Paul D. Richter, managing partner of Rapoport Law Offices, P.C., in Chicago, Illinois, is an experienced trial attorney who has spent his entire legal career litigating personal injury cases throughout the country on behalf of victims of negligence. His practice is limited to representing people with serious personal injuries and families who have lost loved ones as the result of the negligence of others in wrongful death cases. Mr. Richter has successfully resolved lawsuits arising from aviation negligence and airplane crashes, accidents involving semi tractor-trailer trucks, automobiles watercraft, and other motor vehicles, medical malpractice, work injury and construction accidents and product liability.
In the past two years, Mr. Richter has been a crucial member of three separate record setting trial teams that obtained in excess of $23 million on behalf of their clients. Most recently, Mr. Richter was a member of the trial team that obtained a $7.1 million verdict in a case involving a regional jet crash. The case was tried in Lexington, Kentucky. In another matter, Mr. Richter and his partner, David Rapoport, obtained a $6.9 million settlement (while the jury was deliberating) in a semi truck accident case tried in Madison, Wisconsin. Finally, Mr. Richter second-chaired a jury trial which obtained a $9.858 million jury verdict in Cook County, Illinois on behalf of a medical student seriously injured while receiving an osteopathic treatment from a fellow medical student.
Other recent results obtained by Mr. Richter on behalf of Rapoport Law Offices' clients include a $2.3 million settlement on behalf of a construction superintendent who was injured at a construction site; a $1.8 million judgment on behalf of a client for the loss of her 83 year-old husband killed in an automobile crash (setting a county record high); a jury award of $1.5 million in damages in a contested wrongful death case involving a man hit by the tail rotor of a helicopter; and $1.315 million for a father whose child died following a semi truck crash.
As a member of the Rapoport Law Office aviation negligence litigation trial team Mr. Richter has successfully prosecuted both wrongful death and personal injury cases for pilots and passengers injured or killed in both commercial and general aviation airplane crashes. Highly experienced in aviation negligence matters, Mr. Richter has played a vital role in prosecuting actions against American Airlines, EgyptAir, Swissair, USAir, American Eagle, United Express, Boeing, Comair, Lycoming, Air Evac, Inc., American Air Network, Inc. and other members of the aviation industry. He has also successfully prosecuted the United States for negligence by air traffic controllers, and for the negligence of an Army Chinook helicopter pilot. Mr. Richter is presently part of the Rapoport Law Office team prosecuting several defendants in a case arising out of the crash of a private aircraft that resulted in five wrongful deaths in Wheeling, West Virginia.
A private pilot, Mr. Richter served as an extern at the Great Lakes Regional Office of the Federal Aviation Administration where he assisted FAA agency attorneys in prosecuting pilot regulatory enforcement cases.
Paul D. Richter has been selected as a Rising Star among Illinois attorneys by Super Lawyers Magazine. This honor, given to select attorneys in each state as rated by their peers and through the independent research of Law & Politics, includes the top Illinois attorneys under the age of forty.
Publications by Paul Richter
- "Wrongful Death and Survival Actions in Illinois: Trial and Evidentiary Considerations in Wrongful Death Actions. (chapter 6)"
Published by IICLE - Illinois Institute for Continuing Legal Education, 2007 edition - “Cockpit Image Recorders: A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words,” Issues in Aviation Law and Policy, published by CCH Incorporated, May 2005.
- “Punitive Damages After State Farm v. Campbell: The First Year,” American Bar Association Aviation Litigation Section Meeting, N.Y, New York, 2004
- “Attention All International Airlines and Flight Crews: Choosing Inaction Over Action No Longer Flies,” Issues in Aviation Law and Policy, published by CCH Incorporated, March 2004.
Education
- J.D., DePaul University School of Law, 1996
- B.A., University of Illinois, 1992
Bar Admissions
- Illinois, 1996
Court Admissions
- United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, 1996
- United States District Court for the Central District of Illinois, 1996
- United States District Court of the Southern District of Illinois, 1996
- United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, 1998
- United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, 2004
Professional Affiliations
- American Bar Association
- Illinois State Bar Association
- Chicago Bar Association
- McHenry County Bar Association
- American Association for Justice
- Illinois Trial Lawyers Association
- Lawyer-Pilots Bar Association
- Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association
- Helicopter Association International