Todd Smith
About Todd Smith
Todd A. Smith is a founding partner of Smith LaCien LLP, which he co-founded with Brian LaCien in March 2020 after previously serving as a founding partner of Power Rogers & Smith, P.C. since 1993. He has spent decades representing clients who suffered catastrophic injuries or wrongful death, regularly taking on corporations, insurance companies, hospitals, and government agencies. Smith LaCien was recognized in the Jury Verdict Reporter's 2025 annual Settlements Report as one of the top five plaintiff's injury law firms, with settlements totaling $96.5 million that year, including a $30.5 million recovery for the family of a construction worker who died from on-the-job injuries. Todd was named a recipient of the JVR/Law Bulletin Media 2025 Lifetime Achievement Award and has been listed among the Best Lawyers in America since 1997. He has served as president of the Association of Trial Lawyers of America (now AAJ), the Illinois State Bar Association, and the Illinois Trial Lawyers Association, and has been featured in the New York Times, USA Today, Chicago Tribune, and Crain's Chicago Business.
Notable case results
Todd Smith served as co-lead counsel on the economic loss track of the Takata airbag MDL, helping secure a combined $702.7 million class settlement from Honda ($605 million) and Nissan ($97.7 million), approved by Judge Federico Moreno in March 2018.
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.
The family of Michelle Swallow, 30, recovered $7.3 million after a bile duct procedure at Presence Saint Joseph Medical Center in Joliet created an unrepaired bowel leak that led to fatal sepsis.
CampGroup LLC paid $4.5 million to settle the wrongful death of a 15-year-old Buffalo Grove boy who drowned during an unsupervised nighttime lake swim at Greenwoods Camp for Boys in Michigan, a result the Jury Verdict Reporter ranked as Illinois's second-highest settlement for the drowning death of a minor.
For the family of a construction worker who died from injuries sustained on the job
Smith LaCien ranked in the top 5 plaintiff's injury firms by JVR in 2025 with $96.5 million in settlements
Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Each case is unique and depends on its own facts.
