Google review
“They came to the hospital the day after my husband's crash. When the adjuster called, we already had a lawyer.”
Medical malpractice lawyers in Chicago, IL
How to tell negligence from a bad outcome, what to do this week, and when your deadline runs out.
Available 24/7. Free, confidential, no obligation. We come to the hospital or your home.
Two clocks, one caseDrawn to one scale
- 2 years from the day you knew, or should have known, that you were hurt by care.
- 4 years from the act or omission itself, whatever you knew. The earlier end controls.
As seen in
- Chicago Tribune
- Chicago Sun-Times
- WGN-TV
- ABC 7 Chicago
- NBC 5 Chicago
- FOX 32
- Crain’s Chicago Business
- Chicago Daily Law Bulletin
- RBH Law Office attorneys are selected to Illinois Super Lawyers by Thomson Reuters, 2016 to 2026.
- RBH Law Office is ranked Tier 1 in Chicago for Plaintiffs’ Personal Injury by Best Lawyers’ Best Law Firms, 2026.
- R. B. is peer-selected as a Leading Lawyer in Illinois by the Leading Lawyers Network.
- R. B. is a member of the American Board of Trial Advocates.
- B. H. is a member of the Multi-Million Dollar Advocates Forum.
- RBH Law Office is a member of the Illinois Trial Lawyers Association.
- RBH Law Office is rated AV Preeminent by Martindale-Hubbell.
What our clients had to say
Every review here is a Google review from a client we represented. Across 500+ reviews, the rating is 4.9 out of 5.
- Google review
“I was 20% at fault according to the first report. RBH found the dashcam. The final number was eight figures.”
- Google review
“I never once had to chase them for an update. Every month, a call, in plain English.”
- Google review
“The hospital bills arrived before the police report did. RBH took every one of them and told me what each letter meant.”
- Google review
“My father was killed on I-80. They never pushed us to settle. When the offer was wrong, they went to trial.”
Also rated onGoogle4.9500+ reviewsAvvo10.0Superb ratingYelp4.8120+ reviewsBBBA+Accredited business
These reviews are from the firm's truck accident clients.
A bad outcome is not always malpractice. Here is how to tell.
Medical malpractice, also called medical negligence, is care that falls below the standard of care, what a reasonably careful provider in that field would have done in the same situation, and that causes harm. A bad result on its own is not enough.
Expected course against what happenedSchematic, no patient
- 1The departure. Care leaves the band. That departure is what the law calls negligence.
- 2The harm. The gap between the course you should have had and the one you got. The departure has to be what caused it.
- 3A known risk. A bad result inside the band is a complication, not negligence.
The 4 things a claim has to show
- A relationship. The provider was treating you, so they owed you a duty of care.
- A breach. The care fell below the standard of care. Not a different choice, a careless one.
- Causation. The careless act, and not the illness or injury you already had, caused the harm.
- Damages. Real losses: physical, financial, or both.
Three plain examples
- A known complication, listed on the consent form and handled properly when it happened: a bad outcome, not negligence.
- A scan read as normal that showed the tumor, when a careful radiologist would have seen it: negligence.
- A diagnosis made late, where the treatment and the outcome would have been the same either way: a breach with no causation, so no claim.
What to do this week.
Six things, and none of them needs a lawyer. Each one protects the record a case is built on, and each can be done for you by a family member.
Six things, this weekEach one can be done by a family member
Ask for the full chart and imaging, in writing
Every provider who treated you. Ask for the complete record, not a summary, and keep a copy of the request.
Write a dated timeline while you remember
What you told them, what they said, who was in the room, what happened next. Dates and times.
Keep what you were given
Discharge papers, bills, prescriptions and the pill bottles themselves, wristbands, any message from the portal.
Sign nothing, and give no recorded statement
A release or a recorded statement to the provider's insurer can narrow your claim before anyone has read the chart.
Do not post about it
Nothing online about your care, the provider or how you feel. It can be read back to you later.
See another doctor, and keep treating
Your health comes first. A second opinion also makes the record of what the first one missed.
How medical mistakes happen.
Most harm is not one dramatic error. It is a failure at one station on a pathway every patient travels: arrive, test, read, diagnose, treat, discharge.
