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Stephanie O'Connor
Stephanie O'Connor, a Registered Nurse and trial attorney, brings to Douglas & London, P.C. a unique combination of legal skills and medical background that blend well with the law firm's various practice areas. Ms. O'Connor has been representing plaintiffs in complex medical malpractice and drug/medical device cases for over fifteen years.
Prior to entering law school she had attended the Beth Israel School of Nursing and upon graduation she worked for several years as a Medical Surgical nurse in an ICU "step-down" unit at Beth Israel Medical Center in lower Manhattan. Thereafter, Ms. O'Connor attended Hunter College of the City of New York (CUNY) where she obtained her Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) degree cum laude. Ms. O'Connor is a graduate of the Fordham University School of Law in New York City from which she obtained her Juris doctor degree in 1988.
Since the outset of her career, Ms. O'Connor has focused on the representation of individuals injured as a result of medical malpractice, defective drugs and negligently manufactured medical devices. She has litigated large numbers of cases involving women who became infertile as a result of having had the Dalkon Shield, an intrauterine device designed to prevent pregnancy, implanted in the uterus. Numerous cases that were filed against A.H. Robins, a drug company that declared bankruptcy in the 1980s, proceeded through the bankruptcy court in Virginia, where Ms. O'Connor obtained large settlements or awards following arbitration. Ms. O'Connor has also litigated numerous Diethylstilbestrol (DES) cases in the New York State consolidated DES proceeding pending before Justice Ira Gammerman in the New York State Supreme Court, and the consolidated DES litigation pending before U.S. District Court Judge Jack B. Weinstein in the Eastern District in Brooklyn, New York.
Ms. O'Connor has significant experience in litigating mass torts, most notably, the numerous cases that were filed against the manufacturers of silicone breast implants as well as the physicians who implanted them. She was for several years a member of the New York State Breast Implant Steering Committee in the consolidated breast implant litigation in New York. In addition to representing individuals herself through her former employment with The Sybil Shainwald Law Office, she was responsible through her work on the steering committee for reporting back to the court, arguing motions and generally representing the interests of all women in New York State who had been injured by these defective implants.
Ms. O'Connor was also involved in the national MDL Fen-phen (diet drug) litigation and appeared several times in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania to represent the interests of persons injured by harmful diet drugs.
An area of special interest and expertise for Ms. O'Connor is women's reproductive health law. Ms. O'Connor has handled a series of cases at the national level involving injuries due to early invasive pre-natal diagnostic testing called Chorionic Villus Sampling (CVS), a procedure that can be done far sooner in pregnancy than the more traditional procedure of amniocentesis. Tragically, it was discovered that the CVS test, which had been designed to detect fetal abnormalities, was actually causing serious deformities in certain children exposed to the procedure while their mothers were pregnant. Ms. O'Connor has been admitted pro hac vice in a number of jurisdictions, including Illinois, California and Minnesota, because of her special expertise in handling these cases, and she was successful in obtaining multi-million dollar awards for children who were born with missing or shortened fingers and toes.
Ms. O'Connor conducts trials regularly in all of the New York State Courts. Most recently, she obtained a one-million dollar verdict in Buffalo for a child who nearly died after developing severe liver and kidney failure following the administration of two powerful antibiotics. While the doctor attempted to cast blame on other parties, the jury held the doctor responsible for his own inaction in failing to properly recommend testing and monitoring.
Ms. O'Connor is a member of the American Trial Lawyers' Association (ATLA) and was a former co-chair of the Chronic Villa Sampling (CVS) Litigation Group. She is also a member of the New York State Trial Lawyer's Association (NYSLTA) and the Association of the Bar of the City of New York.
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