D’Ambrose P.C.
Meet Danielle D’Ambrose
When Danielle D’Ambrose takes on a case, her clients reap the benefit of her unparalleled work ethic and intense personal investment. Danielle started the firm in 2018 to concentrate on matters she is most passionate about, and she strives to offer her clients the highest quality of customized legal services.
Establishing D’Ambrose P.C.
In February of 2018, Danielle began seeing news reports about a class action lawsuit filed against her former volleyball coaches, Rick and Cheryl Butler, and their business, GLV, Inc. d/b/a Sports Performance Volleyball Club The lawsuit was Mullen v. GLV, Inc., et al., and news outlets reporting on the case featured headlines such as Top Volleyball Coach Raped Girls Hundreds Of Times, Lawsuit Alleges, and Volleyball Coach Rick Butler, Wife Face Lawsuit Over Sex Abuse Claims, and Volleyball Coach Raped Six Girls ‘Hundreds’ of Times While Wife Bullied Victims, Lawsuit Claims.
When Danielle looked up the class action complaint, she was shocked that the recent headlines were referring to the same unsubstantiated allegations from the 1980s that had circulated for decades. She was even more shocked when she realized the class action was filed on behalf of all customers of GLV, including Danielle’s own family. The lawsuit alleged that the Butlers fraudulently hid allegations of abuse that were made against Rick in 1994, which all dated back to the 1980s. The class action was filed on behalf of customers who were supposedly defrauded by the Butlers, claiming that no customers would have played in GLV’s programs if they knew about the allegations from the 1980s.
To Danielle, the lawsuit did not make any sense. Her family knew about the allegations before she joined the program in 1999. The allegations were common knowledge to anyone she knew in the volleyball community, and especially to those who played for Sports Performance. Danielle started in the program in 1999, and her two younger sisters followed. For every year between 1999-2020, at least one member of Danielle’s immediate family was playing in the Sports Performance program. In her opinion, it would be impossible to play for the club and not know about the allegations against Rick.
Danielle emailed her former coaches (who she hadn’t spoken to in nearly 10 years) and asked them if she could write an article that corrected some of the inaccuracies that were circulating in the media. However, one thing led to another, and she never ended up writing that article. Instead, they asked her to represent them.
At the time, Danielle was handling dozens of other cases as an associate attorney at a Chicago law firm. After getting bombarded with court filings, she pitched the Butlers the idea of starting her own firm, allowing her to focus on their case and helping them cut down on costs. The lawsuit against the Butlers was filed by a nationally recognized class action law firm that had as many as six attorneys actively working on the case. Danielle, on the other hand, had been a practicing attorney for only two years, but the Butlers trusted her and said yes.
After taking on the case, Danielle received phone calls from mentors (who read the inaccurate media reports) telling her to get out of the case, that it was unwinnable, and that it would ruin her reputation and career. Likewise, the Butlers had people calling to tell them to sell their volleyball club before it lost all value, walk away from the sport, and settle the case.
They were all wrong.
Danielle worked tirelessly to prepare a motion asking the court to toss the case early. Because the case required so much attention already, she often worked overnight into the early morning hours gathering evidence and drafting her arguments. In the end, her efforts paid off. Danielle convinced the court to toss out the case without ever going to trial. The judge ruled that the Butlers and GLV, Inc. were entitled to summary judgment on every claim brought by the plaintiff. The Butlers won.
Danielle D’Ambrose continues to represent the Butlers, and she has expanded her practice to other matters she is similarly passionate about, such as college athlete advocacy and business litigation.
Education
In 2016, Danielle D’Ambrose graduated Summa Cum Laude with her Juris Doctorate from Northern Illinois University School of Law. At the same time, she graduated from NIU’s School of Business with a Master’s in Business Administration.
Danielle began her law career as the recipient of the Northern Illinois University College of Law Excellence Scholarship. With her unrelenting work ethic and continued commitment to excellence, Danielle graduated third in her class. Danielle served as Chief Justice of NIU’s Moot Court Society. In her final year of school, she was the recipient of Northern Illinois University’s Outstanding Woman Student Award.
Prior to law school, Danielle graduated from Northern Illinois University where she was a member of the Women’s Volleyball Team and Alpha Phi sorority. In her free time, Danielle performs stand-up comedy in Chicago.
Admissions
Danielle D’Ambrose has been admitted to practice before Illinois state courts, the Trial Bar for the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, the Northern District of New York, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.