Tony Romanucci on Civil Rights Litigation, the George Floyd Case, and Holding Power Accountable

This transcript of Raising the Bar with RebuttalPR was generated using AI transcription and lightly edited for readability. It may contain errors, and speaker labels are approximate. The audio recording is the authoritative version.

Welcome to Raising the Bar with RebuttalPR, the podcast where we elevate the stories of the plaintiff's bar and dive into the key trends shaping the civil justice system today. I'm your host, Ray DeLorenzi, and in each episode, we'll bring you insightful interviews with leading attorneys, expert perspectives on current legal events, and in-depth discussions on the issues that matter most. Now, let's jump in.

I don't look at anybody in terms of what they look like or who they are. We are all created equal, and our Pledge of Allegiance says that it's liberty and justice for all and not for some. So, as nervous and anxious as I was when I walked in that room, within about five or ten minutes, I was with family.

Ray: Hey, everyone, welcome to a new episode of Raising the Bar with RebuttalPR. I'm your host, Ray DeLorenzi, and today I'm honored to be joined by Tony Romanucci of Romanucci & Blandin in Chicago. For those who are not familiar with Tony, and I cannot understand why you aren't familiar with Tony, he is, I believe, one of the leading civil rights litigators of our time. He has a very varied practice in terms of the personal injury work he does, but of late, and unfortunately of late, has become very well known for taking on really cutting-edge, important-for-society civil rights work. So, with that, Tony, welcome to the podcast. Thanks so much for being here.

Tony: Thank you, Ray, so much. I know we've known each other for a while, and I'm really honored to be on your podcast.

Ray: So, Tony, let's kick it off with you. As a first-generation Italian-American — I'm an Italian-American as well, second generation, however — tell me about growing up as that first generation in the United States and how you got interested in the law in the first place.

Tony: Well, I think what people don't know about me, like if you were to ask me, Tony, tell me a fun fact about you — well, first of all, I have a lot of fun facts, but you don't have enough time for that. But if I'm going to go back to a fun fact, how about little Tony, when Tony was just a little boy? I was probably almost four years old before I started speaking English. And that's because my parents came from Italy. My mother was born and raised in Italy. My father lived there for 18 years before he came to the United States. So he was here a little bit before my mother. But you've got to figure, my father was working during the day, my mother was home with me. And guess what language I spoke? Not English. Only Italian. And so I was this three-year-old running around speaking Italian to everybody, and they didn't know what the heck I was saying.

So my father found a school for me where Sister Michaela was the nun, and she was an Italian-speaking nun. And so she transitioned me to an English-speaking little Tony. And that's when I say my career began, right? When I started speaking the common language here in our country. And from there, I spent all my years through high school in Catholic schools with nuns and priests and lay teachers. And I went on to the University of Wisconsin, Madison, which is where I really think I got my education, Ray, and my background, where I feel like I began to understand what it meant to have civil rights, what it meant to be a person who lives in a free society. And I started growing up.

Ray: What was your first notion that "I want to be a lawyer"? And what was a lawyer? Was it TV shows as a kid? Were you ever around other lawyers? What was that seminal moment where you're like, this is a career path for me?

Tony: Well, I wasn't around many lawyers growing up. There was one neighbor of ours who was a lawyer. So that was interesting, but I can't say that he was the motivation for me being an attorney. Really, the motivation and the moving force in my life for becoming an attorney and going to law school was my father. He made sure that I went to school, that I graduated from undergrad, that I went to law school. He knew that I could be a very good professional, and he wanted me to strongly consider law. And I took his advice. I listened to my father, and I did. And it's the best decision that I ever made. So I actually give 99% of the credit to him for pushing me in that direction. And then it took the 1% for me to say, yes, that's what I want to do.

Ray: So, you know, you could be a lawyer, you could do a hundred different things, you could go practice patent law — you could do whatever you want with that. But you decide at some point you want to represent individuals. And I'm going to talk about being a public defender in a minute, but where in your career was it? Was it in law school? Was it before that, where you're like, I don't want to represent a company, I want to represent people?

Tony: Well, that's a really good question, because when I was in law school, I was convinced — there was no doubt in my mind — that I was going to be a securities attorney. I wanted to work for the Securities and Exchange Commission in the worst way. I wanted to be a compliance attorney with the SEC. But then I landed on something that I didn't know would really change the whole course of my career, and it's a very good thing that it happened. I know you wanted to save the public defender part, but I met somebody who said, hey, if you're interested in working for the summer for the Cook County Public Defender, I think I can help you out. And not only did that person help me out, but he was the hiring person for the Cook County Public Defender. And I got hired for the PD's office. And that changed my career.

Ray: So being a public defender is a far cry from working at the SEC or doing securities work. Why did you say yes to that opportunity?

Tony: Well, it was interesting to me. It was something that sounded very interesting. I knew that I liked the courtroom, because by that time I had already gone through my moot court in law school and participated in courtroom mock trials. So I knew that I liked the courtroom. And so when I was told that I could be stationed in a courtroom for the summer, I thought, all right, well, this sounds pretty fun. This sounds like something that I should experience. And I took the job for the summer. It was a non-paying job, actually — it was a clerkship. But by the time the summer ended and it was time for me to complete my tour, I wanted to stay on. So I begged them to keep me on, and they did while I finished my 3L, my third year of law school. And then after that, it was game over. I never looked back.

Ray: So, the public defender — I mean, not only are you representing people who have been accused of doing something, whether it's on the mild end or the very severe end of the criminal offense, but also they have no resources typically, and that's why they need a public defender. How did that shape your view of both the criminal justice system and also just humanity generally?

Tony: Yeah. Well, what I found out very early on — I'm sure your listeners can, if they close their eyes for a second, imagine Lady Justice holding those scales. She has a blindfold on, and she's holding scales in one hand and a sword in the other with the snake at her feet. And that sword is used to ward off evil, which not only in biblical times but also modern times has a significance of evil. And I learned that those scales that are supposed to be evenly scaled and blind — well, they weren't. They were not evenly scaled for people who were poor, or who were living in demographically challenged neighborhoods. So if you were black, brown, poor, and lived in one of the challenging neighborhoods in Chicago on the west side or the south side, the scales weren't tipped in your favor. The odds were way against you.

The police and even the prosecutors — they all had everything. A lot of it was already cooked before anybody even got to court. A lot of those cases were already rigged when they came to them, whether they were possession of guns or whether they had guns in the vicinity. Because I worked in gun court, so I had a lot of experience with guns and drugs when I was a young lawyer. So I became very familiar and schooled in the Fourth Amendment. And I saw that a lot of the narratives — what we now call cover stories — it was the same story over and over again about how this particular individual was arrested and then eventually, very likely, convicted of gun possession. And so I saw that story so many times that I learned very well how to challenge those stories and how to win them. And I'm still doing it today.

Ray: I'm sure being personally invested in any of these cases as a public defender is probably not a good situation to be in, because of how difficult the work is. But I'm curious if there's one that stands out in your time there where it just told you this system is completely busted. Is there something that stands out in that regard to you?

Tony: Well, here's what stands out in that regard, Ray. You have to imagine, I'd come to work in the morning when I was working at 11th and State Street here in gun court, and I would have to interview anywhere from 20 to 50 overnight arrests. And I'd have to go into the holding pen with them. The guard would open up the door, and just like you would see in a movie, he'd open it up — clank, clank — he'd shut the door, click, click, clank, clank, he'd lock it. And there I'd be with all the overnight arrests. And up and down, I'd have to interview them and hear almost the same story. So it wasn't really one case, but when you think of the magnitude of it all, of thousands, when you put it together, it does become one story then. And that's how I learned that the odds were stacked against certain people, not only in terms of what would happen to them, but also credibility.

