Personal injury law is usually visible at the end of the process: a lawsuit gets filed, a case goes to trial, or a settlement is announced.
Jonathan Rosenfeld is more interested in what happens before that. The founder of Chicago-based Rosenfeld Injury Lawyers came to law by a somewhat unconventional route. He studied journalism at Lehigh University before attending Chicago-Kent College of Law, graduating in 2001. In a 2026 podcast interview, Rosenfeld described discovering tort law as the point at which the legal profession began to make sense to him. He also connected his journalism training to the way he approaches cases today: start with the facts, investigate what happened and determine whether the evidence supports the story being told. (Joelerway)
That distinction matters in a field of law that encompasses everything from vehicle crashes and workplace accidents to medical malpractice, nursing-home neglect and sexual abuse. Those categories appeared prominently in the original description of the firm, but the more interesting question is what happens once a potential client walks through the door.
The case can begin before the case
Rosenfeld says his process can involve spending thousands of dollars investigating a claim before the firm has committed to taking it.
That may mean obtaining records, reconstructing an accident, identifying witnesses or bringing in specialists capable of explaining what happened and why. A profile of the firm describes its use of accident investigators and reconstruction specialists as well as economists and life-care planners when a case requires them. (Joelerway)
In other words, the first question is not simply whether someone has been injured. It is whether the facts establish responsibility.
That becomes particularly important in cases in which an individual injury may reveal a larger organizational failure.
A medical-malpractice case, for example, can require reconstructing a sequence of clinical decisions and comparing them with the applicable standard of care. A nursing-home case may require determining whether an injury was an isolated event or the consequence of staffing, supervision or care practices. In an abuse case, the investigation can extend beyond the conduct of an individual to what an institution knew, what it should have known and what safeguards were—or were not—in place.
The firm’s practice spans all of those areas.
When an injury becomes an operational question
That institutional dimension is where personal injury litigation becomes particularly relevant to businesses.
Rosenfeld has described one hotel sexual-abuse case as eventually producing not only a financial result for the client but a change in employee-screening practices across the hotel organization. The firm’s published case results list a $21 million settlement involving allegations that a national hotel chain failed to screen employees properly. In his 2026 interview, Rosenfeld said the case resulted in the chain introducing background checks for employees. The latter is Rosenfeld’s account of the outcome rather than a provision independently visible in the public settlement record, but it illustrates how he views the purpose of this type of litigation. (Rosenfeld Injury Lawyers LLC)
The broader legal principle is easier to see in publicly available case law.
In Gress v. Lakhani Hospitality, an Illinois appellate court considered a lawsuit arising after a hotel guest alleged that she had been sexually assaulted by a hotel security employee. The appellate court held that the plaintiffs had adequately alleged a special duty arising from the innkeeper-guest relationship and that the alleged assault could be considered foreseeable for purposes of the negligence claim against the hotel operators. The court allowed those premises-liability claims to proceed while affirming the dismissal of claims against other corporate defendants that did not control the premises or hotel employees. (Justia Law)
For businesses, that distinction is significant.
Liability cases frequently become investigations into systems: hiring, supervision, maintenance, training, documentation, safety procedures and the allocation of responsibility among companies and contractors.
The injury is the event that brings those systems under examination.
A practice built around vulnerable clients
There is another thread running through Rosenfeld’s career.
Although the firm’s docket ranges across personal injury litigation, Rosenfeld has repeatedly concentrated on cases involving people who may have comparatively little power inside the institutions responsible for their care—particularly children and elderly people. His professional profiles describe nursing-home abuse, medical malpractice and serious injuries involving children as long-running areas of his practice. (Martindale.com)
That creates a somewhat unusual combination of roles.
A plaintiff’s lawyer has to be able to deal with someone who may be injured, grieving or traumatized while simultaneously approaching the underlying event as an investigator. The client experiences a catastrophe. The lawyer has to turn that experience into evidence: records, timelines, testimony, expert analysis and ultimately an argument about responsibility.
Rosenfeld has said that he gives clients his personal phone number and views accessibility as part of that relationship. His public description of the firm’s approach also emphasizes continuing attorney contact from the initial investigation through the resolution of the matter. (Joelerway)
None of that guarantees that a potential claim will become a successful lawsuit. It is precisely why the investigation comes first.
What happens after the facts are assembled
Most civil disputes never reach a jury.
Once responsibility and damages have been investigated, plaintiff and defence lawyers may negotiate a settlement. If the parties cannot agree, litigation can continue toward trial.
Rosenfeld describes both options as tools rather than predetermined destinations. His professional profiles describe a practice that negotiates with insurers but will proceed to court when necessary. (Martindale.com)
That makes the business of personal injury law less formulaic than its advertising sometimes suggests.
The public-facing categories—car accidents, medical malpractice, workplace injuries, nursing-home abuse—describe where a case begins. They do not describe the work that determines where it ends.
That work is closer to investigation: reconstruct an event, identify the decisions that preceded it, determine who controlled those decisions and establish whether the harm could reasonably have been prevented.
For Rosenfeld, the journalism student who became a trial lawyer, that may be the most consistent line through the career.
First, find out what happened.
Then decide what the facts mean.