One pathway, 6 places it fails
- 1Arrive. Triage misses the warning sign.
- 2Test. The right test is never ordered.
- 3Read. The result is misread, or not read at all.
- 4Diagnose. The wrong diagnosis, or the right one too late.
- 5Treat. The wrong drug, dose or site; a surgical or anesthesia error.
- 6Discharge. Sent home too early, or with no follow-up.
Missed or delayed diagnosis
A claim when a careful provider would have found it in time, and the delay changed the outcome.
Surgical errors
The wrong site, a retained object, a nerve or organ damaged outside the known risks of the operation.
Medication errors
The wrong drug, the wrong dose, or an interaction the chart already warned about.
Birth injuries
A sign of distress during labor that was not acted on, or a delivery that came too late.
Anesthesia errors
Dosing, monitoring or the airway, during or after the procedure.
Hospital-acquired harm
An infection, a fall or a pressure sore that a policy existed to prevent, where the policy was not followed.
Early discharge
Sent home before it was safe, or with no plan for what came next.
None of these is malpractice on its own. Each becomes a claim only when the care fell below the standard and the failure caused the harm. Two estimates of how often that happens, both debated, and both estimates:
795,000
Americans a year who die or are permanently disabled by a diagnostic error, by one 2023 estimate.
Newman-Toker and colleagues, Johns Hopkins, BMJ Quality & Safety.
250,000
Deaths a year from medical error in the United States, by one 2016 estimate. The figure is disputed.
Makary and Daniel, BMJ.
Who can be sued: the doctor, the hospital, or both.
Liability means legal responsibility for the harm. In a hospital it can sit with the physician, with the hospital, or with both at once, and the consent form you signed does not settle it.
One room, 4 ways a claim attachesSeen from above
The physician
Answers for their own negligence: the decision, the operation, the prescription, the thing not done.
The hospital, for its staff
Nurses, residents, technicians and employed doctors act for the hospital. It answers for them under respondeat superior, the rule that an employer is liable for an employee’s negligence at work. Lawyers call this vicarious liability.
The hospital, for its own acts
Short staffing, a policy nobody followed, or a bad credentialing decision, the hospital’s checks on who it lets practise. These are the hospital’s own negligence, not borrowed from anyone.
The hospital, for a contractor it let you rely on
Many emergency physicians are independent contractors. Under apparent agency the hospital can still answer for them, unless you knew or should have known the doctor was not its employee. Relying on the hospital for your care is what counts.
Why the sign over the door matters
In Gilbert v. Sycamore Municipal Hospital (Illinois Supreme Court, 1993), a hospital was held answerable for an emergency physician who was not its employee, because the patient had every reason to see the doctor as the hospital’s own. That is apparent agency. A form that says the doctor is an independent contractor is evidence the hospital will point to, and it is not always the end of the question. What you were told, and what you relied on, both count.
The rules that decide if you can sue.
Illinois does not let a malpractice suit start on a hunch. Before the complaint is complete, a qualified health professional has to have read your records and put in writing that the case has merit.
What a complete filing is made ofIn the order the law needs them
Your complete records
Every chart, image, order and nursing note. Nothing can be reviewed until they are in hand.
An independent expert read
A licensed health professional in the right field, practising or teaching in it recently, reads everything.
The written report
The reviewer sets out, in writing, that there is a reasonable and meritorious cause for the suit.
The attorney’s affidavit
Your lawyer swears that the review happened and that the report says what it says.
The complaint
Filed with the report and the affidavit attached. Without them it is not complete.
The affidavit of merit
Lawyers call this package the affidavit of merit: your attorney’s affidavit together with the health professional’s written report, filed with the complaint under section 2-622 of the Illinois Code of Civil Procedure. The reviewer has to know the issues in your case, to have practised or taught in the field recently, and for a non-surgical physician, dentist, podiatrist or psychologist, to hold the same class of license as the person being sued. Illinois defines which suits count as a malpractice action in section 2-1704, and these rules apply to all of them.
Informed consent
A separate kind of claim is about informed consent: your right to be told the real risks and the alternatives before you agree to treatment. If a risk that a careful provider would have explained was never explained, that can be its own claim, even when the procedure itself was performed well.
The clock: 2 years, 4 years, and the exceptions.
