Roosevelt has successfully overcome the odds throughout his career to pursue his dream of practicing law. He dropped out of high school at age 17 to join the United States Navy where he could gain the funds he needed to attend college. After service in the Navy during the Persian Gulf War, he completed his service time with an Honorable Discharge, gained further experience as a trooper in the Delaware State Police, and attended Howard University and Delaware State University, where he graduated with a degree in History and a minor in Spanish. Roosevelt then went on to earn his law degree from the University of Wisconsin Law School in 2001. While at Wisconsin, he was honored for his outstanding work in the Legal Defense Program representing indigent clients in criminal cases. It was there he had his first jury trials resulting in acquittals of his clients.
He began his legal career in New York City where he also taught as an adjunct professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice. After New York City, he ventured to Washington D.C. where he worked for the Office of General Counsel. He then opened his own law firm in Milwaukee, Wisconsin where his practice focused on criminal and civil litigation.
In 2016, he joined a civil litigation defense firm specializing in defending insurers and self-insureds in matters of catastrophic loss, professional liability, products and construction law, trucking and transportation.
After a brief stint on the insurance defense side, he rejoined the plaintiff’s bar representing plaintiff’s that have been injured due to the negligence of others violating the safety rules. In addition, to fighting for the rights of plaintiffs in catastrophic loss and wrongful death, professional liability, medical malpractice, nursing home abuse, products liability, construction law, sexual abuse, trucking and transportation crashes. Roosevelt has dedicated a significant part of his 20 plus litigation experience to fighting for the rights of wards of the state in the Department of Child Family Services (DCFS), the agencies they retain to monitor foster children and foster parents.
Many children are placed under the foster care system in private homes to rescue them from abuse or neglect in their biological homes. These highly vulnerable children need to be safe, protected and provided with the proper services to thrive. They are often vulnerable to abuse and neglect, and it is the responsibility of private agencies, group homes, foster parents and child services to protect these kids from further abuse.
Roosevelt has spent several years holding professionals like child welfare agencies, DCFS and private agencies contracted by DCFS all over the country responsible for failing to protect our kids while in foster care or placed in homes where they have endured further abuse and neglect.
These failures by these agencies can range from inadequate screening of foster care families, inadequate monitoring of children placed in a foster care system, moving children too frequently from one family to another, poor training of staff, all of which can result in serious physical or psychological abuse of a child or death.
This area is a niche area of the law that Roosevelt has a passion for and a proven record of getting results which include the following:
