Debra L. Thomas
Managing Attorney; with the firm since 2015. The only rideshare item behind this listing is a press release about a case the firm actually filed — a Cook County suit alleging an Uber driver was engaging with the app when he caused a multi-car crash — rather than a marketing page. Her firm publishes large settlement and verdict figures; we print none of them.
The bar record
We read Debra L. Thomas in the public register of the Attorney Registration & Disciplinary Commission of the Supreme Court of Illinois. This is what it says.
and pending proceedings
What the ARDC will and won’t stand behind. It enumerates what that discipline line covers: all public discipline, court-ordered disability inactive status, reinstatement and restoration dispositions, and pending public proceedings — with no cut-off date. It then says investigations are confidential and that information about whether one exists is not available. So “None” means the register shows no public discipline and no pending public proceeding. It does not mean no complaint was ever made. We report the register, not an inference from it.
The insurance line is his, not the register’s. Illinois publishes a malpractice-insurance field, which most registers do not — but read its wording. It says the attorney reported at annual registration that he or his firm maintains cover. The ARDC is publishing his answer, not verifying it. Arizona and Washington publish an insurance field too; Illinois is the one that names whose claim it is.
What the record shows
Her bio says she has been an attorney for 22 years. The ARDC records her admission on 7 November 2002, which makes 23 as we write. Firm bios go stale; the register does not.Verified
The firm’s May 2020 press release announces a Cook County filing on behalf of a client injured when, it says, video and witnesses indicated an Uber driver was engaging with the Uber application at the time of a multi-car crash in Homer Glen. It is the only item in this batch that describes a rideshare case the firm says it brought, rather than a page advertising that it would.Verified
The release also notes the 2019 Illinois law making it a Class A misdemeanour to use an electronic device while driving and cause great bodily harm, permanent disability or disfigurement.Verified
What the firm says
She says she is a third-generation attorney, holds a master’s degree in elementary education from DePaul University, chairs the Illinois State Bar Association’s Standing Committee on Member Services and sits on its committees on Artificial Intelligence and on Women and the Law.Reported
She says she leads the firm’s continuing legal education programme and its law clerk programme.Reported
Her firm names her on teams behind several very large settlements and verdicts. We print no settlement or verdict figures, so none appear here.Reported
Rideshare
What we haven’t checked
No attorney pays to be listed here, and this profile is not an endorsement or a recommendation. We report the public record so you can weigh it yourself. If anything here is inaccurate or out of date, tell us and we’ll correct it. How we work