If you’ve moved someone you love into a nursing home or a care facility, that step alone was sad and stressful. But what’s comforting is knowing that they’re safe and comfortable, so at least you know you made the right decision for them and for yourself.
However, not all nursing homes do what they’re supposed to (and what they advertise). Institutional elder abuse isn’t rare, and if that happens, you have to know what to do next. The obvious thing is to contact a lawyer, but who exactly do you hire? You click on page after page, and everyone says they’ll fight for you, brag about 7-figure settlements and verdicts, smile, and claim they’re just who you need.
But it can’t be that they’re all equally suitable for your case, right?
Right. Which is why you have to take some time to see who has actually handled cases of abuse within these institutions, and how they’ve handled them.
The Best Nursing Home Abuse Lawyers
Below you’ll find law firms that are obvious choices if you want to maximize your chances in a nursing home-related case to protect your elderly family member:
Nursing Home Law Center
Nursing Home Law Center is actually an organization, not a law firm. They connect their clients with the lawyers in their network, and they work across the country.
If you’re in Illinois, you’ll probably see the name Jonathan Rosenfeld more than any other. He’s licensed in Illinois, obviously, and he has 25 years of experience in elder abuse litigation. But even if you’re in Arizona, Georgia, Florida, or somewhere else, you can still get in touch with their lawyers, including Nursing Home Law Center bedsore lawyers.
Their website is organized and easy to use, and you can check out some of the results they’ve published. One of the more impressive ones is the $12.8 million verdict that involved untreated bedsores and death. There’s also a report of a $2.15 million settlement after bedsores progressed to sepsis.
Consultations are free, and accepted cases are handled on contingency.
Michael Hill Trial Law
Michael Hill is one of the most obvious choices for this list because his entire practice is completely devoted to nursing home abuse and neglect. His firm has worked on more than 1,000 of those types of cases since 2011.
If you want some numbers, there are plenty of them.
In 2023, Hill represented the family of a 69-year-old resident of a nursing home in Ohio in a wrongful death case against Signature HealthCARE of Warren. The jury awarded $21 million and later added another $5 million in punitive damages, so the total ended up being $26 million. It was the largest verdict against a nursing home in Ohio in history. The impressive numbers don’t stop there, but you can read the rest on your own.
The reason why Hill belongs on this list is the fact that he has made nursing home litigation his entire practice, and he has already proven himself in difficult nursing home cases all the way through a jury trial.
Garcia & Coman
This is yet another law firm with a strong focus on nursing homes.
They’ve represented more than 3,500 older and dependent adults in cases of abuse and neglect, and Stephen M. Garcia has worked in elder and nursing home litigation since the 1990s.
The firm has taken on a lot of individual cases, but they’ve also proven themselves in cases that were much bigger than an injury to a single resident. They obtained a $12 million settlement in a class action that involved allegations that California skilled nursing facilities were understaffed. To be fair, most nursing homes in the U.S. are understaffed, but that can’t be an excuse. That particular case dragged on for years, and part of the settlement obligated the facilities to increase the staffing levels to those that are legally required.
Garcia & Coman have a different angle from most other law firms on the list, and it’s not hard to see why.
Senior Justice Law Firm
Michael Brevda’s practice is very narrow. The listed areas are nursing home abuse, negligence in assisted living facilities, wrongful death, and medical malpractice.
He’s admitted in Florida, New York, and Washington, D.C.
The verdicts he has accumulated under his belt throughout his career so far are impressive, to say the least – $14.7 million in a wrongful death case against a nursing home in Miami, $12.5 million in a stage 4 pressure sore (ulcer) in Tampa, $10.5 million for a wrongful death that happened in an assisted living facility (a 2025 case), etc.
The list goes on.
They have a good deal of educational material on their website, as well, and some of it is reviewed by a registered nurse and legal nurse consultant with experience in long-term care.
Conclusion
A case of nursing home abuse is very personal, much more so than most other legal disputes, because you’re usually dealing with someone you love being hurt and a lot of unanswered questions floating in your mind.
That’s why your lawyer is such an important part of this.
Before you make a call, make sure they’ve handled cases like yours before, check where they’re licensed, and how their fees work.
