Smith LaCien LLP
About the firm
Smith LaCien LLP is a Chicago personal injury law firm founded in March 2020 by partners Todd A. Smith and Brian LaCien. The firm handles catastrophic personal injury, medical malpractice, wrongful death, trucking accidents, aviation crashes, and product liability cases, and has recovered more than $3.5 billion in verdicts and settlements for clients.
Notable 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 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.
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.
Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Each case is unique and depends on its own facts.






