About Us

TRIAL BY JURY.  YOUR FUNDAMENTAL RIGHT.

For over two centuries, the right to trial by jury has stood as one of the bedrock protections of our legal system — a protection our Founders considered so essential that they enshrined it in both the body of the Constitution and the Seventh Amendment. When clients come to our firm after being injured through someone else's negligence, they are not just seeking compensation. They are seeking justice, and justice in our system has always meant the right to have their case heard by a jury of their peers. 

Binding arbitration, by contrast, is too often not a choice at all. It is a clause buried in fine print in an employment contract, a nursing home admission form, consumer agreement, and, shockingly, sometimes in the contract personal injury lawyers ask prospective clients to sign. In all examples, a person signs without ever realizing they have surrendered their constitutional right to a jury trial. Once that signature is on the page, the injured party is funneled into a private, often confidential process, decided not by a jury of ordinary citizens but by a single arbitrator who may be repeatedly selected by the very companies being sued. There is no meaningful right to appeal. There is no public record. There is no community accountability.

A jury trial puts the decision where it belongs: in the hands of everyday people — teachers, nurses, laborers, contractors, small business owners, retirees — who bring their common sense and shared values to bear on the facts. Juries see through corporate spin. They understand what it means to lose a livelihood, to live with chronic pain, to bury a loved one. That collective wisdom cannot be replicated by a single arbitrator who makes her living on repeat business from the defense. 

Trial by jury also serves a function larger than any one case. Jury verdicts are public. They send a message to corporations, doctors, institutions, and individual wrongdoers that negligence and misconduct have consequences, and that message helps deter future harm.

Arbitration, by design, keeps that accountability hidden — settlements and awards sealed away, patterns of wrongdoing never brought to light.

A Word of Caution: Read Before You Sign

We urge every person reading this to look closely before signing any contract — whether it's an employment agreement, a nursing home admission packet, or terms of service for a product or app. Many of these documents contain a mandatory arbitration clause, often tucked into paragraphs of dense legal text near the end of the document. This clause may require you to give up your right to sue in court or to have a jury decide your case, forcing any future dispute into private arbitration instead. 

Before you sign anything, take a moment to look for language such as "binding arbitration," "waiver of jury trial," "class action waiver," or "dispute resolution." If you find such a clause, understand what you may be giving up. Ask questions. Ask whether the clause can be struck or whether you can opt out.  Or strike out the clause before signing. Most importantly, if you see any such language in a retainer agreement presented to you by a lawyer you are hiring to represent you, RUN!  Without exception, any lawyer who would force a disgruntled client to arbitration is not a lawyer any prospective clients want to retain.  You will easily find qualified, reputable lawyers who will happily allow future disputes to proceed in the very system where your claim will proceed, the jury system.  A lawyer who will take your case to a jury but then take his case to arbitration defines hypocrisy and isn’t worthy of your trust.   

The Constitution intended your voice to be heard by a jury, and no injured person should have their day in court traded away in the fine print of a contract they never truly understood nor had the power to negotiate.