Collaborative Leadership for a Cutting-Edge Frontier, With Bryce Hensley of Stinar Gould Grieco & Hensley

In just over seven years as a lawyer, Bryce Hensley has already accomplished enough to fill a career. At 33, the plaintiffs’ personal injury litigator has personally represented hundreds of victims of toxic exposures, sexual abuse, and gun violence, already recovering over $500M for his clients. In July 2023, he became the youngest-ever partner at a prominent Chicago personal injury firm. And, in January 2024, he and three partners came together to create their own firm with a mission for advocacy on a vast scale in a forward-looking setting: Stinar Gould Grieco & Hensley.

The firm, founded by Hensley and partners Parker Stinar, Martin Gould and Mike Grieco, brings together Hensley and his partners’ extensive experience in toxic torts, medical malpractice, and mass sexual abuse cases. Together, the firm’s lawyers have helped lead cases resulting in more than $2B in verdicts and settlements. At just a year old and helmed by rising stars of the legal world, it’s a young firm in every sense. That youth is the firm’s advantage, Hensley says – providing energy and collaboration without compromising heft.

The firm has already brought on over 30 employees to take on massive litigations, with additional team members now coming on board. Just a few months after forming the firm, the lawyers, including Hensley, announced they’d be representing over 300 women who were allegedly abused by Chicago OB/GYN Fabio Ortega, who was convicted of sexual assault in 2021. The suits, helmed by Hensley, Stinar and partner Symone Shinton, detail alleged sexual abuse going back more than 30 years. In another landmark litigation, Hensley, Stinar and their team are representing hundreds of people who were exposed to toxic chemicals at North Carolina military base Camp Lejeune.

Cases of that magnitude are all Hensley has known. As soon as he was sworn in as a lawyer, he joined the litigation arising out of the 2017 Las Vegas shooting that killed 60 people and wounded hundreds of others. Just a couple of years later, he was appointed Plaintiffs’ Liaison Counsel in the Willowbrook Ethylene Oxide Litigation involving medical sterilization companies that reportedly released a cancer-causing agent into surrounding suburban communities. Stewarded in part by Hensley’s unifying leadership, the 20-plus law firms reached a global settlement of $408M to settle more than 870 pending cases, with over $150M going to clients that Hensley and his firm represented. Since then, law firms across the country have brought Hensley in to lend his local expertise to their ongoing cases in Cook County against those company and others causing toxic exposures.

Hensley’s strength in effectively managing and unifying teams as Liaison Counsel is similarly demonstrated in his leadership at SGGH. The firm was founded with the idea of providing excellent advocacy through collective ideas, teamwork, and merit – something outside the traditional lockstep system. Most importantly, Hensley says, the team is focused on each client’s story and how to best make their voice heard. “What I love about this specific area of law is you’re really taking somebody else’s problems and shouldering them yourself in a very personal way,” he says.

Hensley is a member of the Lawdragon 500 X – The Next Generation.

Lawdragon: What drew you to the legal profession?

Bryce Hensley: I always wanted to help people, and I found a unique opportunity in an area of law where I'm able to do that on such a large scale. When I got to law school, I fell in love with torts, thanks in large part to the faculty at my law school. I loved being able to utilize the law to help people that had been wronged obtain the justice they deserve.

LD: What is it like litigating at that scale?

BH: I’ll give you an example. I had a case that I worked on for about six years. It involved a local suburban community where many of the residents were exposed to a cancer-causing chemical. I represented 370 people that were diagnosed with cancer, and some that had suffered from miscarriages. At the end of the case, you're talking to hundreds of people, telling each of them that you were able to get them compensation when they never ever expected much of anything.