Now, can you imagine right now in this day saying that, oh, if you're black, you're less credible than if you were white? You would be condemned. You would be canceled. You'd be out of it. But that's how it used to be. If you were black and poor, or brown and the same, or didn't speak English, you were less credible. The word of the police officer, 98% of the time, won the day. And now, with the advent of cell phones and cameras, which are ubiquitous, now we know — oh, they're not right 98% of the time. Maybe it's 90%, maybe it's 85%, maybe some people think it's 50%, but it ain't 98%, I'll tell you that.

Ray: Let's fast forward to when you decided to start Romanucci & Blandin in 1998. What did you have in mind for the type of firm you wanted to build?

Tony: Well, what I knew that I wanted to do was handle only individual cases. I just wanted to represent plaintiffs, which was a tough decision when we started RB, because Stefan and I didn't have that much. I mean, we didn't have that many cases. We didn't know how we were going to eat month to month. We both had families. We had a little bit of money saved. We had a very, very small office with a few employees. And it was challenging at first. But we decided that we would do one thing and one thing only, and that's what's still true today. Our mission is to take care of the client first. Hard stop, period. If anybody in our firm — and they all know this, every employee knows this — if they do not put the best interests of our clients first, take care of our client first, you don't belong here. It's just not a place for you to work. And I freely tell people that. That's why people work here, because they know they have to take care of the client first. You never ever put your own personal interests or money interests ahead of clients, ever. So that's the kind of firm that we wanted to build, where we could take care of the client.

Ray: Is there a moment in the early days of the firm — you said you were building it, didn't have a ton of resources — but there was a case where you're like, we made it, we're on the map now, this can work?

Tony: Yes. It did happen. It was about two years into the firm, or maybe even a little bit earlier — I think it was within a year, actually. And there was a horrific, terrible, awful accident that happened at a suburban grocery store, where an 82-year-old woman was literally in the produce department picking bananas off the counter. But what she didn't know, what was going on overhead on the roof of this grocery store, was that they were replacing the roof. And they had stacked all the roofing materials in one location, rather than spreading them out and spreading the weight over the roof. And this location happened to be over the banana counter. So Rose Dominic was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and the roof came crashing down on her. Over 50,000 pounds of material came crashing down on her.

But somehow, miraculously, this banana counter saved her life, because it fell on top of her, leaving a gap. Her life was spared. But she was the first client that I represented that I say had injuries from A to Z — where if you had a list of A to Z that went vertically, you could put an injury next to every letter of the alphabet. It was a widely publicized case. It was in the news for quite a while, not only because of her age, but because she survived, and because of the egregious conduct of the contractors. And we settled it eventually a couple of years later for a record amount for an octogenarian, and that's when we hit it. That's when we pressed go.

Ray: So, you're a lawyer who today is more of a rare breed, where you, of course, are known for very large settlements — not just in monetary value, but in societal value — but you can also try a case. And let's take that case, or any other case. What's the decision matrix where you're like, you know what, we're going to go the distance on this? Or, this one, resolving it before that makes the most sense? How do you and the firm actually approach those decisions?

Tony: Well, certainly. And I'm going through that decision matrix right now, so you're seeing it happen in real time, because I'm starting trial two weeks from today, and our decision matrix happened months and months ago where we said we're trying this case. Period. Don't talk to me about anything else except trial. Sometimes I don't know what the feeling is, right? But sometimes you get a sense that this is the case you try. It's the one where liability is a little bit more challenging, but the damages are catastrophic, and you think that the defendant either isn't taking the case seriously or isn't going to do what's right. And so I just kind of shut it down. I just kind of shut that part of it down, and I only focus on trial, and that's what we're doing on this one, because I know if we're successful for our client, we'll do very well for him. Now, I hope it doesn't go the other way, but those are the risks that we will take.

