About Len

Leonard Goodman is a Chicago criminal defense lawyer, representing persons charged with serious crimes in state and federal courts, at trial and on appeal. He represents both high-profile and indigent defendants with equal vigor, and has the distinction of having won criminal cases at every level of state and federal courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court and the Illinois Supreme Court. He has won awards for his work on behalf of the wrongfully convicted, including an Afghani man detained twelve years at Guantanamo Bay without charges before his release in December 2014. 

Goodman is an adjunct professor at DePaul University College of Law, where he teaches federal criminal law. 

Goodman is a supporter of independent journalism and a strong believer in the right to free speech and dissent. He has provided financial support to help save and support important media platforms, and he has initiated and funded a program to provide grants to independent investigative journalists. 

Goodman’s columns on law and politics have appeared in numerous publications. From 2019 through 2021, Goodman wrote a regular opinion column in the Chicago Reader, a paper that he helped save from insolvency. But after his November 2021 column called “Vaxxing our Kids” that explained his decision not to allow his 6-year-old daughter to receive an mRNA covid vaccine manufactured by Pfizer, Reader management terminated his column.