Robert H. Blondis
Robert H. Blondis is a founding partner in the firm. Over many years, he has concentrated his practice in the areas of personal injury law and worker’s compensation law, and has achieved consistently excellent results for his clients. He counts among his clients many persons who have been injured in nursing homes and other institutional settings, and persons who have suffered traumatic brain injuries and psychological injuries.
Mr. Blondis graduated from Marquette University Law School in 1969. He is admitted to practice in the State of Wisconsin and before the U.S. District Courts for the Eastern and Western Districts of Wisconsin and the United States Supreme Court.
He was staff attorney and later Associate Director of Legal Action of Wisconsin, Inc. from 1970 until 1980. There, he advocated for low income and disabled people, meeting their everyday legal needs, as well as representing their interests in major civil rights cases.
He went into private practice in 1980, and was one of the founders of First, Blondis, Albrecht, Bangert & Novotnak, s.c. (now First, Albrecht & Blondis, s.c.) in 1994. Mr. Blondis has won multiple awards relating to his legal practice, including “Mental Health Citizen of the Year” given by the Wisconsin Association for Mental Health for his efforts to advance the legal rights of the mentally disabled. His memberships include the Wisconsin Association for Justice. He is a founding member of the Leander Foley Section of the Matrimonial Inns of Court. He is a former member of the Board of Directors of the Wisconsin Civil Liberties Union.
Representative civil rights cases include:
Lessard v. Schmidt, 349 F. Supp. 1078 (E.D. Wis. 1972), vacated and remanded, 414 U.S. 473, on remand, 379 F. Supp. 1376 (E.D. Wis. 1974), vacated and remanded, 421 U.S. 957 (1975), reinstated, 413 F. Supp. 1318 (E.D. Wis. 1976), 414 U.S. 473 (1974), which had the effect throughout the country of expanding the rights of the allegedly mentally ill; mental health organizations have recently written that this case “revolutionized mental health law.”
Redhail v. Zablocki, 434 U.S. 374 (1978), which established marriage as a fundamental constitutional right. This case has been hailed as one of the 50 most significant family/constitutional law cases in our nation’s legal history.
Bartels v. Biernat, 427 F. Supp. 226 (E.D. Wis. 1977), in which the court permanently enjoined Milwaukee County from acquiring mass transit vehicles unless they are designed to allow accessibility and utilization by mobility handicapped persons.
Examples of his recent work include:
Jablonski, et al. v. Ace American Insurance Co., et al., Wis. Circuit Court, Kenosha County, Case No. 05-CV496 (2005), which resulted in a substantial pre-trial settlement for a juvenile who suffered traumatic brain injury while he was a spectator at a drag race.
Wessels and Strande v. Juodawlkis, et al., Wis. Circuit Court, Washington County (2007), which resulted in a significant award for the survivors of a young woman who was killed by the negligence of drivers of vehicles while she was a passenger on a motorcycle.
__________ v. __________, Milwaukee County Circuit Court (2006) (names cannot be divulged because of a confidentiality agreement). In this case he represented an elderly woman with dementia who was seriously injured when she fell after she was allowed to “elope” from a community-based residential facility. The insurance company for that facility paid a significant amount shortly before trial to compensate the elderly woman for her injuries and pain and suffering.
Cases resolved in 2011 to date include substantial settlements obtained from insurance companies for a man who became totally disabled due to injuries sustained in his workplace, a child who developed PTSD as a result of being injured by an intoxicated driver, and a young woman who was seriously injured when she slipped and fell on long-standing ice in her workplace parking lot. He also recently obtained a sizeable settlement for a woman who was wrongly imprisoned over a weekend because an employee of a sheriff’s department failed to enter accurate data regarding an arrest warrant into the department’s computer system.
When he is not practicing law, he enjoys photography, gardening and tinkering with and driving vintage automobiles.