Ray: So, I want to fast-forward. The case you just talked about is about the year 2000. And let's move towards talking about George Floyd, which — I don't know if you view this differently, but it was certainly the case where I think from a national standpoint, Romanucci & Blandin reached another level. I want to walk through that. If you can recall, when you got the phone call — and I'm not sure if it was from, and also you worked with Ben Crump on that — how that all came to be, to be involved in the case with such huge weight and importance.

Tony: Well, I can tell you exactly where I was when I got that call. It was like one of those moments, like where were you when the planes hit the towers? It was that kind of moment. We were deep into COVID at that time. And I remember I was really burning it at both ends of the candle when it came to work, because I was president of the Illinois Trial Lawyers Association, I was running the law firm, and I was also chairman of the Illinois Supreme Court Rules Committee. And between those three, trying to figure out how to navigate COVID with all of the activities that we had going on in those three organizations was a lot of work. So by the end of May, I told Andrea, I said, you know, we need a break. Let's get down to Florida — we have a place there. And we were relaxing for the first couple of days.

And it was that Tuesday, so it would have been May 26th of the year 2020. I was sitting at my kitchen counter having my morning coffee, reading the news, and I get a text message from a really good friend of mine in Ohio. And he says, Tony, have you seen this? I click on the link, I open it up, and I see that cell phone video that Darnella took of the event. And I'm like, oh my God. I literally was gasping looking at it. And I wrote him back and I said, no, I have not seen this. I said, my God, this is the biggest civil rights case in the world. That's what I said. And he wrote back and he says, Tony, Godspeed. I hope you get the case. And that was it for about three hours. And then I got a phone call from Ben, and he says, Tony, are you ready? We got a call from the Floyd family. We're on. And that's when it started. So one day after George was murdered — and we can say he was murdered because there's a conviction that says that — we got involved in the case, and that's when we pressed on the gas, and we didn't let up for a full year until we got accountability across the board, except for one specific area, and that's federal legislation.

Ray: Curious how you got to know Ben Crump and how you built a rapport and trust with him, where you are the one that he calls in for these types of cases in many instances.

Tony: I'm so glad you asked that, because I love sharing how Ben and I met. Back in 2014 or '15, I tried a case in the Middle District of Florida, which is known to be a highly conservative area of Florida. And I took on a police shooting case against the Marion County Sheriff's Department. And people told me, you're nuts, what are you doing trying a case where it's almost impossible to win, everybody is pro-police there? And Ray, that's the case where we made the decision to try the case. There were one or two attempts at settlement, and they weren't serious about it, and we said, forget it, we're done. We're taking that off the table. We're pressing down and we're going to try this case. And we did. And we set a record in the Middle District of Florida, which I think still stands today, for that verdict.

And because it was a Section 1983 case, we were entitled to what's called Section 1988 fees. We were going to petition for our attorney fees on top of the judgment. And so I needed somebody to vouch for me. I needed somebody to give me some credibility that my work down there was worthwhile. And Ben at that same time had just finished up the Trayvon Martin case. I didn't know this man, but I knew that he did great work for Trayvon Martin and his family. So I cold-called Ben Crump and I asked him: hey, would you mind reviewing the work that I did and offering a petition, verifying that my work was correct and customary, and that my hourly rate is something that would be awarded in this district? And I think he was impressed that we were able, number one, to get a verdict, and number two, get a record verdict where it's not possible. And from there, we became friends, and the rest is really history between us. He is my brother.

Ray: Tell me about meeting the Floyd family for the first time — a family in grief, and unfortunately you have to do a lot of that as part of your work. What was that like? And again, I assume that's another moment in that case that you'll never forget.

Tony: I won't ever forget. I remember walking into the room. And I've got to give you a little background too, because I don't get nervous in front of people. I don't feel that anxiety when I meet people generally. I have a fairly outgoing personality. People tend to like me when they meet me. But I was nervous. I was anxious. I felt all those things that I just told you that I am not, because I knew, first of all, the weight of the world was on our shoulders for this case. Everybody was watching, and I was nervous. And I'll tell you, I walked into a room, I was the only white person in the room, and I didn't know how they would accept that. But you know what? They did. They 100% accepted me as somebody who was equal.

