Founded in 1983, Bennett Bigelow & Leedom represents a full spectrum of health care clients, including physicians, hospitals, nursing facilities, and academic medical centers in the Pacific Northwest and around the country. We provide a wide range of legal services, including litigation and general business services. In addition to health care clients, we represent individuals and organizations outside the health care industry, counseling them in transactions, litigation and other matters.
Our firm is nationally recognized for its trial practice and, in particular, experience in medical malpractice defense. Bennett Bigelow & Leedom lawyers have a well-established practice involving the representation of healthcare institutions and professionals in all phases of medical negligence litigation, from prevention and claim investigation to discovery, trial, and appeal. Through years of experience, our firm has obtained many defense verdicts for our individual and institutional clients. We have provided defense in virtually every type of medical malpractice lawsuit, including complex birth injury, wrongful death, and other catastrophic injury cases.
Fraud
The litigation attorneys at Bennett Bigelow & Leedom have earned a reputation for excellence in the Northwest and beyond. For over three decades, our attorneys have collectively tried hundreds of cases in superior and federal courts and in arbitration. Our lawyers are advocates for a wide variety of local and national businesses, governmental entities, not-for-profit organizations, and private individuals. We are nationally recognized in such areas as commercial litigation, employment, education, healthcare fraud and abuse, and product liability, in addition to medical malpractice defense. We also have an active and successful appellate practice, and are experienced in all forms of dispute resolution including arbitration and mediation.
Healthcare professionals and their practice organizations require cost-effective legal expertise that includes knowledge of business law of general application as well familiarity with healthcare regulatory requirements. Our attorneys have the experience and expertise to provide effective representation to healthcare and other licensed professionals. Representative engagements include...
Business Transactions
Other typical engagements for hospitals and health systems encompass the variety of business transactions involved in healthcare. We have helped structure arrangements between hospitals and physicians, including...
When employment claims inevitably arise, our clients benefit from our experience representing employers in arbitrations and other alternative dispute forums, administrative proceedings before the Washington Human Rights Commission, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and in state and federal court. Our dispute resolution and litigation experience ranges from defending against discrimination, harassment, and retaliation claims, failure to accommodate claims, alleged leave violations, wrongful discharge claims, to breach of contract claims (such as employment contracts and non-competition and solicitation agreements). Should an employment claim reach trial, our clients trust that they have committed, vigorous, and experienced trial attorneys on their side.
Employment Discrimination
ERIN SEEBERGER joined the firm in 2015. Her practice focuses on defending physicians and health care institutions against claims of medical malpractice and in disciplinary actions. She also provides advice and counseling to healthcare clinics and other professional services clients on employment-related issues. Erin has tried cases in both state and federal court, including claims for employment discrimination, contractual indemnity, medical and dental malpractice, and wrongful death. Erin serves on the Washington Defense Trial Lawyers’ Board of Trustees and previously served as its Practice Development Chair. She is an instructor for the University of Washington School of Law, teaching its medical malpractice course. Erin has been selected to the Washington Super Lawyers Rising Stars® list for the last five years. Before joining the firm, Erin’s legal career began in California, where she worked full-time as a law clerk while attending law school, and then as an associate attorney in private practice in both California and Seattle.
Employment Contract
Our firm advises health care and other professionals, clinics, solo practices, group practices, and hospitals including academic, private, and public hospitals, in a wide range of employment issues from employment agreements, disciplinary investigations or actions, non-competition agreements, employee handbook reviews, and separation or termination agreements. Firm attorneys have the technical knowledge and expertise regarding applicable Federal and state laws and regulations that govern these complex relationships.
Employment Litigation
Our employment attorneys provide practical and proactive counseling to clients in all areas of the employment relationship, including: hiring, discipline, discharge, employee disabilities, employee leave, alcohol and drug testing, and workplace investigations as well as responses to complaints of discrimination, harassment, and retaliation. We frequently review, revise, and draft employment policies and handbooks, as well as provide on-site training, which helps employers implement best practices to minimize their exposure to employment claims. Employment law is a complex and always changing area of law and we are trusted partners with our clients in navigating those laws and avoiding their potential pitfalls.
As property owners and renters, healthcare providers and facilities face similar legal risks as other businesses when a patient or visitor is injured on their premises, such as in a slip and fall. The unique settings of hospitals, therapy centers, and other healthcare facilities, however, can often complicate claims of premises liability. Bennett Bigelow & Leedom, as an experienced firm in both healthcare and litigation, has a proven track record of successfully resolving claims against healthcare providers and facilities in premises liability cases.
Bennett Bigelow & Leedom attorneys represent individual providers and provider groups in a broad variety of healthcare related personal injury claims, including claims related to alleged medical negligence, absence of informed consent, and medical battery. Our provider defendants include doctors of medicine and osteopathy, podiatrists, dentists, optometrists, psychologists, counselors, physician assistants, nurse practitioners, nurse-midwives, registered nurses, medical assistants, and clinical social workers. Our attorneys represent providers through all phases of litigation, from claim prevention and investigation, trial, and appeal. Having defended thousands of individual providers in medical negligence matters, we pride ourselves on successfully guiding providers through the process so that they can minimize disruption to their practice and maintain their attention on patient care.
Medical Malpractice
Our attorneys have experience representing behavioral health providers and psychiatric residential care facilities. We defend against all manner of medical malpractice claims against such providers, including claims involving the duty to protect foreseeable third-party victims of psychiatric patients.
Representation of hospitals and health systems in connection with mergers and acquisitions and sales of facilities, including: due diligence reviews, compliance with charitable trust principles as they may apply to nonprofit organizations, Certificate of Need and licensing issues, anti-trust compliance, and a variety of transaction issues