The Case for Coming Home

Michael Kopsick in Lake Bluff.

Attorney Michael Kopsick on his road from the stage to Scranton

For Michael Kopsick, becoming a lawyer meant following a very organic path—one he had been watching since childhood. He remembers shadowing his father at mediations and trials and being struck by how naturally he commanded a room. “Nerves didn’t seem to be a consideration,” Kopsick says. “He was always in command.” As a kid, Kopsick assumed those skills simply came with being a lawyer. More than 13 years into the practice and 4 years in his own firm, he knows otherwise. “I had incorrectly assumed that speaking in front of people was a prerequisite for practicing law,” he says. The ability to stand before a judge, make an argument and hold a room is something he now recognizes as a particular strength of his father’s and one he has developed himself.

Some of that training came from an unlikely place: Lake Bluff Middle School and LFHS theater. Kopsick jokes that he was usually “Pirate #4 or Tree #7,” but says theater taught him humility, confidence, risk-taking and, perhaps most importantly, timing.

“Being on stage teaches you not what to say, but how to say it,” he says. “I learned that silence is the most powerful form of speech.” Holding onto that silence, he says, can be one of the most creative ways to captivate an audience. “Can you create a moment with silence? Can you leave someone hanging on your next word?”

A Tradition Continued — Michael Kopsick and his well-dressed sons, Carter (3) and William (6) ready for court.

Today, Kopsick practices personal injury law, a field whose stereotypes he readily acknowledges. He describes himself as an “anti-PI attorney” and believes the increasingly large, marketing-driven side of the industry can lose sight of the person behind the case. “My clients are not a number, they are not a fee. They are human beings,” he says. For Kopsick, that means communication, an open phone line and, simply, time. “I don’t even necessarily chase great results—I chase a great client-attorney experience,” he says. “While there is an attorney-client privilege, I’ve always considered it a privilege to be someone’s attorney.” And he’s doing it just a few blocks from where his own story began. A self-described “Lake Bluff lifer,” Kopsick grew up on East Washington, made some of his best friends here, met his wife here and is now raising their two young boys in town. After practicing in the city, his desk now overlooks the gazebo on Scranton Avenue.

“I can only hope that I am able to make Bluffers as proud of me,” he says, “as I am proud to call Lake Bluff home.”