Richard A. Silver

A former president of the Connecticut Trial Lawyers Association, Mr. Silver currently serves on its board and co-chairs its Medical Malpractice Committee.  He is also past president of the Connecticut Chapter of the American Board of Trial Advocates, a prestigious organization of Connecticut plaintiff and defense trial attorneys.

Mr. Silver has taught trial practice at Yale Law School and is on the advisory boards of both the Quinnipiac Law School and Quinnipiac Medical School.  He has served as chairman of the Judicial Selection Commission, which is charged with the selection of new judges and reappointment of sitting judges.  He has also served as a case evaluator for other attorneys’ cases on behalf of the Connecticut Trial Lawyers Association.  Mr. Silver has served as a special master for the federal and state courts in Connecticut.

He has authored numerous articles and lectured extensively for the Connecticut Trial Lawyers Association on medical malpractice, proving damages, products liability, structured settlements, business torts and commercial litigation.

In 2008, Mr. Silver, together with his partner, Angelo Ziotas, obtained the largest jury verdict at that time in a medical malpractice action in Connecticut history when a Stamford jury awarded his clients $38.5 million to compensate a young boy who suffered severe neurological injuries during childbirth.

Mr. Silver has accomplished many significant and groundbreaking results for his clients.  He was trial counsel in the case of Katsetos v. Nolan, a decision affirmed by the Connecticut Supreme Court, which, at the time, was the highest death verdict in the state of Connecticut.  The Katsetos case is frequently cited as authority in medical malpractice cases.

A number of years later, Mr. Silver won a $3.6 million verdict in Pisel v. Stamford Hospital, the first verdict greater than $1 million in the state of Connecticut.  He routinely obtains some of the largest jury verdicts and settlements in Connecticut, including the following:

• An $11.8 million settlement for a 49-year-old father of three young children who suffered brain damage in a motor vehicle accident
• A $10 million settlement for his clients in a medical malpractice case involving a misdiagnosis and resulting in brain damage of an infant
• A $9 million settlement for his clients in a medical malpractice case involving birth trauma
• A $16.7 million settlement for his clients in a medical malpractice case resulting in permanent brain damage of a woman as a result of an anesthesiologist’s failure to properly monitor vital signs during the cesarean section delivery of her first child
• A $13.2 million settlement for his clients in a medical malpractice case involving a 35-year-old woman with three children who sustained brain damage during a routine tubal ligation procedure
• A $5 million verdict to a cancer patient and her husband for her doctor’s failure to warn her she had an increased risk of developing ovarian cancer

Mr. Silver has also obtained many multimillion-dollar verdicts and settlements for clients who have been severely injured in serious accidents.  He was lead counsel, for example, in the Mianus River Bridge collapse cases.

• Connecticut Trial Lawyers Association (President, 1991-1992; Board of Governors, 1977-present; Co-Chairman, Medical Malpractice Committee)
• American Board of Trial Advocates (President, Connecticut Chapter, 1994-1996)
• The American Law Institute (Member, 1992-present)
• The American Association for Justice (Member, 1993-present)