Chicago attorney, former Cook County Bar Association President Larry Rogers Sr. dies at 75

CHICAGO (CBS) -- Attorney and former Cook County Bar Association President Larry Rogers Sr. has died.

The Cook County Bar Association announced Rogers' death on Tuesday. Published reports said Rogers died on Thursday of last week at the age of 75.

The website for Rogers' firm, Power Rogers LLP, noted that Rogers majored in philosophy as an undergraduate at St. Xavier University, and he received his law degree from the DePaul University College of Law in 1983.

He went on to launch the personal injury law firm Power Rogers LLP with attorney Joseph Power, the Chicago Bar Association noted.

In his first trial in Cook County in 1985, Rogers won $27 million in a product liability case – the largest personal injury verdict in Illinois at the time, the firm said. In 2000, he won a $55 million medical malpractice suit on behalf of a woman who suffered brain damage due to a delay in intubation at a local hospital.

Rogers was elected the president of the Cook County Bar Association and the Illinois Trial Lawyers Association – and he was the first Black president of the latter organization.

Rogers' son, Larry Rogers Jr., is a commissioner on the Cook County Board of Review – as well as an attorney and equity partner at Power Rogers LLP. The younger Rogers was also called upon to run for mayor of Chicago in 2011, but decided not to do so.