Adam J. Levitt
Adam’s strategic risk taking in high-profile cases has paid off in billions of dollars for his clients.
Adam’s strategic risk taking in high-profile cases has paid off in billions of dollars for his clients.
Adam Levitt is one of the nation’s leading advocates for plaintiffs in complex, multidistrict, class action, public client, mass tort, and commercial litigation. Drawing on his extensive experience pursuing and obtaining justice for those who have been wronged by powerful defendants, he co-founded DiCello Levitt to create a top complex issues and trial firm, built on excellence, trust, and respect—where every team member’s voice and talents are valued.
In his decades-long career, Adam has scored numerous significant and precedent-setting victories, delivering more than $25 billion in recoveries to clients in biotechnology, financial services, securities, insurance coverage, consumer protection, automotive defects, agricultural products, and antitrust disputes. His reputation for innovatively taking on tough cases has led to his appointment to leadership positions in many historic and headline-grabbing litigations.
Adam served as co-lead counsel in three of the largest biotechnology class actions in U.S. history, helping recover more than $1.7 billion on behalf of plaintiffs and creating a game- changing economic model to measure crop contamination damages that set the modern industry standard. He was also retained by multiple State Attorneys General to hold some of the world’s largest chemical companies accountable for widespread environmental contamination from their “forever chemicals” known as PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances). Additionally, the City of Baltimore retained Adam to address the catastrophic impact of the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse, one of the largest maritime disasters in U.S. history.
He also has demonstrative expertise in the automotive sector. As part of a leadership group characterized as a “class action dream team,” Adam helped secure a $16 billion settlement in litigation arising from Volkswagen’s emissions scandal. In a rare class action trial, he and his fellow co-lead counsel secured a milestone $102.6 million jury verdict against General Motors for hiding engine defects from consumers.
Adam is a leader in the legal profession and a frequent speaker on multidistrict litigation, consumer protection, automotive litigation, biotechnology, corporate governance, securities litigation, and internet privacy. Nationally recognized as an authority on class action litigation, Adam writes a monthly class action column in The National Law Journal, has testified before the Illinois Supreme Court Rules Committee on class action practice, and chairs an annual class action litigation conference in Chicago.
As a founding partner of DiCello Levitt, Adam has cultivated a diverse roster of skilled litigators to advance the cause of justice for individuals, businesses, and public clients. The firm’s attorneys are highly respected for their ability to litigate and win cases and have secured billions of dollars in recoveries for their clients through class action, business-to-business, whistleblower, personal injury, civil rights, and mass tort litigation. They have worked on some of the highest-profile securities actions ever filed, developed game-changing legal theories to secure landmark wins against tech giants that misused and exposed massive troves of personal data, and held some of the world’s largest corporations accountable for endangering and harming American consumers.
With a long history of working with public clients, Adam and his partners understand the wants and needs of government officials and their teams, and, as experts in trial practice and jury persuasion, they consistently achieve best-in-class results for their clients.
Adam’s groundbreaking work on behalf of plaintiffs has been recognized nationally and locally in prestigious ranking directories, including Chambers USA, where he has received a Band 1 ranking for Mainly Plaintiffs Litigation in Illinois for four consecutive years. Chambers USA also ranked Adam in Illinois for General Commercial Litigation and nationwide for Product Liability Litigation, where the editors describe him as the “go-to plaintiffs’ attorney in the class actions space.”
Described as a “pioneer” in technology litigation by The National Law Journal, Adam’s litigation prowess has been recognized by several industry authorities. Benchmark Litigation named Adam a National Litigation Star and Securities and Litigation Star in Illinois. Crain’s Chicago Business recognized Adam among its Notable Leaders in Accounting, Consulting, and Law; Notable Litigators & Trial Attorneys; and Notable Gen X Leaders in Accounting, Consulting, and Law. Lawdragon has named him among the 500 Leading Plaintiff Financial Lawyers and the 500 Leading Plaintiff Consumer Lawyers in the United States.
An elected member of the American Law Institute and the Economic Club of Chicago, Adam considers the formation of DiCello Levitt in 2017 to be a pivotal moment in his distinguished legal career. With a shared vision and commitment to helping people and businesses use the legal system to have their voices heard, he and his partners intend to maintain their industry- wide influence for years to come with a steadfast resolve for justice in all its dimensions.