Two clocks run at once. The statute of limitations, the legal deadline to file suit, gives you 2 years from the day you knew or should have known you were hurt by care. The statute of repose, an outer limit that runs from the act itself whatever you knew, cuts everything off at 4 years.
Every deadline on one scaleMove the control to the day you found out
The discovery rule
The 2-year clock uses the discovery rule: it starts when you knew, or reasonably should have known, that you were injured and that care may have caused it, not on the day of the treatment. The 4-year clock does not wait for discovery. It is the hard edge, and it is the reason to call before the end of year 1.
The discovery rule is generous to people who could not have known. It is not generous to people who waited.
Children, concealment, death
A child under 18 when the claim arose has up to 8 years from the act, but never past the 22nd birthday (735 ILCS 5/13-212(b)). If a provider concealed what happened, a separate rule can extend the time, a form of tolling, a rule that pauses the clock (735 ILCS 5/13-215).
When care causes a death, the personal representative brings a wrongful death claim for the family within 2 years of the death, and a survival action for what the person suffered before it. The malpractice clocks still run alongside, so bring a death case to us at once.
Proof: what a case file contains.
Medical records are the whole case at the start. The reviewer reads them, the report rests on them, and discovery later tests them against what the other side holds.
One page of the chart, with its audit trailInvented times, no real record
A late entry: charted as 09:30, typed at 16:52. The audit trail is how you know.
What goes in the file
- The complete chart, from every provider
- Imaging, and the radiologist’s written reads
- Orders, with the time each was placed and carried out
- Nursing notes and vital signs
- The electronic record’s audit trail
- Hospital policies and staffing for that shift
- The independent expert’s opinions
- A life-care plan, where the harm is lasting
The evidence clock
Everything in that list has to be in hand before a reviewer can sign, the review has to be done before the complaint is complete, and all of it has to happen before the earlier of the two clocks ends. How long each provider keeps each kind of record is not one rule, and we do not print a number we have not verified. The safe course is to ask for everything, in writing, now. The request itself is dated proof that you asked.
The report then has to connect the breach to the harm. Causation is where weak cases fail: the reviewer must be able to say that with proper care the outcome would, more likely than not, have been different.
Where the records live
Care in Chicago runs through systems such as Northwestern Medicine, Rush University Medical Center, UChicago Medicine, Advocate Health, Cook County Health, Loyola Medicine, Ascension and Sinai Chicago. The request goes to whichever one holds your chart, and to every clinic, lab and imaging center in between. We send those requests on day one, and we keep sending them until the set is complete.
What a medical malpractice claim can pay.
The money a court can award is called damages. Compensatory damages repay what the harm took from you, and Illinois puts no cap on them in a malpractice case.
What the claim is made ofNo amounts, on purpose
No ceiling. Illinois sets no cap on these losses.
- Loss of a normal life
- Disability and disfigurement
- Pain and suffering
- Lost earnings, past and future
- Future care, equipment, home changes
- Medical care so far
Two kinds of loss
Economic damages are the countable losses: the care you have had, the care you will need, equipment, changes to your home, and the earnings you have lost and will lose. Non-economic damages are the rest: pain, disability, disfigurement, and the loss of a normal life.
No cap, no punishment
In Lebron v. Gottlieb Memorial Hospital (2010) the Illinois Supreme Court struck down the 2005 law’s caps on non-economic damages in these cases. Punitive damages, money meant to punish rather than repay, are not available in these cases at all (735 ILCS 5/2-1115).
Your share, and a death
Illinois uses modified comparative negligence. If you were partly at fault, for example by missing follow-up you were told to attend, your damages are reduced by your share, and you recover nothing if your share is more than 50% (735 ILCS 5/2-1116). The other side will argue comparative negligence; the chart usually answers it. When care causes a death, a wrongful death claim pays the family for lost support and grief, and a survival action pays the estate for what the person went through.
How a case runs, step by step.
Seven stations, in order. At each one, what you do and what it looks like. No durations, because any number we printed would be a guess.
A case, station by stationNo durations, on purpose
Records
What you do. You sign a records authorization. We request the complete chart, imaging and audit trail from every provider, in writing.
How long this takes depends on the providers, and we chase them. No reviewer can start without the full set.
