Arrowood LLP is pleased to announce that for the sixth consecutive year, Lisa G. Arrowood has been named to Lawdragon’s 500 Leading Plaintiff Consumer Lawyers guide.
Ms. Arrowood was chosen from among thousands of attorneys across the country through a rigorous selection process involving nominations, journalistic research and peer review. After each nominated attorney’s legal skills, victories, settlements, leadership, intellect and conduct were considered, only the top 500 attorneys were ultimately named to Lawdragon’s 2024 Leading Plaintiff Consumer Lawyer Guide.
Nearly every attorney featured in Lawdragon’s annual guide was selected because they brought justice to individuals (or groups of them) for a physical harm they suffered. Widely known for her accomplishments in personal injury and medical malpractice cases, Ms. Arrowood has represented plaintiffs in virtually every type of medical malpractice action, ranging from birth injury to failure to diagnose cancer, heart attacks and stroke. Among her notable wins is a $4.4 million verdict in a case involving a wrongful death claim resulting from failure to diagnose breast cancer.
A founding partner of Arrowood LLP, Ms. Arrowood has also been honored in recent years by Lawdragon for her outstanding achievements in other practice areas. She has been named one of Lawdragon’s 500 Leading Lawyers in America (2015 – present) and a Most Powerful Employment Lawyer (2016 – present).
View Lisa Arrowood’s 2024 Leading Plaintiff Consumer Lawyer recognition.
Arrowood LLP founding partner, Lisa Arrowood, spoke at Boston College Law School on January 31, 2024 about the Massachusetts Health Care Whistleblower Act and the firm’s summary judgment victory in Zappala vs. Steward Health Care Services.
Speaking to an audience of law school students, Ms. Arrowood talked about the Zappala case, in which her firm represented a physician whistleblower who worked at a hospital owned and operated by the country’s largest for-profit healthcare network, and the lasting impact the Zappala decision will have in the future on hospitals who claim that the peer review privilege shields their actions in retaliating against whistleblowing physicians.
“Complaints about substandard care by physicians and healthcare workers are still protected whistleblowing,” asserted Ms. Arrowood, “especially in the context of repeated complaints to a hospital which never initiates a peer review or takes any action to address the poor care.”
Throughout her career, Ms. Arrowood has been a guest lecturer and panelist at many universities, conferences and organizations including Harvard Law School, Brown University, Boston Bar Association and New Hampshire Bar Association.
Lisa G. Arrowood, founding partner of Arrowood LLP, has once again been recognized for excellence in the area of Medical Malpractice (Plaintiff) by Boston magazine, which named her to its Top Lawyers list for 2023.
Ms. Arrowood has more than 30 years of experience practicing law, and her successes in a number of practice areas including medical malpractice matters, are well documented. She has represented plaintiffs in virtually every type of medical malpractice action, ranging from birth injury to failure to diagnose cancer, heart attacks, and stroke. In 1998, she won the third largest jury verdict in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts for a medical malpractice case.
Boston magazine’s annual Top Lawyer list is compiled through a peer nomination process. Attorneys are invited to nominate up to three of their peers in a select number of law specialties. Top vote-getters in each specialty are reviewed by an advisory board of select lawyers, chosen for their credentials and the high number of votes they received.
This marks the third consecutive year that Ms. Arrowood was recognized by Boston magazine. She was selected as a Top Lawyer in 2022 for Medical Malpractice (Plaintiff) and in 2021 for Personal Injury Law.
View Lisa Arrowood’s 2023 Top Lawyer listing in Boston magazine.
Arrowood LLP attorneys Lisa G. Arrowood, William F. McGonigle and Cathleen Liacos secured a $2 million settlement in a wrongful death case in which a cardiologist failed to inform his 25-year old patient of abnormal test results and subsequently failed to monitor and treat the young man’s potentially deadly heart condition, leading to the patient’s death at age 29.
In 2014, the decedent’s father was diagnosed with cardiomyopathy, a potentially fatal cardiac condition. The father was told by his cardiologist that his condition could be hereditary, and recommended that the man’s adult twin sons see him for testing to determine whether they also had cardiomyopathy. Shortly thereafter, the man relayed this message to his sons, who each contacted the cardiologist about getting tested for cardiomyopathy.
During the summer of 2014, one of the man’s sons underwent cardiac testing, and was eventually told by the cardiologist that his results were normal. A few months later, the man’s other son contacted the cardiologist about testing and an echocardiogram was ordered and scheduled for him by the cardiologist’s office. The patient, who was then 25 years old, underwent the echocardiogram in March 2015. The cardiologist was listed as the “Responsible M.D.” on the echocardiogram which revealed abnormal results indicative of cardiomyopathy.
