Jon Loevy quit his job as a corporate lawyer at a prominent Chicago firm six years ago to start his own civil rights law firm where for years he was the only person on staff.
“A lot of people go to law school and don’t think they’ll end up making rich people richer,” he said. “I wanted to be on the front lines. Every day you go to work and feel good.”
Today, Loevy & Loevy — the firm representing Sayyid Qadri in his police brutality lawsuit against the Evanston Police Department — has grown to nine lawyers and is one of the most prominent civil rights firms in the Chicago area.
Loevy & Loevy has won eight court cases in a row, and the last three times a case handled by the firm went to trial, its clients have received million-dollar verdicts from juries, including a $28 million verdict against the City of Chicago.
Such awards are “extraordinarily uncommon,” according to Loevy.
“It’s shaking up the entire field,” he said. “I like to think we’re breaking new ground. That’s the best part of my job, when you pour your heart in a case a jury becomes outraged.”
The firm focuses on First and Fourth Amendment violations. About 90 percent of its cases deal with police misconduct, said attorney Mark Loevy-Reyes.
“We recognize that police work is difficult,” said Loevy-Reyes, Loevy’s cousin. “But you hear stories and you realize they are not isolated incidents. It’s an overarching problem in police departments.”
Loevy & Loevy currently is working with Northwestern’s Center on Wrongful Convictions to represent Michael Evans, who was imprisoned for 27 years before DNA evidence cleared him of rape and murder charges.
NU Law School Assistant Prof. Karen Daniel said she was impressed with how Loevy and his father, attorney Arthur Loevy, were able to break down complicated legal procedures for clients.
“They communicated that they would do all they could to seek justice,” said Daniel, a senior staff attorney at the Center on Wrongful Convictions. “They wanted to show they were on his side and he deserved to have this great wrong corrected.”
Jon Loevy said he hopes lawsuits against police departments will force them to re-examine policies on the use of force and institute change.
“Maybe I’m naive,” Loevy said. “But maybe the City of Chicago will have to change because it will just get too expensive.”
Police Officer James McGreal from Alsip, a suburb of Chicago, was one of Loevy’s first clients.
McGreal claimed two former police chiefs and the mayor of Alsip retaliated against him after he tried to investigate illegal gambling and corruption in the city. McGreal also accused the police department of trying to paint him as mentally unstable after a department-mandated psychological examination.
In late September, McGreal settled out of court for $900,000.
Although he never was fired from his job, McGreal said he thought his case would benefit the entire police community. McGreal said an appeals court ruled that police departments need to show “real and articulable cause” to send police officers for psychiatric evaluations.
“Jon gave 110 percent,” McGreal said of Loevy. “In my instance, he represented a police officer and in many cases they sue police. Unfortunately, civil rights violations are across the board and affect everyone.”
Reach Maridel Reyes at [email protected].
