Zayed Law Offices represents children injured at or around birth, and the families who are raising them.
The record comes first, and completely: the maternal notes as well as the child's, the fetal monitoring archive in its native form rather than an exported summary, the newborn observations and cord blood gas results, and the protocols the unit was operating under. Who the provider was matters here too — a public hospital and a federally funded clinic each change the procedure entirely.
Then preservation. Placental specimens, blocks and slides are retained on schedules that vary by institution and are not indefinite; monitoring archives are kept in native form for a period and then not. Some of this cannot be recreated once it is gone, and a request that arrives afterwards arrives too late to matter.
Where a public body is involved, separate statutory deadlines and procedural rules may apply, so the provider's status needs to be identified early.
Three commitments shape how a case is handled here. None of them are performance claims — they are choices about how the work is organized.
The firm takes fewer matters than it is offered. Birth injury cases demand document-heavy investigation, expert review before anything can be filed, and a lifetime care projection built rather than estimated; a caseload sized for volume would not allow any of it. Declining a case we cannot staff properly is part of the model, not an exception to it.
Whether the records support a causal theory is settled before a complaint is drafted — from the cord blood gases, the newborn examination, the imaging and the placental pathology. Illinois requires a qualified expert to find reasonable and meritorious cause before a healing-art malpractice case can proceed, and the honest use of that requirement is as a filter rather than a formality. Most of these cases fail on causation, not on negligence.
Record requests go out before the retention clock on placental blocks and slides, native monitoring archives and unit-level protocol versions runs down. That evidence is held by the defendant, and no amount of later diligence recovers a specimen that has already been discarded.
Zayed Law Offices is a personal injury trial firm, and a birth injury claim is a personal injury case. These are the attorneys who bring them.
Founded the firm in 2009. A J.D. from Notre Dame and an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business are an unusual pairing in a trial practice, and a birth injury claim is where it earns out: what a lifetime of care will cost is an economic case built on a life care plan, discounted to a present-day figure, and the defense attacks the arithmetic as hard as the medicine. Member of the Illinois Trial Lawyers Association Board of Managers since 2019. Licensed in Illinois and a member of the Trial Bar for the Northern District of Illinois.
Admitted in Illinois and before the federal courts for both the Northern and Southern Districts of the state, which matters more in this practice than it first sounds: obstetric care delivered at a federally funded community health center is a claim against the United States, filed in federal court on its own track, and Chicago has a great many such clinics. Takes the firm’s appeals and belongs to the Appellate Lawyers Association of Illinois. J.D., Loyola University Chicago School of Law; B.A. in political science, magna cum laude, University of St. Francis.
Lead counsel in more than thirty jury trials to verdict. Hospitals and their insurers are repeat litigants with standing defense panels that see these cases constantly, and what a claim is worth to them moves with whether the lawyer across the table is equipped to try it. That record is the answer to the question. J.D., Chicago-Kent College of Law; B.A. in English, magna cum laude, University of Illinois at Chicago. Trial Bar, Northern District of Illinois.
Has argued in the First and Second District Illinois Appellate Courts, and handled appeals through the Third District and to the Illinois Supreme Court. Whether a hospital answers for a physician it describes as an independent contractor is not usually decided at trial. It is settled at that level, and it decides who is actually across the table in a birth injury case. J.D., Thomas M. Cooley Law School, 2009; B.A. in political science, Purdue University.
Joined the firm after twenty-five years of defense practice, and in a birth injury case that history is the point: he spent those years evaluating, preparing and litigating claims — medical malpractice and professional liability among them — for defendants and their insurers, and uses that to anticipate the defense strategy rather than react to it. Has tried more than fifty-five cases to verdict in Illinois, in Cook, DuPage, Kane, Peoria, Tazewell, DeKalb, Kendall and Boone Counties. Admitted before the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. Fluent in Spanish. J.D., DePaul University, 2001; Master’s degree in Ancient Languages and B.A., Dallas Baptist University.
Approaches every serious case on one principle: thorough preparation creates leverage, and a defendant should know from the outset that she is prepared to go to trial. In a birth injury claim the medicine is most of the case, and her practice is to master it early — the theory of the case, the evidentiary record, the science of how the injury happened, the witnesses, and the weak points in the defense position. Member of the Trial Bar for the Northern District of Illinois. J.D. cum laude, Loyola University Chicago School of Law, 2017, with certifications in Trial Advocacy and Health Law.
Has handled catastrophic injury claims alongside class and collective actions, mass torts and complex commercial disputes, in state, federal and appellate courts — many-party litigation, which is the shape a birth injury claim often takes: the delivering physician, the group that employs them and the hospital responsible for the nursing staff, each with its own insurer and its own lawyers. Has represented plaintiffs and defendants both, and anticipates an argument before it is made. His undergraduate work was in the sciences — Environmental Science and Policy at Florida State University, with minors in biology and chemistry. Licensed in Illinois, Indiana and Florida. J.D. with honors, DePaul University College of Law.
Handles workers’ compensation alongside personal injury, and the overlap is the useful part here. The care a severely disabled child has already received is usually paid by public benefits, which means a lien to resolve and an eligibility to preserve — and those two things, not the headline figure, decide what a settlement is actually worth to the family. J.D., Valparaiso University, top quarter of the class; B.A. cum laude, DePaul University.
Admitted in Illinois and New York, where he has handled hundreds of cases, and a member of the Trial Bar for the Northern District of Illinois. Investigates each matter thoroughly, with the attention to detail that the biggest and most complex cases demand — and a birth injury claim is usually both, built on years of records and a lifetime of care. J.D., Thomas M. Cooley Law School; undergraduate degree with High Honors, University of Houston.
Founder Adam Zayed is a Licensed Illinois Attorney, and partner Andrew Miller is a Licensed Illinois Attorney.
Since 2009
Zayed Law Offices has represented injured people and their families since it was founded — an Illinois trial practice built on catastrophic injury and wrongful death work.
Common questions about the firm and how this practice works.
The firm was founded in 2009 by Adam J. Zayed. Chicago Birth Injury Lawyers is its Illinois birth injury practice, representing children injured at or around birth, mothers injured in their own right, and the families raising them.
Injury and wrongful death claims arising from care around the time of birth — how a labor was monitored, when a cesarean was called, how a shoulder dystocia or an assisted delivery was managed, and what happened in the newborn period that followed. It also covers maternal injuries, which are the mother’s own claim rather than part of her child’s. The organizing question across all of them is what the records show was observable and what the guidance called for in response.
Illinois. The firm keeps offices in Chicago and Joliet, and its attorneys of record are licensed in the state. Zayed Law Offices maintains a broader practice with a presence in other states, but this property is an Illinois practice and does not offer representation outside it.
Birth injury cases are evidence-heavy and front-loaded. Assembling a complete record, having it read by qualified experts before anything is filed — which Illinois requires — and building a lifetime care projection cannot be done well on a volume model. Capping the active caseload is what allows each case the depth of work it needs. It is also why the firm declines matters where the records do not support a claim, which is often.
Yes. The parent firm, Zayed Law Offices, handles a broader catastrophic personal injury, medical negligence and wrongful death practice. This site covers the Illinois birth injury practice specifically.
Was your child injured at or around birth?
A trial firm handling birth injury and cerebral palsy claims in Illinois.
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