Neither the cardiologist nor anyone at his office sent the abnormal echocardiogram results to the patient or explained the abnormal results to him. The cardiologist also did not recommend that the patient undergo any follow up testing, monitoring, or treatment given the abnormal echocardiogram. As a result of the cardiologist’s failure to send his patient the test results, explain those results, or recommend necessary treatment, the patient was unaware that he suffered from cardiomyopathy and was not followed or treated by any doctor for the condition.
In September 2018, when the patient was just 29 years old, he died as a result of his untreated cardiomyopathy. Approximately one month after his death, his twin brother went to see the cardiologist and reminded him that both he and his twin had undergone testing for cardiomyopathy in 2014 and 2015. The cardiologist checked the decedent’s echocardiogram results and confirmed that the decedent had cardiomyopathy during his lifetime. The surviving brother asked the cardiologist if he knew whether his deceased brother had ever received his test results, and the cardiologist searched his computer but could not find any such email, record of transmission, or other message enclosing the test results. The cardiologist said, “there is no record” and that the abnormal results “must have slipped through the cracks.”
“This case involved irrefutable evidence of a doctor’s negligent failure to send his young patient abnormal test results and the devastating result of that patient’s completely avoidable death at just 29 years old,” said attorney Cathleen Liacos.
The decedent’s estate brought a wrongful death claim against the cardiologist. Plaintiff’s cardiologist experts were prepared to testify that the defendant cardiologist was negligent in his treatment of the decedent by failing to communicate the abnormal echocardiogram results to the decedent, failing to explain the abnormal results to the decedent, and failing to either treat the decedent or recommend necessary treatment based on his abnormal test results.
Plaintiff’s cardiologist experts were also prepared to testify that, but for the defendant cardiologist’s negligent treatment of the decedent, the decedent would more probably than not have received treatment for his cardiomyopathy and would have been monitored by a cardiologist. Had the decedent received appropriate treatment and monitoring for his cardiac condition, it is more likely than not that he would not have died prematurely and would have survived to live up to and including his normal life expectancy.
Arrowood LLP secured the $2 million settlement on behalf of the man’s family at mediation one month prior to going to trial.
“This settlement represents the hard work that the family and Arrowood LLP put into this case,” said Ms. Liacos. “We’re proud to have achieved this result in honor of the decedent who, by all accounts, was an irreplaceable son, brother and friend.”
Arrowood LLP is pleased to announce that the firm has been awarded two national rankings and five metro rankings in the 2024 edition of Best Law Firms®.
Best Law Firms recognizes the nation’s most elite firms for their professional excellence and breadth of legal expertise. Ranked law firms are presented in three tiers on a national and regional scale. Arrowood LLP was selected as a 2024 Best Law Firm in these practice areas:
National Tier 2
Metropolitan Tier 1 (Boston)
Metropolitan Tier 2 (Boston)
Annual Best Law Firms rankings are based on a rigorous evaluation process which includes client evaluations, peer reviews and information provided by individual firms. To be eligible for a ranking, firms must have had at least one lawyer named to the latest edition of The Best Lawyers in America®, an exclusive award given to the top 5% of lawyers in the United States. Three Arrowood LLP partners – Lisa G. Arrowood, Raymond P. Ausrotas and Jed DeWick – were selected for inclusion in The Best Lawyers in America for 2024.
Arrowood LLP attorneys Jed DeWick and Sarah E. A. Sousa won dismissal of a discrimination case brought against their client, CGIT Systems, Inc., by one of its former employees.
In awarding Mr. DeWick and Ms. Sousa’s client summary judgment, the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts ruled that the company, a designer and manufacturer of custom electrical equipment used in large-scale infrastructure installations, did not discriminate against one of its senior engineers when it denied his request to work from home during the early days of the COVID pandemic and then terminated him when he repeatedly failed to show up for work.
The engineer claimed he was discriminated against because of his age and race, and that his hypertension was a disability. CGIT maintained that he was terminated because he did not qualify for remote work and he abandoned his job.
In a 39-page order, the judge wrote that the engineer had not shown that he was a victim of age or racial discrimination or that his hypertension was a qualifying disability. The undisputed facts, according to the judge, support CGIT’s reasons for termination and were not a pretext for discrimination. Furthermore, the judge wrote that CGIT viewed the employee as a valuable worker, repeatedly asking him to reconsider his position and return to work in person.
Read this Law360 article for additional details related to this case.
Arrowood LLP is pleased to announce that six of the firm’s attorneys have been recognized as Massachusetts Super Lawyers and Rising Stars for 2023.
Super Lawyers is a rating service which selects outstanding lawyers through a process involving peer nominations, evaluations, and independent research. No more than 5% of attorneys in each state are named as Super Lawyers, and no more than 2.5% are named as Rising Stars.
