John Power, of Cogan & Power, P.C., works tirelessly to get to know his clients on an individual basis. That includes getting to know the family and learning their story. Helping families is the aspect of his profession that brings him the most satisfaction.

1. In a moment of reflection, attorney John
M. Power asked his wife, Lori, what it was
about his work as a personal injury attorney
that she respected the most.
“She said that was easy. ‘You help keep
families together.’” That, he realizes, is the
aspect of his profession that brings him the
most satisfaction.
Power, of Cogan & Power, P.C.,
works tirelessly to get to know his clients
on an individual basis. Commuting
from his home in rural St. Charles to his
downtown Chicago law office, he has
ample opportunity to reach out to clients
on a personal level.
“I try to call one or two a day during the
commute back and forth,” he says. “I ask
them how they are doing and tell them what
is going on in their cases. I also tell them to
call me after hours if they need me.”
“What separates John from other
attorneys is that when John takes on a
client,” says his partner Michael Cogan,
“he gives them his office number, his
desk (telephone) number, his cell phone
number, and (in special circumstances) his
home telephone number. In 34 years as
an attorney I have never met anyone who
makes himself more accessible than John.”
That personal touch is emblematic of the
genuine concern for his clients and typical
of his case preparation in wrongful death,
personal injury or medical malpractice
cases. “I want to know them so I can tell
the jury their story,” Power says.
His ability to connect with clients on a
personal level is a tribute to his father, Jack,
who took him along on sales calls to meet
clients, he says. “I was only 5 or 6 years
old, and he taught me to make eye contact,
shake hands with people and respond in
some way to what they were saying.
“I owe what I am today to him. He taught
me to do the right thing and to help people,
not just send them a bill. Clients send me
Christmas cards and cookies and remember
my birthday. They are part of my life. These
were families on the brink of disaster both
emotionally and financially. Their whole
lives were centered on what might happen
over the next 24 hours because things
looked so bad at the time. We gave them the
emotional support to get them through the
stressful time and were able to provide the
financial help to save those families.”
All attorneys have clients whose
catastrophes and resolutions resonate with
John Power
Injury Lawyer Goes
Extra Mile to Help
Keep Families Together
by Mike Bailey

2. them more than others, epitomized for
Power by the Estrada family of Coal City.
Simon and Marcie had six kids. Simon
was a truck driver, proud because he was
recently able to buy his own truck, Power
remembers. About three months after he
bought the truck, he was at a rail container
yard in a south Chicago suburb where there
was a huge backup of vehicles. He got out
of his truck to see what was going on and as
he returned to his truck, a truck cab backed
up to turn around, never seeing Estrada.
“He ran over him and basically parked
on him,” Power says. “The cab was sitting
on top of his pelvis and legs. When the
driver saw what had happened, he drove
over him a second time to free him.”
Simon survived but spent five days in
the intensive care unit, suffering a crushed
pelvis, two damaged vertebrae, disc injuries,
nerve damage and injuries to his knees and
ankles. The family lost their four-bedroom
house in Coal City and had to move into
a two-bedroom apartment, with all six
kids. They had no money. Marcie hocked
her jewelry. The family ran out of medical
coverage, and Simon was discharged from
the hospital prematurely.
“My sister had a friend who was a lawyer,”
Marcie remembers. “He recommended
John, so I called him. He was our angel.
He has been a super friend to the family
and solved a lot of problems for us. He
took us under his wing and was our support
system. He was like a grandfather to the
kids for three years. He kept this family
moving forward.”
Through discovery, Power learned that
the rail yard had been in violation of village
ordinances for having too many containers
on the property, as well as for its number
of vehicles. That and other factors led to
a settlement for just under $10 million,
which helped the Estradas recover.
“It wasn’t about the money for them,”
Power says. “They still lived in the two-
bedroom apartment. The kids thrived. All
of them are honor students with grants to
attend private academies. Simon can walk
about a block or so with a cane, but he is so
much better without the financial stresses.”
Those victories make the long commutes
worthwhile, he says.
Talking Families Through Process
Power delves deeply into the lives of the
people he represents and draws personal
gratification from what he calls “talking
them through the process” and assuring
them that the outcome will be the best
possible under the circumstances.
“I’ve heard him on the telephone
fighting with health insurance companies
on behalf of his clients,” Cogan says.
He encourages clients to be realistic
Power and wife Lori pose for a photo during the holiday season.