A lot of times, people hear about class actions and they think of those Snapchat or Facebook class action numbers that are maybe a nominal amount for each aggrieved person. That isn’t what we do. We’re representing people in their individual capacities, in their own cases. All of a sudden, you're calling them with real money that can make a real difference. Obviously that can't compensate for all that they went through. But to be able to give them something and restore some faith in the court system. To hear their reaction and their gratitude – to me, that's by far the most rewarding part about what we do. It’s being able to see these things through for clients, even if it is going to take years, which this case did.

The other thing that is just a little bit more personal for me is that a lot of what I do is very challenging. There's always a new legal hurdle or some challenge that I have to get over or find ways around. As a young lawyer, I still have the energy to tackle all of that and really devote myself to it.

We wanted to try something different from the traditional top-down law firm model. We wanted to chart a new course in terms of younger lawyers, technology, our structure and the way that we approach colleagues in the office.

LD: Did you always think that you were going to start your own firm?

BH: If you had asked me that even a little over a year ago, my answer would have been no. It's funny, because when I did branch off, everyone made comments to the effect of, "It's about time,” or “We always expected this." And I'm sitting there like, "Well, I never expected this." Opportunities come up, and this firm and the group that we have here was something that just fell into place perfectly. So, it's been a wild ride, but it's been phenomenal. This is the place to be for me. I'm so happy that I did it, especially with the people that I'm with.

LD: And what was the “why” behind the decision to start the firm?

BH: Whenever I send anyone our firm page or mention the firm name and they do their research, one of the first comments that I always get is that the firm is so young – especially the four founding partners. Marty [Gould], Mike [Grieco] and I were at the same firm together, so we grew up in the trenches together, so to speak. Ironically, we never really worked on cases together. We were all in very different areas of the law. Mike did a lot of traditional personal injury cases: medical malpractice, car accidents, premises cases. Marty has built out a practice representing victims of sexual abuse, including clergy abuse cases here in Illinois Parker then adds his extensive experience in large-scale litigation and leadership nationwide. And then I have done a lot of the mass tort and toxic exposure cases. We all contribute in different ways.

There's a traditional model of how plaintiff-side law firms work, and I don't necessarily have critiques of it or the people that implement it. It's just a function of, “this is the way it's always been.” We wanted to try something different from the traditional top-down law firm model. We wanted to chart a new course in terms of younger lawyers, technology, our structure and most importantly the way that we approach colleagues in the office. We wanted to make sure that we created an atmosphere that not only encouraged but rewarded people who were grinding alongside us day in and day out. We have paralegals, law students, and people that are applying to law school. When we're having meetings, a lot of times they're the ones driving meetings with us. It's very collaborative, which I think is not something you see in a lot of firms. We want their insights. Especially because a lot of times they're talking to the clients with us, and it's important that the clients’ needs and wishes are brought to light.

LD: It is. Speaking of which, let's get into some of these cases. You touched on the Willowbrook ethylene oxide cases you took on at your previous firm. Can you talk a bit more about that experience?

BH: Yes. For years, this chemical had been used to sterilize medical equipment, and it's very good at doing that. It kills all the bacteria on the devices, and then they’re shipped out so people can have sterile equipment and safe surgeries.

Then, in 2018, there was a government report that came out from the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry. The report said, in essence, “This chemical is actually far more dangerous than we thought it was before. There's actually a significantly higher cancer risk than previously thought.”

There was one community in particular here in the Chicago suburbs, Willowbrook, that was focused in on, because if you looked at the national air modeling data there was a lot of this chemical in the air there. The community is like something out of a CW or Netflix show. It's this leafy green, all-American suburb. The tallest building in the community is the water tower. So, it was this big question of, “Where is all this chemical coming from?”

What we found out was there was a facility there that carried out this practice of sterilizing medical equipment. They were releasing the chemical into the atmosphere and into the community around the facility as far back as the ‘80s. There were eventually 870 claimants that brought lawsuits. I represented close to half of them and served as the Plaintiffs’ Liaison Counsel at my former firm.

In a case like this, when you have close to 25 law firms representing people, you need somebody that can whip the whole group together. I was appointed to that role as a second or third-year lawyer. But before this case, I’d worked on the case resulting from the Las Vegas shooting in 2017. Our firm represented about 75 people. We were out in Las Vegas, and there were all these lawyers from all over the country planning the litigation strategy. There were lawyers there that were successful in corralling people, because when you have dozens or even hundreds of law firms, you have a lot of opinions. You need strong leadership to pull people together and come up with a cohesive strategy and form a unified front. So, in that case, I was a junior lawyer just observing. Then, fast forward to the Willowbrook case. I was able to take a lot of what I learned in Las Vegas watching some of the legal legends from around the country and bring that to the group that we had here. I was fortunate that the legal legends from the Chicago area gave me the opportunity to serve in that role.

One thing that can get lost in the profession is that at the end of the day, there should be a lot of mediation, conciliation, and conversation between people about the mutual goals of clients, even when on opposing sides of a case.

LD: Within the firm, how would you describe your leadership style?

BH: Especially with the new firm, we have to ask, “How can you create an environment that brings out the best in people?” We have such phenomenal people here that it doesn't matter who's running the show. But how do you maximize that to get the best results? I'm very strategic. A lot of times lawyers get so busy that they lose sight of the long-term goal. What are the short-term goals in the interim that get us there? And who's going to be on that team to help carry that through? How, as a leader, can I serve those on my team to get us to where we need to be.

In terms of cases, I like to have my hand in everything. In my old firm, I was very much on an island in a lot of ways working my own cases. But the one thing that I've really been able to do here at the new firm is delegate and assign leadership opportunities to others and oversee. For instance, we represent hundreds of family members and survivors of Camp Lejeune, which is the military base out in North Carolina where a lot of individuals were exposed to toxic chemicals. Parker [Stinar] and I are the Founding Partners working on that case. But we have a team of individuals at the firm whose backgrounds are particularly suited to lead the case with us. One comes from a military family. The other is a military veteran. I've been able to allow them to really take the case on because for them, in a lot of ways, it's personal and so – for me – it’s personal as well.

I've been extremely grateful that, with all of my partners, we’ve been able to find the right people to grow the firm the way that I see it expanding in the future. We've done a great job of finding the right people to support each other. Anybody can step up anytime. It's just, "Where can I help?" We look for that when we're hiring: “Who are the people that are just ready to jump into whatever, whenever?”

LD: And how would you describe your style in the courtroom?

BH: I love being in the courtroom. I love arguing. I love being in front of the jury. I think in a lot of ways I can be very adversarial, don't get me wrong. But one thing that can get lost in the profession is that at the end of the day, there should be a lot of mediation, conciliation, and conversation between people about the mutual goals of clients, even when on opposing sides of a case. That is something I really pride myself on.

LD: And then outside of work, what do you do for fun?

BH: It’s funny you ask that. My sister Blake, who now works at the firm with me, has told me I work too much. It's probably a fair assessment when you're a year into starting a new law firm. But the old adage is, “If you love what you do, you never work a day in your life.” For me, in the seven years I've been doing this, I don't know if there's really ever been a period of time where I've said to myself, “I'm working too much.” Because for me, it just doesn't feel like work at all. It feels like this is what I was meant to do. This is my mission, my calling.

But with that being said, I do have a puppy, Kygo, that I love. I love spending time with my family, most of whom are still here in the Chicagoland area. I have great friends too, that are all over the country. I love traveling. I grew up a huge history buff, so going to places like Rome and Paris recently has been incredible.

LD: Finally, how does it feel to be considered a member of Lawdragon X ­– “The Next Generation” of top lawyers?

BH: It’s definitely an honor. I just want to give so much of the credit to the others that I work with – I wouldn’t be where I am and our firm wouldn’t be where it is if it weren’t for each and every person contributing day in and day out. Each person at our firm makes it possible to build something like this and to be able to get the results that we do for our clients. It’s a team effort, all the way.