Steven devotes much of his energy to making common sense of complicated, multi-layered disputes that often involve intractable parties/postures. He works very closely with corporate and individual clients on a wide array of disputes ranging from professional malpractice, business to business disagreements, contested estates, investment advisor/financial exploitation claims, property disputes, employment/HR issues, contests over the rights and interests of LLC-corporate-partnership owners and property rights, commercial leasing issues and zoning contests.
Steven is a certified mediator and registered to mediate with the 18th Judicial Circuit Court in DuPage County. Steven founded the mediation service provider, Settlement by Design, in order to help litigants and their attorneys strive towards settling their toughest disputes. Steven also understands the triggers that drive parties to litigate and is often engaged on a pre-litigation basis to consult with clients and establish sensible strategies to resolve or head off their dispute, privately and proactively. Steven has shielded many clients from the risks of expensive, time-consuming, and non-confidential commercial litigation by encouraging a sensible, negotiated resolution which often includes the use of hand-picked mediators and strategic positioning among other unique methods for resolving disputes.
Steven serves on the Advisory Board for Tone Products, Inc. and has been appointed to serve a second term on the Illinois Supreme Court Rules Committee. Steven has served on the Board of the College of DuPage Foundation (2010-2015) where he chaired the Bylaws Committee and the Planned Giving Committee and as President of the DuPage County Bar Association (2010-2011.
Steven has also served as special counsel to the College of DuPage 2009-2015, the Ethics Officer for the Village of Glen Ellyn (2014-2018), and General Counsel to the DuPage County Bar Association and was appointed Assistant Village Attorney for the Village of Hinsdale.
Steven is admitted to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, the Federal Trial Bar of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, and the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin.
Since 1999, Mr. Ruffalo has consistently maintained the highest “AV” rating (very high to preeminent) among his peers for legal ability, professional reliability, diligence and ethics, maintains a “Superb-10” Lawyergist ranking and since 2015 has been selected by his peers as a Leading Lawyer among the Nation’s Top Lawyers.
Steven joined Fuchs & Roselli, Ltd. in 1990 and has served as the firm’s Managing Partner since 2017