him every name in the book they could dream up to his new landlords. Of course this type of abuse directed against an elderly disabled man might be considered a felony in Wisconsin. No matter, Mr. Schmalfeldt filed a federal lawsuit on his own against one of his harassers, Patrick Grady, of Palatine Illinois. The Federal District court finally, after all these years of harassment, found favor in his pro se complaint, and further decided to appoint him legal counsel, which just so happened to be one of the top law firms in Illinois to represent him.
I think this is just the start of what might be the dismantling of a hard core group of dedicated right wing extremists who have been holding kangaroo courts on the internet, and have been using the courts as a weapon against anyone who tends to disagree with them. One would imagine that Mr. Schmalfeldt’s attorneys will amend his complaint and possibly add further defendants in the case, maybe adding those who started all the harassment years ago when Schmalfeldt started reporting on them.
That of course remains to be seen as to if that will happen. But one can imagine that once he tells them his tale of woe, that anyone within a mile of the main defendant will be added to the complaint and be hauled into federal court to answer as to why they have harassed this disabled journalist,(who I might add has had no legal representation throughout his ordeal) for so long. One might even go so far as to think that criminal charges will finally be laid for what Mr. Schmalfeldt has had to endure for years on end.
We wish Mr. Schmalfeldt all the luck in the world in finally bringing those miscreants to justice. We will of course update this story as new information comes in. Good Luck Bill.
Congrats, Bill. Take the fight to these assholes. Grady needs to be removed from his job and put under observation. I will look forward to the day Grady’s federal crime ties back to the suspected evidence forger WJJ Hoge.
I hope your lawyers give Grady and Hoge twice as much hell as they’ve given you. I hope you soon own a house in Maryland and Illinois.
My attorney will be the firm’s young attorney Michael J. Sorich,
From the website bio…
Michael J. Sorich is an experienced trial attorney who concentrates his
practice in plaintiff’s personal injury trial work and handles wrongful
death cases. Mr. Sorich brings a wealth of courtroom experience to Cavanagh
Law Group after thirteen years as Assistant State’s Attorney at
the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office. During his many
years there, Mr. Sorich tried over fifty criminal and civil matters in
federal and state court, particularly defending torts and civil rights
lawsuits on behalf of Cook County employees. These cases involved catastrophic
injuries, wrongful deaths, and class action matters. He also successfully
argued cases before the Illinois Appellate Court.
Mr. Sorich’s extensive trial experience has been vital to the success
of the cases he has taken on at Cavanagh Law Group. Mr. Sorich does extensive
investigation in all his cases, with particular focus on cases involving
personal injury. In order to gather a broad range of evidence and build
his cases to their highest potential, Mr. Sorich delves into each part
of the evidence-gathering process. This process includes meeting with
consultants, experts in the field, and with clients, as well as visiting
the scenes of incidents and taking in-person account of physical evidence.
Additionally, Mr. Sorich has excellent client communication skills, as
he has spent years representing victims of crimes and catastrophic injuries.
Using the investigative and communicative skills he gathered through the
substantial amount of time he spent with the State’s Attorney’s
Office, Mr. Sorich has made great strides in gathering the most sizable
results for his clients.
At a young age, Mr. Sorich set himself apart from his colleagues. After
earning a B.A. from Illinois Wesleyan University, he graduated
cum laude from The John Marshall Law School, where he was also a member of Law Review.
At the State’s Attorney’s Office, Mr. Sorich worked his way
up the ladder quickly, eventually becoming the youngest supervisor there.
Through his hard work early on in his career, he established himself as
a tough, fair, and extremely successful advocate for his clients.
Hoge is not part of the complaint at the moment, but I’ll discuss that option with Mr. Sorich when we meet in Chicago next week.
Thanks for the good wishes. I look forward to the day when I can turn to the defendants and shout, “Now go get ya fuggin’ shine box!”
Four years… it will be five in February. Enough is enough is enough.
Sounds like Mrs. Grady is gonna have some questions for Pat. Like “Why are we being evicted and our home given to someone in Wisconsin?” or “You lost your job why?!”
Hopefully, karma will prevail.
Here is the back story to this. The FBI is investigating this matter, and the federal courts decided that they needed an experienced litigator to really dig into what this criminal gang has been doing to Mr. Schmalfeldt and others. It is highly unusual for a law firm to be appointed in a civil case, but DOJ and DHS have come to the conclusion that this criminal gang is part of a much larger operation that needs to be dismantled, similar to radical right wing groups like the KKK. Not only is this the beginning of the end for the civil harassment unleashed by this gang, but the feds have actually been monitoring and investigating this group for several years, and are considering bringing a large scale criminal indictment. Expect for the civil attorneys to work hand in hand with the federal authorities. As you watch over the next several months or year, you will see the methodical dismantling and destruction of this criminal gang.
I think I’m in for an interesting and instructive year. And if any good comes of this, if this enterprise retracts and retreats, then everything I went through will be worth it. I hope that by association that this will benefit Brett and Tetyana, their daughter, and Will and Matt and everyone else who has had their lives stained by these amoral cretins.
Of course the proper thing to do is to start smearing the lawfirm, which is exactly what’s going on over at Hoggy World. Because the Judge probably didn’t even read the complaint in the month she had it, and the lawfirm (which gets paid regardless) was forced under penalty of torture to accept the case.
The law firm is not being paid. It’s pro bono. I am so glad to say that Mr Schmalfeldts adversaries are in for a rough ride. Chi town law does not play and the judge appointed the firm to dismantle and destroy this gang. I would suggest that the defendants look at what the splc did to right wing extremists. That is the template here.
Well, I will say her honor took her time to review the case. More than a month. In Maryland, I had an IFP motion approved in 4 days. From what you are saying, I guess I understand the delay.
Yes, they’re not pleased over at the Hoggyblog.
Over 150 comments on the Hoggy Blog. Astounding. And mostly they are kvetching over my decision to close my Twitter account for the duration. “Spoilation of evidence,” they whine while out of the other side of their mouths they gloat that they have copies of everything. How can evidence be “despoiled” when they have copies? And how can I “despoil” things that I am under no legally imposed duty to keep? It really is a meltdown of epic proportions, and these are people who aren’t even defendants.
Yet.
Oh please oh please oh please tell me the world’s worst lawyer Aaron Walker will be representing Grady. A prominent law firm versus a paranoid and delusional shyster?! That would be the best transcript EVER!!!
Hopefully Grady isn’t that stupid.
But you never know.
Ka BOOOOOOOOOOM
Are you “Ka BOOOOM”ing anything in particular, or the whole thing in general?
The whole thing in general.