And that's what's so important with what I do. I don't look at anybody in terms of what they look like or who they are. We are all created equal, and our Pledge of Allegiance says that it's liberty and justice for all and not for some. So, as nervous and anxious as I was when I walked in that room, within about five or ten minutes, I was with family.

Ray: So in that case, there was a $27 million settlement. But you, very much in line with that settlement, said, we're not done here. There's more work for us to do in terms of pushing for systemic change. How do you decide, in any case you take on — and also in conjunction with the family — what that next step is? And how do you coordinate that to work with them and say, look, a verdict or settlement is your obligation to them, but also, where do you see an opportunity to take things to the next level?

Tony: Well, first of all, you've got to look at the case, look at the totality of the case. Does the particular event which brought the case into the office lend itself to any other type of assistance that's needed that can help the community? Are there any other prongs of justice that we can pursue that would help the community? And clearly, with George's case, the answer was a definitive and unequivocal yes. What Derek Chauvin did, his neck restraint, was not only a neck restraint, but it was more specific. It was a carotid artery restraint. He compressed the very artery that feeds our brain the blood that's necessary for it to work.

And so, by doing that, we knew that we had to change the system. And that's what we did. And not only did we do it in Minnesota, but it happened in a lot of other states. Not that we went to every state to make those legislative changes, but — and this is where Ben is so great — because of his national voice and his desire for justice, we were able to convince so many other state legislators that they needed to make the change to ban this type of neck restraint, which we know causes death.

Ray: I know you and Ben and the Floyd family had pushed for the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, which, like a lot of things, died in Congress. And I read a quote from you — I believe this was in a 2022 speech that you gave — where, in short, what you said was you hoped it didn't happen, but it was going to take another George Floyd for there to be real policing reform. And do you still believe that's the case? Are you at all hopeful that there's an opportunity there at some point in the future?

Tony: Well, I will always remain optimistic that there's an opportunity. But I will tell you, it's like you have to stay healthy and make sure that you're going to live a long time in order to see the change, because these wheels are going to turn very slowly, and they go backwards for a long time. They're super rusty, and it's going to take some time. Not that I'm trying to jump ahead of you, but when you look at what's happened in our country with ICE and CBP and DHS, and our representation of Renee Goode — well, is it easy for me to say that Renee Goode is another George Floyd moment? You can say that, but nobody's taking the opportunity to say, oh, let's make some national change. No. Congress is sitting on its hands waiting for this to keep happening and letting people die needlessly, and that's what's really frustrating and causes a lot of anxiety to me — that you know things should change, but they don't.

Ray: So that's a good segue into what I want to discuss next. Minneapolis is a second home to me, a place I care about and love deeply. And as you mentioned, you represent the family of Renee Goode, who was killed in Minneapolis. And versus you being up against city police forces, here we have a federal agent, essentially, who they claim has near absolute, if not total absolute, immunity. What's your approach to that sort of case compared to the prior work you've done? Again, in a moment where it's sort of a tinderbox — although I guess many could say there's probably more public support on your side now than there was during the George Floyd era.

Tony: I agree with you. I think there's a lot more public support now for what we're seeing happening in our country as opposed to George Floyd, because right now what we're seeing, and what we saw, was an occupation of American cities by our own government. This is a free country, last time that I read the Constitution. And a lot of people are very upset at how this administration is handling our own American cities by occupying them with armed forces. So, yes, we do have public support on our side. But still, when a case of this magnitude — and when I say magnitude, Renee's death was needless, senseless. There should be no death that should go unaccounted for.

