Thomas A. Demetrio Named #1 Super Lawyer in Illinois for 2017
Thomas A. Demetrio, Corboy & Demetrio Co-founder
Thomas A. Demetrio, co-founder of the nationally renowned firm Corboy & Demetrio, has been named the number one Super Lawyer, ranking first out of 94,000 Illinois attorneys.
Tom has been nationally recognized since 1990 when the National Law Journal named him one of the Top 10 Litigators in America. In 2014, the National Law Journal named Tom to its inaugural “Top 50 Litigation Trailblazers and Pioneers,” one of only four Illinois lawyers to receive that distinction.
In 2015, the prestigious Lawdragon, which had previously anointed Tom “Dean of the Chicago Trial Bar,” announced that, since its inception in 2005, Tom was one of only 50 lawyers nationwide who had been selected every year for its 500 Leading Lawyers in America, naming him to its “Legends of the Bar” list, joining a select group that includes Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy.
For over 25 years, Tom has been a fellow of: The American College of Trial Lawyers (top 1% of all trial lawyers in U.S.); The International Academy of Trial Lawyers (top 500 trial lawyers worldwide); and The Inner Circle of Advocates (top 100 plaintiff trial lawyers in U.S.).
He has been listed in Best Lawyers in America since 1987 and, since 2007, Tom has been voted by his peers to be in the top five of all lawyers in Illinois by the “Leading Lawyers Network.”
Tom has served as President of both the Illinois Trial Lawyers Association and the Chicago Bar Association. He has long espoused the important role of continuing legal education. He is a nationally recognized and sought after lecturer on trial techniques and advocacy skills and has authored more than 45 continuing legal education articles in the field of civil litigation.
Tom is the current Co-Chairman of the Board of IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law. He also serves as a member of the boards of Big Shoulders, Archdiocese of Chicago, the Constitutional Rights Foundation of Chicago and the Center for Disability & Elder Law. He is a past member of the Board of Trustees of IIT, Notre Dame Law School, St. Ignatius College Prep, and Mundelein Seminary.
In 2016, the Illinois Trial Lawyers Association awarded Tom its highest honor, the Leonard M. Ring Lifetime Achievement Award. Also in 2016, Tom received the Chicago Bar Association’s prestigious Justice John Paul Stevens Award.
While Tom served as president of the Chicago Bar Association, he expressed a desire to impact the lives of Chicago’s underprivileged children who, he believed, would greatly benefit from mentoring. The Thomas A. Demetrio Award of Excellence was thus created recognizing the efforts of exceptional tutor/mentoring programs throughout Chicago. With Tom, the CBA and Chicago Bar Foundation, in 1995, created the Lend-A-Hand program, which, in addition to the annual Demetrio Award, has granted over $1.6 million to exceptional mentoring programs for underprivileged youths in the Chicago area.