New Orleans Medical Malpractice Lawyer
Before you sign anything or accept an explanation from a hospital, there is a decision worth making carefully: whether the harm you or a family member suffered in a New Orleans medical setting deserves a lawyer who knows how these cases are built. Lunsford, Baskin & Priebe PLLC is a law firm representing injured people across Mississippi and South Louisiana, with a practice centered on workers’ compensation and a personal injury practice that reaches into serious, medically complicated cases. If you are searching for a New Orleans medical malpractice lawyer, you should know how the firm approaches medical evidence and where its practice does and does not fit your situation.
A bad outcome and a negligent outcome are not the same thing, and that distinction drives every malpractice claim. Surgery can go wrong without anyone breaking the standard of care. A diagnosis can be missed because the disease was hiding, or because a test that should have been ordered never was. Sorting one from the other takes medical records, qualified physician review, and a clear timeline, and the clock on a Louisiana claim starts running earlier than most families expect.
The firm’s day-to-day work is proving what happened to a body, and why, to insurance carriers who would prefer a different explanation. That skill carries directly into cases where the question is what a provider should have done and did not.
Why Choose Lunsford, Baskin & Priebe for a Medical Injury Case
Lunsford, Baskin & Priebe PLLC represents injured people throughout Mississippi and South Louisiana, including New Orleans, Baton Rouge, Lafayette, Lake Charles, and Shreveport. The firm has recovered more than $100 million in settlements for clients. Consultations are free, the firm advances the costs of the case, and there is no fee unless it recovers for you. Phones are answered 24 hours a day, and Spanish-speaking clients are served in their own language.
The people behind that record matter. Rob Lunsford, Founding Partner, has spent his entire legal career representing injured workers. Partners Brad Baskin and Jennifer Priebe have been recognized by Best Lawyers, Super Lawyers, and The National Trial Lawyers, and the firm was ranked by Best Law Firms in 2026 for Workers’ Compensation Law, Claimants, in Jackson. Andrew Rueff has successfully tried dozens of jury and bench trials to verdict and has argued personal injury and insurance cases before state appellate courts. Keaton Belk and Erin Heimlicher round out the attorney team.
Several of the firm’s results involve exactly the kind of proof a medical case demands: a $685,000 settlement for a surgical tech with a lower back injury, $600,000 for a construction worker with a complex back injury, $385,000 for a project manager injured when his work vehicle was struck, and $221,000 for a land-based oil rig worker with severe burns. In each, the case turned on medical causation, treatment records, and the fight over what an injury would cost someone for years. Clients consistently describe a team that listens, communicates, and stays with them through the insurer’s pushback.
The firm’s practice is built around injured people and the medical evidence behind their claims. Before any engagement, the attorneys evaluate whether your situation fits their practice, and they will tell you plainly if another kind of lawyer is the better choice for the claim you describe.
Situations That Lead to Medical Negligence Claims
- Surgical Errors: Operating on the wrong site, leaving an instrument behind, or injuring a nerve or organ during a routine procedure. Spine and orthopedic surgery produce some of the most consequential disputes, because a failed back surgery can end a working life.
- Missed or Delayed Diagnosis: Cancer, stroke, heart attack, and infection are the classic examples. The question is whether a reasonably careful provider would have ordered the test or referred the patient sooner, and whether earlier action would have changed the outcome.
- Medication and Prescribing Errors: Wrong drug, wrong dose, ignored allergies, or dangerous interactions that a pharmacist or physician should have caught.
- Birth Injuries: Failure to respond to fetal distress, mishandled deliveries, or delayed cesarean decisions that leave a child with lasting harm.
- Anesthesia Errors: Monitoring lapses, dosing mistakes, and failure to prepare for a known airway risk.
- Emergency Room Failures: Patients discharged with unrecognized fractures, internal bleeding, or cardiac events. Crowded emergency departments are where short cuts tend to happen.
- Injuries Following a Work Accident: A worker hurt on the job may then be harmed again by negligent treatment. Comp benefits and a malpractice claim can exist side by side, and the two have to be coordinated carefully.
- Hospital-Acquired Conditions: Preventable infections, pressure injuries, and falls in a facility that failed to follow its own safety protocols.
