Margaret Battersby Black
Michael Bonamarte
CHICAGO, October 25, 2021 – Levin & Perconti has named trial lawyers Margaret Battersby Black and Michael Bonamarte as the firm’s co-managing partners.
The partners, both of whom have spent their entire legal careers with the firm, will continue to handle substantial caseloads of personal injury and wrongful death matters as they share responsibility for strategic leadership of the firm.
Levin & Perconti is nationally known for its pioneering work on behalf of nursing home residents and has a track record of achieving multi-million dollar settlements in other areas as well, including medical malpractice and birth injury cases.
Bonamarte is currently focused on dozens of wrongful death cases related to Covid outbreaks at Illinois nursing homes, including the LaSalle Veterans home. Since the pandemic, the firm has filed multiple suits to hold long term care facility owners and operators accountable for failing to implement basic infection control policies and procedures to protect residents and workers from outbreaks.
“The last year has been one of the busiest of my career,” Bonamarte said. “But it has also been one of the most meaningful. I was raised with a deep respect and admiration for the elders, especially those who have served our country, that society often fails to honor. I’m really proud of the work our firm is doing to make sure the people and institutions who failed to protect them are held accountable.”
In his role as co-managing partner, Bonamarte is overseeing all of the firm’s marketing efforts and its robust associate mentoring program.
Battersby Black is leading the firm’s COVID-19 case intake and selection process, as well as hiring and training. Over the course of the pandemic, she implemented the firm’s remote-work protocol, recruiting and training five new lawyers, and integrating two new partners into the firm. The firm’s partnership now includes 11 members, five of whom are women.
“We have been working at full steam throughout the pandemic,” says Battersby Black, who sat first chair for 20 of Illinois’s top settlements – more than any other lawyer – in 2019 and holds the state’s record for the highest-ever verdict in a nursing home case. “Managing that kind of productivity amidst all the other challenges people have been facing in their lives has certainly not been easy, but the family-oriented culture of our firm and the deep commitment we all have to our work has made it possible.”
In combination, over the course of their careers, the 30 lawyers at Levin & Perconti have secured more than $1 billion in verdicts and settlements for their clients. The firm placed among the top 5 Illinois firms for total settlements for its clients, as ranked by Jury Verdict Reporter in 2020, and won more settlements of $500,000 and up than any other law firm in the state.
Bonamarte and Battersby Black have worked together on a number of significant cases, including securing a record-setting $7.5 million settlement for a client who suffered life changing injuries in a Alton, Ill. boat explosion, the largest Jones Act recovery ever recorded in Illinois, and a $7 million jury verdict award for the family of a Vietnam veteran who died in after climbing out of a moving ambulance when hospital personnel failed to alert paramedics of his psychiatric issues. Battersby Black has also secured settlements of $17.7 and $9 million respectively in high-profile medical malpractice and birth injury cases, while Bonamarte is noted for having won $12 and $8 million verdicts in two separate medical malpractice cases involving doctors’ failure to diagnose lung cancer.
“John Perconti and I set out to build a firm that would grow and succeed far beyond our own practices,” says founding partner Steven Levin. “Margaret and Mike were part of that vision from the very start of their careers. We’re so proud of all they’ve accomplished and excited to see where their leadership will take the firm next.”
