Larry Rogers Sr., co-founder of the law firm Power, Rogers & Smith P.C., along with M. Cherif Bassiouni, president emeritus of DePaul’s International Human Rights Law Institute, will be bestowed with honors at the 111th commencement of the DePaul University College of Law. Graduation will take place at 1:30 p.m. May 17 at the Civic Opera House, 20 N. Wacker Drive, Chicago.

One of the nation’s most successful plaintiff’s attorneys, Rogers is a leader in the fields of personal injury and medical malpractice law. He will receive an honorary doctor of law degree from the College of Law and serve as commencement speaker.

For more than 20 years, Rogers has successfully represented plaintiffs in some of the most difficult personal injury and wrongful death cases. His firm has recovered more than $1 billion for its clients, with some $207 million of it awarded in the past two years.

The journey to the top of the legal profession for Rogers began in 1985 when he won a $27 million verdict in a product liability case. At the time, it was the largest personal injury award in Illinois. Since then, he has successfully won claims for numerous clients, including a recent $55 million medical malpractice settlement for woman who suffered brain damage.

Rogers earned a juris doctor degree from DePaul in 1983 and a bachelor of arts degree from St. Xavier College in 1974. He has served as president of the Cook County Bar Association, Illinois Trial Lawyers Association and commissioner of the Cook County Board of Review. His awards and honors include being named one of American Lawyer Media’s most influential Illinois attorneys in 2000 and one of the National Law Journal’s top litigators in the country in 1999.

During the ceremony, Bassiouni will be awarded DePaul’s Via Sapientiae Award, the university’s highest faculty/staff honor. Bassiouni, who currently serves as a distinguished research professor at the College of Law, has given more than 45 years of service to DePaul. His reputation and work as one of the world’s foremost international criminal law and human rights scholars has garnered global recognition for the law school and its International Human Rights Law Institute.

Among Bassiouni’s many accomplishments are chairing the commission investigating war crimes in the former Yugoslavia; serving as the United Nation’s independent expert charged with investigating human rights violations in Afghanistan, and heading the drafting committee of the 998 Diplomatic Conference on the establishment of an International Criminal Court.

Established in 1912, DePaul’s College of Law will award 318 J.D. degrees and eight LL.M. degrees during its 2009 commencement exercises. Graduates will join the College of Law’s nearly 12,000-strong network of living alumni. College of Law alumni include state and federal judges, municipal, county and state leaders and two generations of Chicago mayors.