But because of the public limelight and spotlight this case had, we knew you can't treat this case like we did any other. We promised inside this office we're going to throw out the playbook on how we handle cases. We're going to create a new one for Renee. And we did. And for that entire family, we promised them a whole bunch of things. And a lot of them we've been able to keep so far. A lot of them we haven't yet, because we're not there yet. But we will be. But we knew that when we're going up against the institution of not only our government, but the President and the Secretary of Homeland Security and the Director of the FBI and the Attorney General, who are all piling on, calling people words that they should not be — we are doing something that is different. And so we have to handle it differently. And we did, and we've been very successful so far in shaping public opinion, I believe, in the favor of Renee.

Ray: So, I'm in the PR and communications business, and you're a lawyer who — to pat you on the back — you have a communications director internally, which many firms do not have, who does a tremendous job. And I'm curious how, in cases like this, or any case, you view the media as a tool for accomplishing your advocacy on behalf of the family. How do you think about that? And what is the best way to use that tool — one that it makes sense to use sometimes, and at other points doesn't make sense to use?

Tony: Yeah, that's excellent. Because with Renee, and with what happened to her, obviously we have a family that we're dealing with. And we have to be respectful and sensitive to their needs first. But we always ask: what is your intention here? What is your goal for us? And depending on where that goes, then we will communicate a plan for them. So, with Renee, our plan was very intentional. It was very deliberate. It was not one where we just said, let's go and have a blowout press conference. That was not this case. And that was, again, a very intentional act on our part — to not do that, but rather go step by step, media outlet to media outlet, and do individual interviews. And have a little bit of a longer time with everybody and teach the moment as opposed to announcing it. So we really took the opportunity to not only teach the moment, but also give our plan for what needed to change in this country, so that federal law enforcement officers could be held accountable.

Ray: So you have spent a huge chunk of your career holding police officers accountable, police departments accountable. You're now looking to hold the federal government accountable. I'm curious, when you're around Chicago, do the police know who you are? And do they appreciate what you do, or do they hold it against you? And now, have you heard from people inside the federal government that they appreciate what you're doing? I'm just curious what that reaction is, as someone who is in the limelight and is known in their community.

Tony: So, Ray, if you were my one-person jury right now, and I was questioning you before my trial, the one thing that I would tell you is, Mr. DeLorenzi, I want you to know that I'm going to ask you a lot of questions about police officers, but I, for one, appreciate the police. I would be the first one to call the police if I needed them. I am not one who dislikes the police or hates them. I only want to hold the ones that do wrong accountable. Is that something that you could do in this case if you got the job to be a juror here? So that's my way of saying that I appreciate police officers. I do not dislike them, but the ones that are bad or should not be police officers, I want to hold accountable. And I've got friends who are police officers. I've got a restaurant that we go to here across the street, and he's in there every day, and we give each other a hug, and he damn well knows what I do, because they pretty much know my name. Every police officer in this city probably knows my name. Luckily, I can say for the most part of my career, I've been left alone. There have been those insidious moments where things happen where you wish they didn't. But that is very far and few between. And for the most part, I think we have a healthy respect for each other, because they know that I mean well with what I do.

Ray: Tony, you've been very generous with your time. What I'd like to end with is — and you sort of touched on this before — you are in the epicenter of one of the greatest periods of civil unrest that we've had in decades. What keeps you optimistic that we're all going to come out the other side of this better than the way we came in?

Tony: Well, my answer might surprise you a little bit, and that's our young lawyers that are out there today. I get a lot of opportunities and chances to meet young lawyers. And when I do meet them, so many of them are so respectful and so kind. And they say, I love your work, I love what you do, and I respect it. And I thank them, and I say, that's good, but we need you. I can't do this alone. And so, my job, Ray, right now, I feel, is to motivate and energize the youthful generation of lawyers that are out there who want to do the same. And it's just a matter of making sure that they have the right guidance. So, what motivates me is really me motivating the younger lawyers and watching them do it. That's what gives me pleasure in my career now — seeing that.

Ray: With that, Tony Romanucci with Romanucci & Blandin, thanks so much for joining the podcast today. And please keep up the fight for all of us. We appreciate it.

Tony: Thank you, Ray. Stay well.

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