Our firm congratulates these attorneys for their continued professional excellence:
Lisa G. Arrowood, Partner: Super Lawyer, Business Litigation. The #1 point getter in Massachusetts, Ms. Arrowood was named to the Top 10 Massachusetts Super Lawyers, Top 100 Massachusetts Super Lawyers and Top 50 Women Massachusetts Super Lawyers lists. She has been recognized every year since 2004, and she was the #1 point getter in Massachusetts in 2014 and every year since 2017.
Raymond P. Ausrotas, Partner: Super Lawyer, Business Litigation. Mr. Ausrotas was named to the Top 100 Massachusetts Super Lawyers list for 2023. This is the 13th year he has been recognized for Business Litigation.
Jed DeWick, Partner: Super Lawyer, Business Litigation. This is the 9th year that Mr. DeWick has been recognized for Business Litigation.
Edward Foye, Of Counsel: Super Lawyer, Business Litigation. Mr. Foye has been recognized for Business Litigation for 14 years.
Cathleen (Augusto) Liacos, Associate: Rising Star, Civil Litigation: Plaintiff. Ms. Liacos has been selected by Super Lawyers as a Rising Star every year since 2019.
Sarah E. A. Sousa, Associate: Rising Star, Employment & Labor. Ms. Sousa has been named a Rising Star by Super Lawyers every year since 2019.
Arrowood LLP is pleased to welcome Shayne Kinsella as the firm’s newest associate.
Mr. Kinsella is a recent graduate of Boston College Law School where he worked at the college’s Civil Litigation Clinic, helping to represent low-income clients in landlord-tenant disputes, divorce cases, alimony and child support cases, and custody cases. He also interned for the Constitutional and Administrative Law Division of the Massachusetts’s Attorney General’s Office, where he collaborated with Assistant Attorney Generals primarily on G.L. c. 30A cases.
“We’re happy that Shayne is starting his legal career with us,” says founding partner Lisa Arrowood. “He’s smart and hardworking, and he’s going to be a valuable member of our team.”
Mr. Kinsella’s association with Arrowood LLP began when he was a law school student, working at the firm as a summer associate focusing on employment, legal malpractice, medical malpractice, and tort cases.
“I could not be more excited to return to Arrowood,” says Mr. Kinsella. “It’s a privilege to do such valuable work alongside such talented people.”
Prior to pursuing his law degree, Mr. Kinsella served as Director of Human Resources and Operations for the International Institute of New England, a refugee resettlement and immigration services nonprofit serving communities in Massachusetts and New Hampshire.
Shayne Kinsella joined Arrowood LLP after graduating from Boston College Law School, where he earned his Juris Doctor. His association with our firm actually began before his last year of law school, when he worked as a summer associate, focusing on employment, legal malpractice, medical malpractice and tort cases.
As a law student, Shayne participated in the Good Governance Project and several writing and advocacy competitions, including the Wendell F. Grimes Moot Court. He also worked at Boston College’s Civil Litigation Clinic, helping to represent low-income clients in landlord-tenant disputes, divorce cases, alimony and child support cases, and custody cases.
Throughout his final year of law school, Shayne interned for the Constitutional and Administrative Law Division of the Massachusetts’s Attorney General’s Office. There, he collaborated with Assistant Attorney Generals primarily on G.L. c. 30A cases.
Before law school, Shayne worked for nearly five years at the International Institute of New England (IINE), a refugee resettlement and immigration services nonprofit serving communities in Massachusetts and New Hampshire. As Director of Human Resources and Operations at IINE, he was responsible for implementing organizational strategy and for managing human resources operations. He has extensive experience managing interpersonal and organizational challenges, and brings his first-hand experience navigating employment issues in a multi-office workplace.
Shayne earned his Bachelor’s degree at Connecticut College, graduating summa cum laude with a major in Government and Religious Studies and a minor in History.
Arrowood LLP is proud to announce that three of the firm’s partners have been recognized for their professional excellence in the 2024 edition of The Best Lawyers in America®.
Lisa G. Arrowood was selected for her work in Commercial Litigation; Litigation – Labor and Employment; Medical Malpractice Law – Plaintiffs; and Personal Injury Litigation – Plaintiffs. Ray Ausrotas was recognized for his work in Commercial Litigation and Litigation – Regulatory Enforcement (SEC, Telecom, Energy). Jed DeWick was named for his work in Commercial Litigation.
Recognition in The Best Lawyers in America is widely regarded by both legal professionals and clients as a significant honor. Outstanding attorneys are nominated and selected for inclusion through a process involving confidential evaluations by their professional peers within the same practice area and geographical area.
All three founding partners share the distinction of being previously honored by Best Lawyers® – Lisa Arrowood has been recognized since 2001; Ray Ausrotas since 2017; and Jed DeWick since 2021.