Chicago Birth Injury Attorneys · Free Consultation

When Your Baby Is Hurt at Birth, You Deserve Real Answers

Phillips Law Offices represents Chicago families in birth injury cases caused by medical negligence. We start with the medical record, not a guess, and it costs nothing to ask.

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$500M+
No Cap
33⅓%
Chicago

Stephen D. Phillips

When a delivery goes wrong, hospitals protect their own. We protect your family.

Stephen D. Phillips has spent his career reading birth records the way a jury never will. Fetal heart strips. Delivery notes. Nursing charts. He knows what a missed signal looks like on paper, and he knows how hospitals explain it away.

  • $500 million recovered for injured clients firmwide.
  • Every case here starts with the medical record, not a guess.
Talk to Stephen directly
Stephen D. Phillips, attorney at Phillips Law Offices

Why families call Phillips Law Offices

A birth injury changes everything overnight. One day you are expecting a healthy delivery. The next, you are sitting next to a NICU bassinet trying to understand what went wrong and whether anyone is going to tell you the truth.

  • We build birth injury cases around the medical record: fetal heart-rate strips, delivery notes, and nursing charts.
  • Medical experts explain, in plain terms, where the standard of care broke down.
  • No pressure to settle early.
  • No confusing fee structures explained after the fact.
Stephen D. Phillips with two members of the Phillips Law Offices team in downtown Chicago

Cases we handle

Birth injuries we handle

Each guide explains what should have happened medically, what the record has to show, and how Illinois law treats it. Written for parents, not lawyers.

Brain Injury & Oxygen Deprivation

HIE, oxygen deprivation, and the six-hour cooling window that can change a child’s outcome.

Read the guide

Cerebral Palsy

How delivery-room events lead to cerebral palsy, and what has to be proved to connect them.

Read the guide

Erb’s Palsy & Brachial Plexus

Shoulder dystocia, brachial plexus damage, and the traction that causes it.

Read the guide

Labor & Delivery Errors

Delayed C-sections, forceps and vacuum, induction drugs, and who was in the room.

Read the guide

Fetal Monitoring & Distress

Fetal heart-rate strips, Apgar scores, and cord blood gases as evidence.

Read the guide

NICU & Newborn Care

Newborn intensive care, jaundice and kernicterus, blood sugar, sepsis, and skull injuries.

Read the guide

Prenatal & Pregnancy Care

Preeclampsia, gestational diabetes, infections, and missed high-risk indicators.

Read the guide

Maternal Injuries

Injuries to the mother, including hemorrhage, hysterectomy, and maternal death claims.

Read the guide

Stillbirth & Infant Loss

Stillbirth and infant death, and the claims Illinois law allows a family to bring.

Read the guide

Your claim

Understanding a claim in Illinois

Deadlines, proof, cost, and what happens to the money at the end of a case.

Birth Injury Basics

What counts as a birth injury, how common they are, and how they differ from a birth defect.

Read the guide

Who Is Responsible

The doctor, the nurses, the hospital, a county facility, or a federally funded clinic.

Read the guide

Deadlines & Legal Process

Illinois deadlines, medical records, expert reports, and what a lawsuit actually involves.

Read the guide

Compensation & Settlements

What a claim can cover, the fee cap, liens, and protecting a child’s settlement.

Read the guide

How it works

What happens after you call?

Four steps, and you can stop at any one of them. Nothing is filed and nothing is owed until you decide to go forward.

  1. You tell us what happened

    A free conversation, by phone or online. Nothing is filed and nothing is owed. We listen to the delivery story and tell you whether it is worth pulling the records.

  2. We get the complete record

    Not the discharge summary. The fetal heart-rate strips, nursing notes, delivery notes, and NICU chart from every facility involved.

  3. A physician reviews it

    Illinois requires a written report from a qualified health professional confirming the claim has a reasonable and meritorious basis. That review happens before we ask you to commit to anything.

  4. We file, and we explain

    If the record supports a claim, we file it with the required affidavit and keep you told what is happening at every stage.