Independent expert review
What you do. Nothing. A licensed health professional in the right field reads everything.
If the reviewer finds no departure from proper care, we tell you so, plainly. No one is promised a case before this step.
Report and affidavit
What you do. Nothing. The reviewer writes the report; your attorney signs the affidavit.
Both are attached to the complaint.
Filing
What you do. You are the plaintiff. Each provider sued is a defendant.
Filed in the Circuit Court of Cook County, Law Division, at the Richard J. Daley Center, 50 W. Washington St., 5 minutes from our office at 111 W. Washington St.
Discovery and depositions
What you do. You answer written questions and sit for a deposition, a recorded interview under oath. We prepare you for it.
Both sides exchange records and question each other’s experts.
Mediation or trial
What you do. You decide whether to accept any settlement. We advise; you choose.
A settlement is an agreed payment. A verdict is a jury’s decision. The burden of proof is on you, by a preponderance of the evidence: more likely than not.
Payment
What you do. You receive the recovery after the fee and costs are taken, as the written agreement sets out.
Medical bills and liens are dealt with before the money is paid out.
What it costs you.
Nothing up front, and nothing at all unless we recover money for you. In a medical malpractice case Illinois also caps the contingency fee, the share of the recovery a lawyer may take, at one third.
The fee, per $100 recoveredCapped by statute
For every $100 recovered
- Our fee, at most
- $33.33
- The ceiling Illinois sets for these cases.
- To you, at least
- $66.67
- Before case costs, which are repaid from the recovery.
No fee unless we win. If we recover money for you, our fee is 33 1/3% of the recovery, the most Illinois law allows in a medical malpractice case (Illinois Code of Civil Procedure, 735 ILCS 5/2-1114). We advance the case costs and are repaid from the recovery. If there is no recovery, you owe us no fee.
A contingency fee is paid only from money recovered, so there is nothing to pay while the case runs. The independent review, the records charges and the filing fees are case costs, which we advance. The agreement you sign says all of this in writing before any of it applies.
Why RBH for this, and what we will not claim.
Four things you can hold us to from the first call, and one thing we will not say.
The first 72 hours with us
- Hour 0
You call, or send the form.
- Within the hour
A lawyer calls you back. Not an intake service.
- Day 1
The written request for your complete chart goes out to every provider.
- Before any promise
An independent expert reads the file. Only then do we tell you whether there is a case.
What you can hold us to
- A lawyer, not an intake service, calls you back within the hour.
- The written request for your complete chart goes out on day one.
- An independent expert reads the file before we tell you whether there is a case.
- One named attorney, R. B. or B. H., on your case from the first call to the last.
- The fee ceiling is printed on this page, with the statute that sets it.
What we will not claim
Our published results are truck cases, and we do not present them as malpractice results. This page shows none. We will not call ourselves the best at anything, we will not promise an amount, and we will not tell you that you have a case before a qualified reviewer has said so. What we will do is take the call, get the chart, and give you a straight answer.
Questions people ask before they call.
The same day on both clocks10 months after the act
- 2 years from the day you knew, or should have known, that you were hurt by care.
- 4 years from the act or omission itself, whatever you knew. The earlier end controls.
How long do I have to sue for medical malpractice in Illinois, and what if I only found out later?
Two years from when you knew or should have known you were hurt by care, and never more than 4 years after the act itself. The first is the statute of limitations, the second the statute of repose (735 ILCS 5/13-212(a)). Finding out late moves the 2-year clock, not the 4-year one. A child under 18 gets up to 8 years, but not past age 22. Concealment by the provider can extend the time. Exceptions exist, so call before the end of year 1.
Is a bad outcome the same as malpractice?
No. Bad results happen without negligence, and every treatment carries known risks. A case needs care that fell below the standard of care and caused the harm. Our first step is an independent expert read of your records to answer exactly that question.
Why does my lawyer need a doctor first?
Illinois requires a licensed health professional’s written report and your lawyer’s affidavit to be filed with the complaint, the affidavit of merit (735 ILCS 5/2-622). No reviewer can write that report without the records. That is why we request the chart on day one.
Can I sue the hospital, not just the doctor?
