Chicago Lawyer

Photo by Lisa Predko A life of competition Whether it’s minor league baseball, Notre Dame football or becoming an elite trial lawyer, Pat Salvi wants to win. By Roy Strom he twilight sky is split —half black, League, Salvi’s first-place Boomers —losing at right for Salvi’s team that night. They won 4-3. half light —at Boomers Stadium in the moment —have a slim lead in the stand- This is Salvi’s recreation. TSchaumburg, and it’s causing havoc for ings over the second-place Beach Bums. “My primary focus, every day, is running a the Traverse City Beach Bums left fielder. Salvi knows the standings like he knows his law firm and being a trial lawyer,”he said. To the delight of the 5,985 in attendance on players’names, the business of minor league “Some guys play golf. Some guys travel. Some this August Friday, the visitors’outfielder has baseball and what he and his players have rid- guys hunt and fish. I own and operate three just lost two lazy fly balls somewhere among ing on the night’s game. baseball teams.” the fading sun, rose-red clouds and white Then a wild pitch reaches the backstop. Salvi —who owns the Boomers, Gary lights. As a result, the Boomers have what “Come on!”Salvi says, leaning forward and SouthShore RailCats and New England’s would be their first run of the game standing grabbing the railing with both hands. As the North Shore Navigators —seems to take only at third base. runner leaves third and scores uncontested, three things more seriously than his role as Pat Salvi, the managing partner of the plain- Salvi stands to cheer. CEO of Salvi Sports. tiff firm Salvi Schostok & Pritchard, looks on Between lost fly balls, a wild pitch and a There is his job as a trial lawyer and man- from his first-base-side owner’s box. As sum- bottom of the seventh inning that began with aging partner of 14-attorney Salvi Schostok & mer grinds on in the independent Frontier three Boomer walks, everything seemed to go Pritchard, the firm he started as a one-man Salvi > cover story show in Waukegan in 1982 that he says now There is a piece of turf, but that’s just from reach his goal, Salvi began by saying he thinks has one goal: To become the No. 1 plaintiff a salesman who wants to install it at one of the legal talent is in place. Admitting his own firm in Chicago. Salvi ’s baseball fields. bias, he said he feels like he got “the first pick While Salvi admits that is a difficult task What Salvi first pointed to is a portrait-size in the draft”by adding sons Brian and Patrick. considering the stiff competition in the city, cover of Sports Illustrated hanging on the ad- And picking up Jeff Kroll, a 17-year attorney at his firm has won historic verdicts and nego- jacent wall. The cover shows No. 24, Chris Clifford Law Offices before he started his own tiated settlements that, according to the Jury Salvi, running behind a Notre Dame kick re- firm, was “like a big free-agent signing,”Salvi Verdict Reporter, include the highest Lake turner at Michigan Stadium. said. County verdict on record at $33 million in The photo is a proud moment, but the mem- The firm’s name and marketing —the bulk of 2009; the highest Jefferson County verdict at ory of the game —Michigan won by scoring a which is handled by Chief Operating Officer $11 million in 2002; and a 2012 verdict of $8.25 touchdown with two seconds left —still TJ Saye —means it “gets the cases”necessary million that broke a $4 million record in Illi- stings Salvi and his son, Brian, as they discuss it to rank with the biggest of names in Chicago. nois for an infant death. two years later. What ’s left, he said, is the execution and A second is Notre Dame football. The Notre “It was about as heartbreaking a way as you consistently large results. Dame Law School alumnus sat in the stands could possibly lose,”said Brian, who graduated “I think we have the cases and now we need for 38 of the last 39 Fighting Irish game days from Notre Dame Law School last year. to continue to get really extraordinary results before this season as he watched his sons — “We won. We lost. We won. We lost,”his consistently in order to achieve the results of Will and Christopher —don gold-colored dad responded. Power Rogers and Smith, or Clifford’s office. I “I think we have the cases and now we need to continue to get really extraordinary results consistently in order to achieve the results of Power Rogers and Smith, or Clifford’s office. I see those as the firms that we’re kind of chasing.” helmets and take the field, the last time in Miami Sitting at his desk, Salvi showed a highlight see those as the firms that we’re kind of chas- at the BCS National Championship Game. of Chris making the tackle on the opening ing,”Salvi said. A third is his family. He and his wife Lindy kickoff at FedEx Field against Maryland in “It ’s friendly competition. And I think it have five sons, two of whom —his oldest, 31- 2011. (Notre Dame won, 45-21.) was Bob Clifford who always said —I don’t year-old Patrick, and 26-year-old Brian —are “That would be all year,”Salvi said. “That ’s know if it’s still true, but he always said — lawyers at the firm. The family is also mourn- what a joy it was to watch those games. …He ‘There’s plenty of business for all of us.’I don’t ing an unexpected loss. Michael Schostok — (was) on kickoff and kickoff return. And so know if that’s as true as much as it used to be. Salvi ’s first law partner, whom he described as when everyone’s ready for the game, no mat- Maybe it was when it was just a handful of a brother —died last year of a brain tumor. ter what, he would be right on the front lawyers.” Chicago Lawyer spent time with Salvi and line.” the lawyers of Salvi Schostok & Pritchard to While this is the office of a “proud papa”— From Lake County to Chicago discuss where the 31-year-old firm stands after as partner David Pritchard called Salvi —it is That handful of lawyers didn’t always in- what has been, in many ways, a remarkable also where the managing partner guides his clude Salvi. and challenging past 18 months. law firm as he attempts to accomplish what he Born the oldest of nine children to an attor- says has been his main goal since 2005. ney father who worked as a general prac- Great expectations “Both my sons joining me make me feel as if titioner in Lake Zurich, Salvi always had an You could easily mistake Salvi’s corner of- I still have some of my best days ahead of me, interest in sports. He coached his younger fice on the 16th floor of the Block 37 office not just behind me,”Salvi said. “And, as a law brothers’baseball teams and scratched his own building for a shrine to Notre Dame football. firm in Chicago, we’ve been here since 1999. sports itch by playing goalie for traveling A wall-length cabinet is lined with used But relative to our competition, that really hockey teams in Northbrook. cleats and game balls. There are pictures of isn’t that long. And so we still have a long ways He went to St. Mary’s University of Min- Salvi ’s sons at games in Ireland, Soldier Field, to go to get to where we’d like to be. And that nesota with hopes to play goalie at the NCAA Yankee Stadium, FedEx Field (home of the is to be regarded as the best plaintiff’s personal level, but he didn’t make the cut —the team Washington Redskins) and, of course, Notre injury firm in Illinois.” had seven goalies vying for two spots. So he Dame Stadium. When asked what the firm needed to do to spent four years manning the net in a Winona cover story < Salvi city league that he said “really taught me tough- of David Pritchard, who at that point was a 22- e g y. ness.”He also attended the school at the same time year veteran defense lawyer. “The nice thing about baseball is that if you as Chicago Blackhawks President John Mc- “I liked him right away,”Pritchard said of lose, you play the next day,”Salvi said. “In a Donough, whom Salvi calls a personal friend. Salvi. “I like people who are really good at legal case, if you lose, you may not try a case for “There would be some of the most brutal what they do but still laugh and have fun and another six months, a year or two years. And fights I would ever see,”Salvi said about the see the joy in life. And he was like that when you’ve got to live with that bad result all the league. “But in hockey, even in that level, so we first met. …He has a great capacity to enjoy time. In baseball, you can lose two in a row; long as a goalie doesn’t insert himself into the things and be fun, but he’s a damn serious they can be gut-wrenching losses.

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