Top NYC Personal Injury Firms Review

A subway beam falls forty feet and severs a cyclist's spine. A hospital waits three hours too long to remove a blood clot. A scaffold buckles under a welder doing his job. It’s cases like these that separate New York personal injury law firms that actually deliver for injured clients from the law firms that talk a good game in marketing copy on a homepage or billboard.

This review compares the firms New Yorkers ask about most often when researching personal injury representation, including the Jacob D. Fuchsberg Law Firm, where our NYC personal injury attorneys have represented injured clients since 1980.

Jacob D. Fuchsberg Law Firm

🌐 Website: fuchsberg.com 📞 Phone: (212) 869-3500

Founded in 1980, the Jacob D. Fuchsberg Law Firm built its practice on a philosophy from founder Jacob Fuchsberg: the courtroom, not the street, is where modern civil rights get won. That framing still shapes the approach today. Where most NYC personal injury practices concentrate on medical malpractice or catastrophic accidents alone, our personal injury attorneys handle medical malpractice and civil rights litigation side by side, a combination none of the other firms on this list offers.

Practice areas include:

• Medical malpractice, with a concentration in birth trauma and delayed diagnosis of cancer, stroke, and infection.
• Civil rights, including prisoner rights, police misconduct, and sexual abuse in custody.
• Personal injury from construction, motor vehicle, and workplace accidents.
• Wrongful death, mass tort, and Qui Tam / False Claims Act matters.

Notable results:

• A $3 million settlement against the Federal Bureau of Prisons in an inmate sexual abuse case, a record recovery against the agency.
• A $6 million verdict for a welder left a quadriplegic with a brain injury after unsafe shelving he had been assigned to weld collapsed on him.
• Class action relief securing employment advancement and multi-million dollar compensation for employees of large companies denied merit-based promotions due to systemic racial discrimination, following successful appellate rulings.

Our results include settlements against government agencies, hospital systems, and private employers. Clients are represented across the five boroughs, Long Island, and the broader New York tristate area, with civil rights cases taken on nationwide. Case reviews are free, and matters are handled on contingency.

Gair, Gair, Conason, Rubinowitz, Bloom, Hershenhorn, Steigman & Mackauf

Gair Gair is a century-old Manhattan practice focused on catastrophic personal injury and medical malpractice, with no civil rights or prisoner rights docket. It caps its caseload at roughly 100 matters a year and has recovered more than $5 billion in cumulative settlements.

Notable results:

• A $272.5 million wrongful death settlement in the Tribeca crane collapse (2025), one of the largest crane accident recoveries in the country.
• A $182 million settlement for victims of the Valhalla, New York train crash, with firm attorneys serving as lead trial counsel.
• A $120 million medical malpractice verdict for a stroke patient left with permanent brain damage after a delayed diagnosis, reported as Westchester County's largest.
• A $103 million verdict for a child who sustained brain damage at birth.

Several of its sixteen attorneys hold Super Lawyers or Best Lawyers recognition, and the practice covers all five boroughs plus the greater metro area.

Kramer, Dillof, Livingston & Moore

Founded in 1950 in Lower Manhattan, Kramer, Dillof, Livingston & Moore (KDLM) concentrates on medical malpractice, wrongful death, and personal injury litigation. A full-time physician and registered nurses review medical records before a claim is filed.

Notable results:

• A $172 million verdict (2014) for a woman left paralyzed and unable to speak after EMTs failed to provide basic emergency care, among the largest personal injury verdicts in New York State history.
• A $130 million verdict for a child injured at birth due to hospital negligence, reported as the second-largest medical malpractice verdict in New York State history.
• More than 150 verdicts exceeding $1 million, and over $1 billion in negotiated settlements.

Civil rights, construction, and products liability fall outside KDLM's practice areas. Senior partners Judith Livingston and Thomas Moore both belong to the Inner Circle of Advocates, an invitation-only group of about 100 trial attorneys nationwide.

Block O'Toole & Murphy

Founded in 1989, Block O'Toole & Murphy (BOM) concentrates on construction and labor law accidents, plus motor vehicle and premises liability cases. Much of its docket falls under New York Labor Law § 240, the "Scaffold Law", which holds property owners and contractors liable for gravity-related construction injuries.

Notable results:

• A $110.17 million jury verdict for a cyclist paralyzed after a falling railroad tie struck him during subway maintenance work in Brooklyn, reported as the largest catastrophic injury verdict in New York State history.
• A $53.5 million verdict for a construction worker paralyzed in a fall while installing an air conditioning unit.
• More than 100 results exceeding $1 million in construction accident cases alone, and close to $2 billion recovered overall since its founding.

Medical malpractice, civil rights, and wrongful death work fall outside BOM's scope.

Morelli Law Firm

Founded in 1998 by Benedict Morelli, this Manhattan-based firm also keeps offices in New Jersey, Chicago, Philadelphia, and the St. Louis area. Its docket spans personal injury, mass torts, employment discrimination, and civil rights, echoing the Jacob D. Fuchsberg Law Firm's combined medical malpractice and civil rights model, though spread across several states rather than rooted in one New York community.

Notable results:

• A $265 million settlement for victims of the 2015 Amtrak derailment near Philadelphia, among the largest U.S. settlements ever reached in a passenger rail accident.
• A $102 million verdict for a worker injured in a fall at Live Nation's Jones Beach Theater.
• A $95 million verdict in a single-plaintiff sexual harassment case.
• More than $1 billion recovered for clients firmwide.

New York cases are one part of a broader, multi-state caseload.

What to Look For Before You Pick a Firm

Every firm on this list litigates catastrophic injury cases in New York, but a few factors separate them:

1. Trial record. Publicly posted verdicts and settlements carry more weight than claims alone. New York gives most personal injury victims three years to file suit (CPLR § 214), so a firm's willingness to try a case, not just settle it, affects how much weight its settlement offers carry.
2. Practice depth. Construction accident work calls for different resources than a birth injury claim.
3. Comparative fault exposure. New York is a pure comparative negligence state (CPLR § 1411), meaning a claimant can recover damages even if partly at fault, reduced by their share of responsibility. Attorneys who regularly argue fault percentages tend to protect more of that recovery.
4. Service area. Coverage across the five boroughs, Long Island, and the wider metro area matters when a case involves witnesses or defendants outside Manhattan.
5. Fee structure. Nearly every firm below works on contingency, with no fee owed unless the case results in a recovery.

What Actually Determines How Much a Case Is Worth

Every dollar figure above is a headline verdict, and headline verdicts are outliers by definition, not a preview of what a typical case pays out. Three categories of damages drive the real number:

• Economic damages. Medical bills, lost income, and future care costs, backed by receipts and financial projections.
• Non-economic damages. Pain, suffering, and loss of enjoyment of life. New York sets no statutory ceiling on these damages in personal injury or medical malpractice cases, unlike many other states, so a jury weighs the full impact of an injury rather than a capped number.
• Punitive damages. Reserved for cases involving especially reckless or intentional conduct, and rare outside that context.

Fault also moves the number. Because New York reduces (rather than eliminates) recovery based on a claimant's own share of fault under CPLR § 1411, the same injury can settle very differently depending on how convincingly an attorney argues the other side's liability.