Ryan E. Yagoda earned his B.A. in Speech Communication from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1996. In 1999, he graduated from the Chicago-Kent College of Law with high honors and was a member and Notes and Comments Editor of the Chicago-Kent Law Review. Ryan, along with co-founder Alex Sukhman, started Sukhman | Yagoda in April 2016.
Since forming Sukhman | Yagoda in April 2016, Ryan has obtained over $200 million dollars for his clients. In 2023/2024, Ryan secured settlements totaling $30 million dollars in various medical negligence cases including the failure to properly embolize an Arterio-Venous Malformation (“AVM”) in a young woman resulting in paralysis; the failure to diagnose and treat infection resulting in the death of a two and a half month old child; the failure to diagnose and treat sepsis in a post-surgical patient resulting in her death; and the failure to timely deliver a baby in a high-risk mother resulting in the still born death of her child. In October 2022, Ryan secured a $10.5 million dollar settlement on behalf of a child whose bacterial infection was not timely treated resulting in devastating neurological injuries. In June 2019, Ryan obtained a $10.1 million dollar jury verdict against Advocate Lutheran General for its failure to diagnose and treat sepsis resulting in the death of a 37-year old man. In 2017/2018, Ryan obtained settlements of $14.5 million, $12 million, $10 million, and $8.85 million on behalf of his clients in various medical negligence cases. Prior to that, in a twenty-month period between July 2008 and February 2010, Ryan obtained six, jury verdicts in six, different counties (Champaign, Coles, Knox, Fayette, Will, and Cook).
Ryan began his professional career in 1999 as an attorney at Ungaretti & Harris — one of Chicago’s top 25 largest law firms. As a trial attorney at Ungaretti & Harris, Ryan defended a Chicago law-firm in a Federal Court legal malpractice case arising out of the law-firm’s failure to disclose experts in an $8 million personal injury trucking accident case. He also successfully tried a case to verdict against two, Kane County doctors for failing to diagnose and treat a deep-vein thrombosis resulting in the death of a 55-year-old husband and father of two. Ryan’s experience at Ungaretti & Harris also included drafting appellate briefs to the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit and to the First and Second Districts of the Appellate Court of Illinois (civil and criminal). Some of his published opinions include Davis v. Loftus, 778 N.E.2d 1144 (1st Dist. 2002)(affirming the trial court’s holding that income partners are not partners under the Illinois Partnership Act; and People v. Youngerman, 800 N.E.2d 799 (1st Dist. 2003)(reversing the trial court’s denial of an independent psychiatric examination for a not guilty by reason of insanity acquittee).
In 2003, Ryan left Ungaretti & Harris to began his career as a personal injury attorney where he has obtained over $400 million in verdicts and settlements for his clients in medical malpractice, product liability, and personal injury cases.