The deadline most families get wrong

For a birth injury, the clock usually runs out on your child’s 8th birthday

Illinois law is often summarised as giving a child until age 22. For an injury that happened during delivery, that is misleading, and the difference has ended real claims. These are general rules and every case turns on its own dates.

The child’s claim

Eight years from the negligent act, and never after the 22nd birthday. A delivery-room injury has a fixed date, so the eight-year prong controls (735 ILCS 5/13-212(b)).

Read the Illinois deadline guide

The mother’s own claim

Generally two years from discovering the injury, with a four-year outer limit. A different deadline from the child’s.

A public or county hospital

A different limitation period applies under the Tort Immunity Act. Confirm the facility type early, or call and we will check your dates.

Call (312) 346-4262

Client reviews

Words from our clients

  • They helped us so much with our birth injury case. The team was kind, understanding, and really fought for us. We’re grateful for their hard work and support.
    Kenneth Ackerman
    Google review · Chicago, Illinois
  • We couldn’t have asked for better attorneys for our birth injury case in Chicago. Phillips Law Offices treated us with respect and care. They made a tough situation easier to handle.
    Vickie Moses
    Google review · Chicago, Illinois
  • The team at Phillips Law Offices was incredible during our birth injury case. They explained everything clearly, kept us informed, and worked hard to get us the best outcome.
    Samuel Peterson
    Google review · Chicago, Illinois

Frequently asked questions

How do I know if my baby’s birth injury was preventable?
Most parents cannot tell from the delivery room alone, and hospitals rarely volunteer it. The answer is in the record: the fetal heart-rate strips, the nursing notes, the timing of decisions, and the cord blood gases taken at birth. We pull that record and have it reviewed by physicians who read these charts for a living. If the standard of care was met, we will tell you that.
How long do I have to file a birth injury claim in Illinois?
For a child’s claim, 735 ILCS 5/13-212(b) allows eight years from the negligent act, and in no event after the child’s 22nd birthday. Because a birth injury happens on the day of delivery, the eight-year prong is the one that usually controls, which means the deadline is often the child’s eighth birthday, not their twenty-second. Two situations change this. A mother bringing her own claim generally has two years from discovering the injury, with a four-year outer limit. And if the delivery was at a public or county hospital, a different limitation period applies under 745 ILCS 10/8-101(b). Have the dates checked rather than assuming.
How much does a birth injury lawyer cost?
Nothing upfront, and nothing unless we recover for your family. Illinois caps the contingency fee in a medical malpractice case at 33⅓% of all sums recovered under 735 ILCS 5/2-1114. That is a single flat ceiling, not a sliding scale. Case costs, such as expert fees and record retrieval, are separate from the fee and are set out in the written agreement before you sign.
Is there a limit on what our family can recover?
No. Illinois has no cap on damages in medical malpractice cases. The Illinois Supreme Court struck down the previous statutory cap in Lebron v. Gottlieb Memorial Hospital, 237 Ill. 2d 217 (2010). What a claim is worth depends on the documented severity of the injury, the lifetime care the child will need, and the strength of the causation evidence.
What if the doctor was not employed by the hospital?
The hospital can still be responsible. Under the doctrine of apparent agency, established in Gilbert v. Sycamore Municipal Hospital, a hospital can be held liable for an independent contractor physician where the family reasonably believed that doctor was acting for the hospital. This comes up constantly with hospitalist OBs and on-call neonatologists.
Will we have to go to court?
Most birth injury cases resolve by settlement rather than trial, but they are prepared as though they will be tried, because that is what produces a fair number. One step does always involve a judge: when the injured person is a child, a court must approve the settlement before it is binding.

Read more on these questions

The full guides behind the answers above.

Illinois filing deadlines for birth injuries

Read the guide

What a birth injury lawyer costs in Illinois

Read the guide

Can you sue the hospital if the doctor was not an employee?

Read the guide

Why a judge must approve your child’s settlement

Read the guide

Can I sue for a birth injury?

Read the guide

Browse all birth injury guides

See every guide

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