About
A firm built around an honest review
Lena Penrose spent eight years defending hospitals. She founded this firm to give patients and families what she saw they rarely got: a careful, independent answer.
From the other side of the table
For eight years, Lena defended hospitals and physicians. She learned how carefully a good defense reads a chart, and how often families on the other side never got that kind of reading at all. Some were told nothing. Others were told they had a case by someone who had not looked.
In 2006 she opened a small office in Hartford with one rule: no family would be told anything about their case until a nurse and an independent physician had read the records. Thomas Hale joined in 2009, David Whitcombe in 2015, and Clare Novak, a labour and delivery and NICU nurse, in 2017.
The firm is still small on purpose. We take fewer cases than we review, and we work on each one for years. We respect the doctors and nurses whose work we read, and we bring a claim only when an expert in their own field says the care fell short and caused real harm.
The firm in four lines
- 2006
- the year Lena Penrose opened the firm in Hartford
- 3 + 1
- three trial lawyers and a registered nurse
- One kind
- of case: medical malpractice and birth injury, nothing else
- Two states
- Connecticut and western Massachusetts
Three rules every case follows
-
An honest answer first
Before anything is filed, a nurse and at least one independent physician read your records. If the care met the standard, we tell you so, explain why, and return your records.
-
Careful with medicine
Doctors and nurses do hard work under pressure, and most do it well. We bring a claim only when a qualified expert in the same field believes the care fell below the standard and caused real harm.
-
Built for long cases
Malpractice and birth injury cases take years and need experts. We fund them, keep you informed every month, and never ask families to repay costs if there is no recovery.
“Clare went through the monitor strips with us minute by minute. For the first time, someone explained what had happened the night our son was born.”
Our office, or yours
Our Hartford office is step-free, with parking in the building. If you cannot travel because of an injury, a hospital stay or a child's care, we will meet you at home, at the hospital, or by video.
Tell us what happened. We will tell you the truth about it.
A free, confidential review by our nurse and an independent physician. If we do not believe it was malpractice, we will say so and explain why.