From left: Sons Zach and Alex, wife Lori and Power pose on the Swilcan Bridge on the Old
Course at St. Andrews, Scotland.
From left: Sons Zach and Alex and Power golfed at Scotland’s Gleneagles in 2014 three weeks
before the United States lost to Europe there in the Ryder Cup.
This article originally appeared in Leading Lawyers Magazine—Consumer Edition for 2016 and has been reprinted with permission. © 2016 Law Bulletin Publishing Co.

3. and to have patience. And he relies on his
assistant, Kim Stefanek, on whom these
families will come to rely for information,
understanding and assistance.
“She is the heart and soul for some
of these families,” Power says. “We go
visit them together. She is a warm and
compassionate person, and the families
often remember her more than me.”
That is all part of what has made Power
successful. He has received the highest
possible peer-review rating from Martindale-
Hubbell, has been named a Leading Lawyer
since 2008, is designated as an Illinois Super
Lawyer, was elected to the Society of Trial
Lawyers, and is invited as a guest lecturer at
both Loyola University School of Law and
Northwestern School of Law.
While Power has secured in excess of
$100 million in verdicts and settlements
for his clients, what brings him genuine
peace are the victories that help ordinary
people resume the best life possible under
the circumstances, like Buddy Lynch.
“Buddy was a roofer, in his early 40s.
He lost his hand as a teenager in a black
powder gun accident, but he survived and
thrived,” Power says. “He was mopping the
hot tar on roofs when he suffered a
herniated disc.”
Doctors then performed the
wrong surgery on him, Power says,
and performed it poorly. Instead of
fusing vertebrae, the surgery made
it worse. A second surgery then
fused the vertebrae, but during a
postoperative assessment, he was
asked to push a heavy sled, causing
him to rupture another disc.
Lynch became despondent, addicted to
pain medication and unable to function
normally. The $5 million combined
settlement plus verdict allowed him to
undergo rehabilitation and therapy. He is
now off the pain medications and is “doing
great,” Power says.
“John is very honorable,” says retired
Judge Joseph Casciato, who presided over
trials and mediations in which Power was
involved. “He’s very civil, but a forceful
advocate for his client. I would recommend
him (to prospective clients).”
Attorney Geoff Gifford echoes that
sentiment. “I met John about 10 years ago,”
he says. “John is truthful, straightforward and
candid. (In medical malpractice cases) he has
command of the medicine and the procedure.
“You get a sense in mediation whether
someone knows what he is talking about, and
John is very credible. One thing that separates
him from other attorneys is that he can handle
the pressure of big cases. Not everyone can.”
Not all of the cases conclude happily. In
some, the best possible outcome is a chance
for surviving family members to move
on with their lives, such as in the case of
a 39-year-old woman who was five weeks
pregnant. During a routine procedure,
she was given a mild anesthetic meant to
put her in a “twilight” state. She never
awakened and remained in a persistent
vegetative state requiring constant care.
With the money from the verdict, her
family was able to place her in a facility to
care for her for the rest of her life.
Power’s middle-class, working family
background has served him well. He grew
up in Hoffman Estates and was the first
college graduate in his family.
Always fascinated with medicine, Power
started his college career in pre-med but
switched to finance. What changed his
mind? “Chemistry and biology,” he laughs.
With an undergrad degree from Loyola
University in finance, Power also pursued
a law degree there. Clerking for a personal
injury firm while attending law school at
night, Power stumbled on an opportunity
to become a paralegal with a large Chicago
bank that in turn paid for his schooling.
On graduation in 1987, he took the
advice of people he respected and went to
work for a firm that focused on medical
malpractice defense work. In 1993, he
started his own defense firm, which grew to
13 attorneys before he closed out his side
of the practice in 2001 and joined what is
now Cogan & Power.
“John and I complement each other very
well,” says Cogan. “I’m a big picture guy,
and John is very detail-oriented. He puts
together a memorandum with the theories
of the case as the plaintiff’s attorney, but
then also lists the ways he would defend,”
a method that Cogan says in extremely
helpful in preparing a case.
“John went from being an excellent
defense attorney to one of the best
plaintiff’s lawyers in the city,” says Casciato,
who served from 1984 to 2005 in the Cook
County Law Division. “He had a very good
feel for (medical malpractice cases).”
When Power was a young defense
attorney, he met over 200 doctors
helping with depositions, and he took the
opportunity to receive invaluable medical
training from a wide variety of experts. The
medical training — however preliminary —
has been vital to his success as a medical
One thing that separates
him from other attorneys is that he
can handle the pressure of big cases.
