About Todd Schafer
Todd Schafer has earned a national reputation as a leading trial lawyer, known for taking on difficult personal injury cases and delivering exceptional results for his clients. The son of founding partner Timothy Schafer, Todd was introduced to the courtroom early in his career and began trying cases at a young age. Those early opportunities helped shape the trial lawyer he would become, aggressive when necessary, meticulous in his preparation, and willing to take difficult cases to verdict in jurisdictions where substantial recoveries are never guaranteed. At just 30 years old, Todd served as lead counsel in a case that resulted in a landmark $32.5 million jury verdict for a young mother who suffered catastrophic brain injuries in a collision involving a semi-truck.
He is believed to have been the youngest attorney in the country to serve as lead counsel in a case resulting in a verdict exceeding $30 million. That verdict was only the beginning. Throughout his career, Todd has continued to obtain extraordinary results for injured clients, including multiple record-setting verdicts. His results have placed him among the nation's Top 100 Jury Verdicts three separate times.
Todd's accomplishments have also earned him membership in the Inner Circle of Advocates, an invitation-only organization limited to 100 of the most accomplished plaintiff trial lawyers in the United States. He was invited to join at just 39 years old, making him one of the youngest attorneys ever admitted to the organization. For Todd, however, the measure of a case has never been the size of the verdict alone. His career has been defined by a commitment to the people he represents, families whose lives have been permanently changed through no fault of their own, and by his willingness to fight for them when the stakes are highest.
Proven verdicts and settlements
A Lake County jury awarded Kristen Zak $32.5 million after a J.B. Hunt Transport semi-truck jackknifed in the median of Interstate 65 during a snowstorm and was left without warning triangles, and the car she was riding in struck the wreck about an hour later, leaving her with permanent brain damage.
On the morning of March 11, 2001, three brothers went through the ice on Lake Holiday inside the Lakes of the Four Seasons, a gated condominium community in Crown Point, Indiana. One 11-year-old drowned, his 10-year-old brother was pulled out with a traumatic brain injury, and the third boy, the drowned child's twin, was rescued by a diver. At trial in February 2011 the family's lawyers showed that an overflow crib circulating water beneath the surface had thinned the ice at that spot while staying invisible from shore, and that the property owners association had posted no warning sign, put up no barrier and kept no rescue equipment at the lake. A Lake Circuit Court jury assigned all of the fault to the association and awarded $30.7 million, itemized as $25.5 million for the brain injury, $5 million for the death and $200,000 for the surviving twin. A news report at the time said an appeal was expected, and no published Indiana appellate decision in the case has since turned up.
Daniel Nelson, a farmer from Lake Village, Indiana, was driving his tractor north on U.S. 41 in Newton County on the morning of May 16, 2019, when a semitrailer that failed to slow down or change lanes struck it and threw him from the seat. He suffered head and brain injuries, a fractured pelvis and five broken ribs. Nelson and his wife, Diana, sued the trucking company, its customer and the driver, and after the case bounced between federal and state court on jurisdictional grounds, it was tried over seven days in Newton County Superior Court. On February 16, 2022, the jury deliberated about two and a half hours before awarding $25 million to Daniel Nelson and $5 million to Diana Nelson, a $30 million verdict that stood.
A Porter County jury awarded Courtney Faulhaber $4.1 million after a B&W Cartage Company semi-truck ran a red light on U.S. 6 in June 2020 and struck her car. The company did not dispute that its driver caused the crash, so the trial turned entirely on how badly Faulhaber was hurt. The defense argued her head injury was a temporary concussive event and pointed to how little treatment her medical records showed, while her lawyers argued the collision left her with a lasting brain injury. The jury found for Faulhaber and awarded her $4.1 million, and it rejected a companion loss of consortium claim brought by her husband.
A Tippecanoe County jury found in February 2016 that Brittany Johnson had $7.1 million in damages from a 2008 crash on Interstate 65 that killed her fiance and left her with a traumatic brain injury. It assigned 30 percent of the fault to Sandberg Trucking and its driver, Kimiel Horn, which produced a $2.13 million judgment. The Indiana Court of Appeals affirmed in 2017.
Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Each case is unique and depends on its own facts.
