Shareholder
P: 312-578-7408 | bhenry@pretzel-stouffer.com
Brian Henry is a highly experienced trial attorney with an extensive number of successful trials on behalf of medical professionals, medical corporations and hospitals.
Brian Henry is a highly experienced trial attorney with an extensive number of successful trials on behalf of medical professionals, medical corporations and hospitals. Brian has spent his entire legal career at Pretzel & Stouffer. While he has handled a wide variety of civil litigation matters, the vast majority of the lawsuits he has defended have been on behalf of hospitals, medical corporations and medical professionals. Over the last 38 years, Brian has tried to verdict an average of four to five cases per year.
Brian has defended at trial pediatricians, neurologists, neurosurgeons, obstetricians, gynecologists, reproductive endocrinologists, emergency medicine physicians, pain medicine physicians, cardiologists, internists, urologists, radiologists, pathologists, plastic surgeons, orthopedic surgeons, family practice physicians, rheumatologists, pulmonologists, critical care physicians, psychiatrists, oncologists, cardiovascular surgeons, transplant surgeons, vascular surgeons, ophthalmologists, oral surgeons, resident physicians and nurses. He has had jury trials throughout several counties in Illinois, including Cook, McHenry, Lake, Kane, Will, DuPage, Grundy, and DeKalb counties.
A famous trial attorney, Clarence Darrow, was once quoted as saying:
“The only real lawyers are trial lawyers and trial lawyers try cases to juries.”
While Mr. Darrow’s statement is clearly overbroad, there is a difference between a trial lawyer and a litigator. Brian has distinguished himself as a premier trial attorney.
Brian’s illustrious career began at Loyola, where he earned multiple awards including the Paul S. Lietz Gold Key as the top student majoring in history, the Honors Program Gold Key as one of 2 students successfully completing the honors program, the Magna Cum Laude Silver Key, the History Department Silver Key and the Mellon Foundation Award for writing. Brian was chosen to be the first President of the Loyola chapter of Phi Alpha Theta, a national honor society in the field of history. At the University of Illinois College of Law, he won the Rickert Award for Excellence in Legal Writing and was the Editor-in-Chief of the Recent Decisions Section of Illinois Bar Journal.
Brian has for many years taught trial techniques to other attorneys. He has been a faculty instructor on more than 20 occasions at the trial and deposition academies sponsored by the Illinois Association of Defense Trial Counsel. He instructed on trial practice techniques as a faculty member at the 2001 Trial Academy of the International Association of Defense Counsel, which is considered to be the premier trial academy in the United States. Brian also lectures to numerous medical groups and annually teaches at a seminar for emergency medicine physicians at the University of Chicago.
In October of 2002, Brian was inducted as a Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers, the premier legal association in North America which seeks to identify those trial lawyers who have mastered the art of advocacy and whose professional careers have been marked by the highest standards of professionalism.
Brian and his pediatrician wife reside in the northwest suburbs where they raised three children.
Brian Henry recently lectured to computer animation and medical illustrators at the UIC Medical Center regarding demonstrative trial exhibits. Using real-world examples of medical illustrations and medical animations, Brian demonstrated how trial exhibits can effectively educate jurors to the anatomy and/or the medical procedure and to aid experts in explaining their opinions in a trial.
July 2022 | Firm News
Brian Henry recently was a guest lecturer at the University of Chicago Medical Center for emergency medicine resident physicians covering multiple medical liability topics . This was the 49th year of this seminar and Mr. Henry has been a guest lecturer for more than 30 years.
April 2022 | Firm News
Sommer Luzynczyk, Brian Henry, and Donald Eckler served as faculty members and speakers at the 2020 North Central Region Trial Academy and Virtual Trial Tactics sponsored by the Illinois Defense Counsel, Wisconsin Defense Counsel, and Defense Trial Counsel Of Indiana. The biennial program is designed to give attorneys with limited trial experience an opportunity to obtain intensive practice experience in ...
October 2020 | Firm News
Pretzel & Stouffer shareholder, Brian Henry, lectured last week at UIC John Marshall Law School in the Medical Malpractice course taught by Professor Marc Ginsberg. Brian has lectured in that course for the past three years. Click here to learn about the firm’s practice in the defense of medical negligence matters.
January 2020 | Firm News
Pretzel & Stouffer partners, Brian Henry and Sommer Luzynczyk, recently served as faculty members at the 2019 Illinois Defense Counsel Deposition Academy in Naperville. The IDC Deposition Academy is designed for defense lawyers to obtain intensive practice experience in the skills and techniques of taking depositions. In addition to serving as faculty members, Brian ...
November 2019 | Firm News
Brian Henry and Kayla Condeni successfully argued that the defendant anesthesiologist could not be the surgery center’s apparent agent such that the surgery center was vicariously liable for the physician’s alleged medical malpractice. Brian and Kayla argued that the surgery center’s consent forms unequivocally put the patient on notice that the anesthesiologist was not the ...
March 2024
Brian Henry and Kayla Condeni successfully defended an orthopedic surgeon in a 1.5 week trial in Cook County. The orthopedic surgeon was accused of negligently overlengthening a patient’s leg when performing a total hip replacement. The plaintiff requested over $1 million in damages after claiming the patient could no longer work, was disfigured, and experiencing ...
August 2023
Brian Henry and Alexander Beehler successfully defended a pulmonologist and medical group in a lawsuit filed by a plaintiff who alleged that a surgical procedure caused partial paralysis along with bowel and bladder dysfunction. After the medical negligence lawsuit proceeded through expert discovery, the plaintiff voluntarily dismissed the claims against the pulmonologist and medical group ...
July 2021
Pretzel & Stouffer partners Brian Henry and Sommer Luzynczyk successfully defended a general surgeon who performed surgery on a 51 year old male who had a large tumor in his colon. The plaintiff alleged that the surgeon performed the wrong surgery, failed to diagnose a leak of the anastomosis, and failed to re-operate. The ...
March 2020
Brian Henry and Sommer Luzynczyk obtained a jury verdict in favor of a resident physician and an intern who allegedly failed to timely diagnose and treat a necrotizing MRSA skin infection in a nine day old neonate. The plaintiff argued that the defendants failed to appreciate that area of discoloration and redness on the infant. ...
July 2019