Introducing Dennis M. Donnelly ...
"This is not some commodity business, like trading pork bellies or stock futures. Our work is about making a difference in people's lives." - Dennis Donnelly
Dennis Donnelly has been recognized by the National Law Journal and his peers locally and nationally, as one of the best plaintiff's personal injury attorneys in New Jersey. He is the immediate past president of the New Jersey chapter of the American Board of Trial Advocates (ABOTA) and the current President of the most exclusive group of plaintiff's trial attorneys in the country, the Inner Circle of Advocates. He was also recently named to the Board of Directors of the Attorneys Information Exchange group, the only national association of lawyers who share information and strategy to successfully hold car manufacturers accountable for unsafe designs which kill and injure motorists every year. Dennis is also regularly asked to lecture around the country on trial advocacy topics, and has published articles on medical malpractice and products liability.
Dennis regularly tries complex cases to outstanding verdicts in his 2 areas of special interest: medical malpractice and unsafe, dangerous products. In an age when most cases settle, due to many factors, Dennis has successfully tried 6 cases to jury verdicts over 1 million dollars in the past 6 years. He has also settled more than 20 cases for more than a million dollars during the same time. In his medical specialty, prenatal screening, he has won all 5 cases he has tried to verdict in New Jersey, with one case resulting in a 14 million dollar verdict. He has also won a verdict for a failure in prenatal diagnosis in New York State for 3.6 million dollars which was the subject of a New York Times magazine feature. As a result, Dennis has been invited to give continuing medical education lectures to residents and also to practicing OBS on how to provide proper prenatal screening.
Dennis is known for his extensive and remarkable knowledge of case law in medical malpractice and products liability, and his expertise in these legal areas make him a valued instructor for New Jersey and National Continuing Legal Education groups. During the last five years, he has been asked to give more than 20 lectures in seminars across the country as well as New Jersey, on topics including wrongful death, medical malpractice, crash worthy vehicle claims, products liability, and using the internet to substantiate medical negligence. Dennis has also been an appointed member of the New Jersey Supreme Court's Committee on Model Civil Jury charges for the last 10 years.
Dennis says that his frequent lecturing means that he is continually perfecting his craft: "Teaching any subject well means that you have to be on the cutting edge." In 2001, he was given The Civil Trial Attorney Achievement Award from the Essex County Bar Association, and also received the Pioneers Award from CCJ, The Consumers for Civil Justice (http://www.njccj.org/index.htm), for his work in securing justice for consumers injured by bad products or bad medicine.
In seminars in throughout the United States, and in , Montreal, and London, Dennis has demonstrated the use of the internet and of computer presentations, which help plaintiff's lawyers prove substandard medical care and defects in car design to hundreds of lawyers who turned out to hear his expertise at each site. Dennis also regularly publishes articles in national legal publications on medical malpractice and trial tactics and on his two sub-specialties: failures in prenatal diagnosis and design defects which make cars dangerous and unsafe.
A graduate of Rutgers University Law School (J.D. 1981), he also holds advanced degrees in English literature (New York University M.A. 1973, A.B.D. 1978). Prior to becoming a lawyer, Dennis was a university English professor. Dennis is fluent in Spanish. In 2009 Dennis was honored to be named by Irish America Magazine as one of the top 100 attorneys in America of Irish decent, and, in 2015 he was honored to be the recipient of the Trial Bar Award from the Trial Attorneys of New Jersey.
Coming soon ...