2025 Continuing Legal Education (CLE) Instructor
Robert A. Clifford, founder and senior partner at Clifford Law Offices, will moderate the two-hour program.
Robert A. Clifford
Founder and Senior Partner at Clifford Law Offices
Robert A. Clifford is the founder of Clifford Law Offices in Chicago, an internationally-recognized plaintiffs’ trial firm that concentrates in aviation, transportation, personal injury, medical negligence, product liability law, mass torts and class actions. Mr. Clifford is among only eight personal injury attorneys in the nation selected as one of America’s Top 200 Lawyers in Forbes’ inaugural list of 2024, and the only personal injury attorney selected from Illinois. The National Law Journal has awarded Mr. Clifford the Elite Trial Lawyers’ Award as well as its Lifetime Achievement Award. Mr. Clifford has the distinction of being selected by Super Lawyers, a peer-review organization, as the number one lawyer in Illinois from 2009-2016 and in 2023-2024 and has always been in the top three. He was named by Chicago Magazine as one of the 100 Most Powerful Chicagoans and was named the 2012 Chicago Lawyer Magazine’s Person of the Year, based upon his trial accomplishments, his contributions to the legal community and to the Chicago area. In 2022, Mr. Clifford was awarded the Distinguished Alumnus Award by DePaul University College of Law, his alma mater, as well as the Trial Lawyer Excellence Award by the Jury Verdict Reporter. The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals gave him its Professionalism Award in 2014. The Chicago Bar Association gave him the Justice John Paul Stevens Award in 2017, its highest honor. Also that year he received the Unity Award by the Diversity Scholarship Foundation. The National Trial Lawyers named Bob Clifford the Class Action Trial Lawyer of 2018, as well as one of America’s 52 Most Influential Trial Lawyers in 2022. He has been listed in Best Lawyers from its inception, decades ago, including being the top in the Chicago metropolitan area in certain practice areas. In 2019, the Illinois Trial Lawyers’ Association honored Mr. Clifford with the Leonard Ring Lifetime Achievement Award. He also was among those honored in 2019 by Public Justice’s Trial Lawyer of the Year Award. He has been top-listed in Best Lawyers, the oldest attorney peer-review ranking service in the country, for decades.
Mr. Clifford has represented those injured or killed in every major commercial airline crash in the U.S. in the last four decades. This includes the American Airlines crash at O’Hare in 1979; the United Airlines DC-10 crash in Sioux City, Iowa, in 1989; the Comair runway crash in Lexington, Kentucky of 2006; the Continental Colgan crash of 2009; and, internationally, the Turkish Airlines crash in Amsterdam of 2009. He is currently Lead Counsel on behalf of families of the victims onboard the tragic Boeing crash of a 737 MAX-8 in Ethiopia in 2019. Mr. Clifford served as the liaison counsel for the subrogation and business property damage claims that resulted from the tragic September 11, 2001 crashes at the World Trade Center in New York. He served as lead counsel in the negotiation and settlement of those claims that settled for $1.2 billion. Mr. Clifford’s trial career has been marked by many record verdicts including a young woman who suffered permanent injuries after being dragged by a semi. The jury returned a record $35 million verdict for the young woman.
In addition to practicing law, Mr. Clifford is dedicated to the furtherance of the legal profession and has been actively involved and held leadership roles with the American Bar Association (Chair of the Section of Litigation and Chair of the ABA’s charitable arm, the Fund for Justice and Education), Chicago Bar Association (President), Chicago Inn of Court (President), American College of Trial Lawyers and Illinois Trial Lawyers Association (President). He is also a member of the American Law Institute and the Inner Circle of Advocates. For more than 30 years, he has sponsored the Annual Clifford Tort Symposium on Tort Law and Civil Justice at DePaul University College of Law that brings together the best and brightest on a topic of interest to the public and that results in a special law review issue of articles by the academic and judicial participants. For over 18 years, his firm has offered an annual free Continuing Legal Education program, gathering over 3,500 attendees each year. Mr. Clifford also served as Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Naples Children & Education Foundation, a charitable organization and host of the Naples Winter Wine Festival, which benefits more than 200,000 at-risk and underprivileged children in Southwest Florida.
Lea Gutierrez
Illinois ARDC Administrator, Co-Chair of American Bar Association Center for Professional Responsibility's Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee
Lea Gutierrez began her legal career at the Office of the Public Defender in Baltimore, Maryland, advocating for the rights of those who could not afford legal representation. Upon relocating to Chicago in 2005, Gutierrez joined the ARDC as litigation counsel, where she investigated and prosecuted allegations of attorney misconduct. Her passion for justice and equality led her to later become the ARDC’s founding Director of Diversity and Inclusion. In that role, she spearheaded efforts to recruit diverse attorneys, foster inclusive environments, and improve public accessibility to the ARDC. Concurrently, she served as Senior Litigation Counsel and Litigation Manager, overseeing investigations and prosecutions of attorney misconduct.
Jamie A. Kleppetsch
DePaul University College of Law Director of Bar Passage and Professor of Legal Practice
Jamie A. Kleppetsch is the Director of Bar Passage and Professor of Legal Practice at DePaul University College of Law. She teaches courses focused on professional responsibility, practical legal writing skills and substantive review of subjects frequently tested on the bar examination. She has presented nationally on handling character and fitness issues, how to develop strong bar preparation programs, and how to identify and support underperforming students.
Judge Raymond J. McKoski (retired)
Adjunct Professor, UIC Chicago School of Law
A trial judge in Lake County, Illinois for 25 years, Judge McKoski now serves as an adjunct professor at the University of Illinois Chicago School of Law. At UIC Law, he has taught courses in professional responsibility, evidence, jury selection, and appellate advocacy. Ray is the vice chair of the Illinois Judicial Ethics Committee and a member of the editorial board of the British Journal of American Legal Studies. He has served on ethics committees of the National Center for State Courts, the American Bar Association, the American Judges Association, the Illinois Supreme Court, the Illinois State Bar Association, and the Illinois Judges Association. Ray has authored a dozen law review articles on legal and judicial ethics. His book, Judges in Street Clothes: Acting Ethically Off-the-Bench, explores the ethical, practical, and constitutional implications of a judge’s extrajudicial activities. In the summer of 2025, the University of Illinois Press will release his new book David Davis, Abraham Lincoln’s Favorite Judge.