Title: President
Company: Kathleen T. Zellner & Associates P.C.
Location: Warrenville, Illinois, United States
Kathleen T. Zellner, Esq., president at Kathleen T. Zellner & Associates P.C., has been recognized by Marquis Who’s Who Top Lawyers for dedication, achievements, and leadership in legal services.
With nearly four and a half decades of experience, Ms. Zellner has established a distinguished career in legal services, specializing in civil rights, medical malpractice, wrongful conviction, and post-conviction cases. She has served as president of Kathleen T. Zellner & Associates P.C. since 1990, where she is renowned as a civil rights and medical malpractice litigator and post-conviction attorney. She holds the record for securing more exonerations than any other private attorney in the U.S., having successfully obtained the release of 23 individuals wrongfully convicted and facing life sentences or the death penalty.
Ms. Zellner’s day-to-day responsibilities include preparing appellate court arguments, drafting briefs, gathering witness statements, and managing her office, with cases spanning nationwide. In light of her impressive undertakings, she earned the Champion of Justice Award from Purdue University’s Exoneration Project in 2024, Person of the Year by Chicago Lawyer Magazine in 2014, the Peter Perlman National Service Award from the Litigation Counsel of America in 2013, and the Pursuit of Justice Award from the American Bar Association in 2012. Additional honors include the Illinois Trial Excellence Award with the highest jury verdict for false arrest in 2011, the Champion of Justice Award from the Illinois State Crime Commission in 2005, and recognition as a Super Lawyer.
Ms. Zellner laid a solid educational foundation, beginning with coursework at Marquette University and the University of Missouri before earning a Bachelor of Arts from Concordia University in Montreal, Canada. She went on to receive her Juris Doctor from the Northern Illinois University College of Law in 1981, where she served as editor-in-chief of the Law Review and clerked for Justice George W. Lindberg of the 2nd District Illinois Appellate Court. She is also a contributor of articles to professional journals and holds memberships with the American Bar Foundation, the Litigation Counsel of America, the American Board of Trial Advocates and is listed in the Martindale-Hubbell Bar Register of Preeminent Lawyers.
Notable clients Ms. Zellner has represented include Steven Avery, the focus of the Netflix series “Making a Murderer,” Kevin Fox, who was falsely accused of his daughter’s murder, and 19 individuals listed in the National Registry of Exonerations. Her appearance on the second season of “Making a Murderer” in 2018 helped her amass a Twitter following of over 700,000. One of her high-profile cases came in 1994, when she secured the reversal of a death penalty conviction in Illinois, and reinvestigation revealed the actual perpetrator, who was a woman. This case attracted national attention, including a feature in LA Times Magazine. In the coming years, she is committed to continuing her work, driven by her dedication to advocating for victims of wrongful conviction and injustice. Her work has inspired attorneys nationwide to champion the cause of the wrongfully convicted, a legacy she hopes will continue throughout the remainder of her career and beyond.
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