Similar personal injury attorneys in Chicago
Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Each case is unique and depends on its own facts.
About Carla Colaianni
Carla Colaianni is a trial attorney at Smith LaCien LLP with 15 years of experience as a plaintiff's personal injury lawyer, concentrating in medical malpractice and personal injury, combined with a probate and appellate practice. She has represented numerous plaintiffs at the appellate level in the Illinois Appellate Courts and the Illinois Supreme Court. Carla began her career as a vocational training instructor at Refugee One, working with refugees and asylum seekers, then left to pursue a law degree. After graduating cum laude from DePaul University College of Law in 2007, she worked full-time for a Chicago personal injury firm where she had clerked as a student.
In 2014 she returned to New York to be closer to family and started her own civil litigation firm. In June 2019 she joined a Yonkers plaintiffs firm specializing in catastrophic birth injuries and childhood sexual abuse cases. She returned to Chicago in early 2022 to join Smith LaCien.
Proven verdicts and settlements at Smith LaCien LLP
These results are credited to Smith LaCien LLP. A result appears under an attorney's own name only when a published source names them as counsel on the case.
A Cook County jury awarded $51 million to John Reinke after OSF Heart of Mary Medical Center discharged him without testing his blood sugar, leading to a diabetic cardiac arrest that left him with a permanent brain injury.
A Cook County judge approved an $18.5 million settlement for Gabriela Cedillo, a 24-year-old extra who suffered catastrophic brain damage when a snapped tow cable tore through her windshield during filming of Transformers: Dark of the Moon in Hammond, Indiana.
Chicago agreed to pay $9.5 million to Catalin Dumitrescu, who suffered catastrophic injuries in 2014 when his bicycle wheel lodged in exposed streetcar rails that had been buried in an East Hyde Park street and then re-designated as a bike route without removing the decades-old hazard.
The estate of helicopter pilot Michael Russell recovered $8.15 million, then Illinois's highest reported product-liability settlement involving a helicopter, after a defective tail-rotor drive-shaft bearing caused his Agusta 109C to spin out of control and crash near DuPage Airport. Todd Smith and Brian LaCien, who later founded Smith LaCien LLP, handled the case at their prior firm, Power, Rogers & Smith P.C.
Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Each case is unique and depends on its own facts.
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Proven verdicts and settlements from other Chicago firms
Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Each case is unique and depends on its own facts.