Often yes. A hospital answers for its employees, for a contractor it let you rely on as its own (apparent agency, under Gilbert v. Sycamore Municipal Hospital), and for its own conduct, such as staffing and credentialing. A consent form saying the doctor is independent matters, but it does not always end the question.
I signed a consent form. Did I give up my rights?
No. Consent covers the known risks of a procedure done with care. It does not cover negligence. And if the risks were never explained to you, an informed consent claim can exist on its own.
Is there a cap on what I can recover?
No. The Illinois Supreme Court struck down the cap on non-economic damages in Lebron v. Gottlieb Memorial Hospital in 2010. Punitive damages, money meant to punish, are not available in these cases at all (735 ILCS 5/2-1115).
How much will it cost me?
Nothing up front, and no fee unless we recover money for you. Our contingency fee is 33 1/3% of the recovery at most, the ceiling Illinois law sets for these cases (735 ILCS 5/2-1114). We advance the case costs, and they are repaid from the recovery.
How long does a case take?
There is no honest single answer, so we do not print a range. The records come first, then the independent review, then the filing. Many cases settle before trial. Some go to a jury. We tell you where yours stands at every station.
Will my doctor know I called?
No. A consultation is confidential and notifies no one. Keep seeing a doctor for your ongoing care; nothing about calling us changes that.
My relative died. Who can bring the case?
The personal representative of the estate brings a wrongful death claim for the family, within 2 years of the death (740 ILCS 180/2), and a survival action for what the person suffered before death (755 ILCS 5/27-6). The malpractice clocks still matter in a death case, so call at once.
One call starts the records request. The review is free, it is confidential, and we come to the hospital or your home.
This page is general information, not legal advice, and it is attorney advertising. Reading it does not make us your lawyers; a signed agreement does.
Sources
- Illinois Code of Civil Procedure, 735 ILCS 5/13-212(a) and (b) (statute of limitations and statute of repose for healing art malpractice; claims by minors)
- Illinois Code of Civil Procedure, 735 ILCS 5/13-215 (fraudulent concealment of a cause of action)
- Illinois Code of Civil Procedure, 735 ILCS 5/2-622 (healing art malpractice: the attorney’s affidavit and the health professional’s written report)
- Illinois Code of Civil Procedure, 735 ILCS 5/2-1704 (definition of a medical malpractice action)
- Illinois Code of Civil Procedure, 735 ILCS 5/2-1114 (attorney fees in medical malpractice actions; one-third ceiling)
- Illinois Code of Civil Procedure, 735 ILCS 5/2-1115 (punitive damages barred in healing art malpractice actions)
- Illinois Code of Civil Procedure, 735 ILCS 5/2-1116 (modified comparative negligence; 50% bar)
- Supreme Court of Illinois, Lebron v. Gottlieb Memorial Hospital, 237 Ill. 2d 217, 2010 (statutory cap on non-economic damages in medical malpractice cases held unconstitutional)
- Supreme Court of Illinois, Gilbert v. Sycamore Municipal Hospital, 156 Ill. 2d 511, 1993 (hospital liability for an independent contractor physician under apparent agency)
- Illinois Wrongful Death Act, 740 ILCS 180/2 (2-year limit for wrongful death claims)
- Illinois Probate Act of 1975, 755 ILCS 5/27-6 (survival of actions)
- Local Governmental and Governmental Employees Tort Immunity Act, 745 ILCS 10/8-101 (1-year limit for claims against a local public entity)
- Makary and Daniel, Medical error: the third leading cause of death in the US, BMJ 2016;353:i2139 (an estimate of about 250,000 deaths a year; the figure is disputed)
- Newman-Toker and colleagues, Johns Hopkins, BMJ Quality & Safety, July 2023 (an estimate of about 795,000 Americans a year dying or permanently disabled from diagnostic error)
- Circuit Court of Cook County, Law Division, Richard J. Daley Center, 50 W. Washington St., Chicago (where a Cook County medical malpractice case is filed)
Tell us what happened. We will tell you what happens next.
Call, or send the form. A lawyer, not an intake service, calls you back within the hour. Free, confidential, no obligation.
No fee unless we winWe come to youAvailable 24/7
- NowYou call or send the form.
- Within the hourA lawyer calls you back.
- The day you retain usThe preservation letter goes out.