Not everyone can.”
malpractice attorney, as demonstrated in a
recent $16.3 million settlement that he and
his partner Jon Papin obtained.
In that case, a 2-year-old girl underwent
a surgery designed to correct an
abnormality in which the plates of the skull
grew together prematurely. As a normal
and routine procedure, hospital staff
was supposed to draw blood to monitor
hemoglobin and oxygen levels in the
blood. That was not done for several hours,
however, and her levels dropped far below
what was acceptable.
Today at age 9, she has spastic
quadriplegia and is functionally blind —
she sees shapes only. But, Power says, she is
one of the “sweetest kids” he has ever met.
That money will allow the family to care for
her for the rest of her life.
Teaching Life Skills
Power’s intense interest in family extends
to his own and to others in his life as well.
He says his father gave him the skills to
do electrical, plumbing and drywall work,
which he used to help build his current
family home just west of St. Charles near
Burlington. In fact, he says, he acted as his
own general contractor doing a lot
of the electrical, drywall, painting,
staining and landscaping work with
the help of his wife.
“My dad’s best friend helped
us build it. I did all the electrical
work with my brother-in-law,
along with all of the landscaping,”
he remembers.
“I had a Bobcat in the yard for
months. We built the retaining
walls and set the paving bricks for the
driveway. I tried a couple of cases that year
and still billed a lot of hours and then went
home at night and stained and painted the
walls and deck.
“We spent the money and did the work
as we could afford it. I had no sidewalk,
and I remember we had to put trim on
the outer walls of the house to get an
occupancy permit. So we did that in order
to move in.”
Withthehelpofhisfather,Powereventually
finished the basement over a few years. He
even built some of the furniture in the home,
a passion of his when he is not practicing law.
But even more compelling is Power’s
reach to young people today to teach them
the skills his father taught him.
“A couple of us in the neighborhood
wanted our sons to have these skills so we
bought a house to rehab and tore it down
to the studs and taught them how to bend
conduit and mud walls. I love looking at
blueprints, another skill my dad taught me.”
Power’s son, Alex, 21, has taken to those
skills, admirably and is currently studying
This article originally appeared in Leading Lawyers Magazine—Consumer Edition for 2016 and has been reprinted with permission. © 2016 Law Bulletin Publishing Co.

4. mechanical engineering at California
Polytechnic State University. His youngest
son, Zach, will attend Burlington Central
High School as a junior this fall.
When he is not building homes, crafting
furniture, or practicing law, Power enjoys
golf, a sport he has shared with his children.
Alex competed in the Illinois High School
Association state golf tournament, and
Zach will be a varsity golfer this fall. In fact,
family vacations to Ireland and Scotland
often revolve around a few rounds of the
gentleman’s pursuit.
Fellow attorney Richard Donohue
has golfed with Power and paid him the
ultimate golfer’s compliment. “My Dad
told me you can tell a lot about a person’s
character by whether or not he cheats at
golf. John does not cheat,” he laughs.
“Besides that, he’s very professional in
the courtroom, easy to work with and not
caustic or combative like some attorneys.
He’s very well-liked (by the bar).”
Power’s wife, a former senior financial
analyst at Equity Office, a Sam Zell company,
enjoys serving as a substitute teacher in
primary education in District 301, largely
in order to stay close to their children. But
the personal satisfaction and enjoyment she
received from the children has made it a
passion she pursues out of pure joy, he says.
Lori also volunteers at a shop whose profits
are directed to at-risk teenage mothers.
The Powers also work with the Fox Valley
Pregnancy Center, donating car seats and
cribs to needy families.
The Powers’ charity work extends
internationally as well. Power went to
Ecuador with a group to electrify a shop
so it could provide vocational training for
at-risk children from Quito. Because of the
high rate of theft at the border, the group
had to carry 100-pound coils of electrical
wire into the village, packed in clothing
donated by Illinois families.
“When we got to the village, we laid out
the donated clothes and all the kids got to
go around three times and ‘shop’ for what
they wanted. It was really cool,” he says.
“John is so humble about what he does,”
says Marcie Estrada. “But when we went to
court, he was such a fighter for us. I never
saw that side of him. He was so kind to our
family and represented us so well in court, I
just can’t say enough about him.” I
This article originally appeared in Leading Lawyers Magazine—Consumer Edition for 2016 and has been reprinted with permission. © 2016 Law Bulletin Publishing Co.