Kathy O'Donnell

O’Donnell Law Firm

Kathy O'Donnell Personal Injury Lawyer

O’Donnell Law Firm

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Firm Summary

For over thirty years, Kathy O’Donnell has been an advocate for consumers both in and out of the courtroom. She concentrates her practice in all aspects of serious personal injury litigation, including construction site accidents, medical malpractice, automobile collisions, liquor liability, premises liability, and falls on snow and ice. She also represents people in their worker’s compensation cases. A trial attorney with a proven record of success in the courtroom, her advocacy skills draw on her commitment to making a difference for her clients and the community at large. Kathy works for people not for corporations. She has taken on insurance companies, big businesses, cities, and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

A frequent lecturer and published writer, Kathy has held executive and leadership positions with major legal associations in Massachusetts. She is past President of the Massachusetts Bar Association, the Massachusetts Academy of Trial Attorneys, and the Greater Lowell Bar Association. She was listed by the Massachusetts Lawyer’s Weekly in 1995 as one of the top ten lawyers in Massachusetts and in 1997 as one of the twenty-five most influential lawyers in Massachusetts between 1972 and 1997. The National Law Journal also named her one of the twelve most influential lawyers in Massachusetts in 2000. In 1996 and 1997 the American Association of Justice (an organization with 60,000 members) awarded her the prestigious Weidemann Wysocki Citation of Excellence for her commitment to the civil justice system. She has been listed by Boston Magazine as a Massachusetts Super Lawyer since 2004 in the category of Best of Boston Personal Injury. Kathy was the first female member of the Massachusetts Chapter of the American Board of Trial Advocates and she has been listed consistently in Who’s Who in America, Who’s Who in American Law, Who’s Who of American Women, and Who’s Who in the East. Kathy’s peers have given her the highest rating established by Martindale Hubbell’s Legal Directory. This rating is only given to lawyers and law firms which are considered to have a very high to pre-eminent legal ability and who are thought to embrace very high professional standards.

Lawyers and law firms from throughout the country seek Kathy’s advice on cases they are handling and on trial and insurance issues. Kathy has been asked to speak to Congress and to numerous state legislatures about auto insurance issues and about the impact changes to automobile laws will have on consumers and on people hurt in automobile collisions.

Kathy has been involved in many community activities and after September 11, 2001 she led the effort of the Massachusetts Bar Association to ensure that civil rights and civil liberties would not be curtailed in the aftermath of the attack and she worked with other organizations in urging citizens throughout the Commonwealth to adopt a resolution opposing those parts of the U.S.A. Patriot Act and related Federal Executive Orders which curtailed civil rights and civil liberties. During her tenure at the Massachusetts Bar Association, Kathy urged that organization to file an Amicus Brief in the Goodridge case (the decision of the highest Court in Massachusetts which recognized the legality of same-sex marriage) and, as MBA President, she appointed a task force to ensure that all laws impacted by that decision were changed.