One attorney, an office on North LaSalle Street, and a practice that is 85 per cent about people who were hurt because somebody else was careless.
Daley Plaza, a few minutes from the office on North LaSalle Street and directly outside the courthouse where much of Cook County’s civil work is heard.
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Julian E. Zito is an Associate Attorney at Mark L. Karno & Associates, LLC, a personal injury firm at 33 N LaSalle Street in the Chicago Loop. He is admitted in Illinois and represents people injured by negligence, with a focus on motor vehicle collisions, complex personal injury litigation and premises liability. This site is his; the firm is where the work is done.
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Before civil practice, Julian was an Assistant State's Attorney in Winnebago County, where he conducted multiple jury trials and advanced to the Felony Review Unit. That work is unglamorous and high-volume, and it teaches one particular thing: how a case actually behaves in front of a jury, as opposed to how it looks in a file. Very few lawyers at his stage have stood up and tried one.
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After the State's Attorney's office he spent three years at McCalla Raymer Leibert and Pierce before joining Mark L. Karno & Associates. Personal injury is now roughly 85 per cent of his practice, with workers' compensation another 10 per cent. The common thread with the prosecuting years is straightforward enough: it is still the work of standing up for somebody who did not choose to be in the situation they are in.
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He sits on two Illinois State Bar Association section councils, Tort Law and Civil Practice & Procedure, which review legislation and contribute to statewide legal scholarship. He has also come up through Fred Lane's Trial Techniques Institute. None of that work ever appears in a client's file, and it quietly shapes every case in it.
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He earned his J.D. With Honors from the University of Illinois Chicago School of Law in 2020, holding the Dean's Scholarship throughout, and holds a bachelor's degree in Pre-Law Political Science with a minor in Philosophy. During law school he worked on civil matters with the City of Chicago and gave pro bono time to veterans through UIC's Veterans Legal Clinic.
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Mark L. Karno & Associates states on its own site that "since joining the firm, Julian has played a key role in securing multi-million-dollar results for clients," and in 2025 he was named a Top 40 Under 40 Civil Plaintiff Attorney by The National Trial Lawyers. Both are quoted here as published statements rather than as promises. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome, and no honest lawyer will tell you what your case is worth before seeing it.
The full background, including the route from a prosecutor’s office to injury work, is on the attorney page.
His own phrase, off his own campaign, and it sets the tone for the office. You get told what is actually going on, including when the answer is that you may not need a lawyer at all.
Nobody from this office turns up at a hospital or manufactures urgency to get a signature. If you want a fortnight to think, take it. You will be told the genuinely time-sensitive parts first.
He tried cases as a prosecutor in Winnebago County before moving to civil work. Being genuinely prepared to try a case is what changes its value long before anyone gets near a courtroom.
No case valuations before the medical picture exists, no promised timelines, and no predictions. Those numbers are marketing when they arrive early, and he will say so.
The concrete version of all of this is in the practice areas, where each type of claim is set out step by step, and in how a claim actually works, which walks the whole process from the first call to resolution.
No, and the distinction matters. This site belongs to Julian E. Zito, an individual attorney. The firm he practises at is Mark L. Karno & Associates, LLC, and that is where an engagement would sit.
He was admitted in Illinois in 2021, which is the published fact. You will not find a rounded-up 'years of experience' figure on this site, because that number is usually doing work it has not earned.
33 N LaSalle Street, Suite 3500, Chicago, IL 60602, in the Loop. The Blue and Brown lines both put you within a couple of minutes, and the Daley Center is a short walk. The firm also keeps an Aurora office by appointment.
The practice is Illinois-wide, with most work in Cook County and the collar counties. If it happened elsewhere in the state, ask on the first call.
Because there is not an honest one to use. Rather than dress the page with a stock lobby or a generated image captioned as though it were the building, the photograph below is one he actually published, taken in Daley Plaza.
Describe what happened, in whatever order it comes out. You will get a straight read on whether there is something here, including when the answer is that you may not need a lawyer at all.
Contacting Julian E. Zito or Mark L. Karno & Associates, LLC does not create an attorney-client relationship, and nothing on this site is legal advice. Please do not send confidential information until a written engagement is in place. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome.