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Rich Cook's Story

Rich graduated from Purdue University in 1979 from the Krannert School of Business with a Bachelor of Science Degree in the Economic Honors program. In 1982, he graduated 15th in his class from the Valparaiso University School of Law. While there, Rich received the Vaughn Trial Advocacy Award.

Following law school, Rich began working as a law clerk for the Honorable Andrew P. Rodovich, who served as a Magistrate Judge for the United States District Court for the Northern District of Indiana in Hammond, Lake County Indiana. While there, Rich worked for Magistrate Judge Rodovich on a wide array of cases involving environmental litigation, serious personal injury claims, civil rights claims, preliminary injunctions, and complex criminal pretrial motions. He had a chance to see some of the best civil and criminal trial attorneys in action and dealt with a broad and diverse range of legal issues.
Following his service as a law clerk, Rich work as a Deputy Prosecutor for the Lake County Prosecutor’s Office. There, he tried a number of jury trials which encompassed crimes such as murder, rape, robbery, OWI causing death, confinement, and included one capital murder case.

From there, Rich went on to serve as a federal prosecutor as an Assistant United States Attorney for the Northern District of Indiana in South Bend, Indiana Division. There, he handled a number of complex criminal matters encompassing crimes such as conspiracy, counterfeiting, mail fraud, wire fraud, illegal drug manufacturing, racketeering, and murder for hire. While with the U.S. Attorney’s Office, he earned a number of commendations for work as a federal prosecutor.

Rich received national recognition for his efforts. These commendations included a personal letter of commendation from the United States Attorney General Dick Thornburg and Special Award from the Post Master General for prosecuting an elaborate altered postal money order scheme which was operated within the Indiana State Prison system. This scheme was used to bilk the public out of millions of dollars and financed a number of illegal enterprises inside the Indiana Prison system.

After leaving the U.S. Attorney’s office in 1989, Rich spent the next 33 years doing primarily civil defense and plaintiff’s work in a wide range of areas including claims involving wrongful death, products liability, burn injuries, construction site injuries, automobile collisions, libel/slander, environmental torts, civil rights, employment related issues, real estate disputes, and insurance coverage issues.

Rich was honored in 2019 as the ITLA Consumer Advocate of the Year for his trial and appellate work in Amber Hamilton v. Steak ‘N Shake.  Rich was also honored in 2022 as the ITLA Hoosier Freedom Award recipient for trial and appellate work in Clark v. Mattar.

Rich is listed in Best Lawyers and Super Lawyers. He is AV rated by Martindale-Hubbell.

Rich has written and lectured on trial advocacy matters over his years of practice and he maintains a blog addressing such topics called The Barrister’s Toolbox.

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