What to Do After Suspected Medical Negligence in Louisiana
Start by getting your records, all of them. Request the complete chart from every provider and facility involved, including imaging, nursing notes, medication logs, and discharge paperwork. Write down a timeline while your memory is fresh: when symptoms began, who you saw, what you were told, and what changed afterward. Keep every bill, pharmacy receipt, and communication with the provider or its insurer.
Keep treating, preferably with a different provider. Your health comes first, and a second physician’s notes often become the most useful evidence about what the first one missed. Avoid signing releases or accepting a quick payment offered after an incident, and do not post about your treatment on social media.
Deadlines are where Louisiana cases are lost. Louisiana’s general rule for injury claims is a two-year period running from the day the injury or damage is sustained, for injuries on or after July 1, 2024. A wrongful death claim based on medical malpractice is limited to one year from the date of death. Louisiana medical malpractice claims also run through a separate statutory framework that has its own requirements, including a medical review panel process before suit in many cases, and the specifics of that framework should be confirmed with counsel before you rely on any date. Because earlier injuries fall under the former one-year period, the date of the injury matters enormously. Do not wait to find out which rule applies to you.
If you were hurt by treatment connected to a work injury, tell your workers’ compensation attorney right away. A negligent surgeon can complicate your comp claim, and the insurer will look for ways to blame the new problem on you. A lawyer who handles both can keep the two claims from working against each other. Cases arising in New Orleans are generally heard in the state courts in Orleans Parish, which falls within the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeal, and federal matters are heard in the Eastern District of Louisiana, which sits in New Orleans.
How Fault Is Weighed When You Share Some Blame
Defendants in medical cases often argue the patient contributed to the harm: ignored discharge instructions, skipped follow-ups, or failed to disclose a medical history. Louisiana now bars recovery entirely when a claimant is found 51 percent or more at fault, for causes of action arising on or after January 1, 2026, and below that threshold the award is reduced in proportion to the claimant’s share. Earlier causes of action remain under pure comparative fault. Jurors in a trial are told about the bar, which makes fault allocation one of the most contested issues in a case.
This is why the record matters so much. Complete charting, documented complaints, and consistent follow-up put you in the strongest position to answer the argument that you caused your own harm.
What an Attorney Actually Does in a Malpractice Case
The work starts long before any filing. An attorney gathers and organizes the records, identifies every provider and facility that touched the care, and finds qualified physicians to review whether the standard of care was breached and whether that breach caused the harm. Causation is often the harder half: a provider may have erred, yet the patient would have faced the same outcome anyway.
From there, the attorney documents damages, which in a serious case means future medical care, lost earning capacity, and the daily realities of living with the injury, not just the bills to date. The attorney handles communications with insurers and defense counsel, develops the medical narrative, and prepares the case for trial from the start, because settlement offers improve when the other side believes a case will actually be tried. For a client, that means one point of contact who understands the medicine and the procedure, so you are not trying to decode records while recovering.
Questions About New Orleans Medical Malpractice Claims
Does the firm handle medical malpractice cases?
The firm’s practice centers on workers’ compensation, with personal injury representation for car and truck accidents, premises liability, and wrongful death. If your situation involves medical negligence, call and describe what happened. The attorneys will tell you candidly whether it fits their practice or whether you should seek a lawyer who focuses on malpractice.
How much does it cost to talk to a lawyer?
Consultations are free. The firm advances case costs and is paid only if it recovers for you.
How long do I have to file a malpractice claim in Louisiana?
For injuries on or after July 1, 2024, Louisiana’s general period for injury claims is two years from the day the injury or damage is sustained. Earlier injuries fall under the former one-year period. Malpractice claims also involve additional statutory requirements, so confirm your specific deadline with an attorney immediately.
What is the deadline if a family member died because of medical negligence?
A wrongful death claim based on medical malpractice is limited to one year from the date of death. That is shorter than the window for many other wrongful death claims, so families should not wait.
Is a bad outcome the same as malpractice?
No. Malpractice requires that a provider fell below the accepted standard of care and that the lapse caused your harm. Complications happen even with careful treatment, which is why a physician review is part of evaluating any claim.
Can I still recover if I was partly at fault?
Often yes, but the rules have tightened. For causes of action arising on or after January 1, 2026, a claimant found 51 percent or more at fault recovers nothing, while a lower share reduces the award proportionally. Earlier claims remain under pure comparative fault.
My injury happened at work, and then a doctor made it worse. Do I have two claims?
Possibly. Your workers’ compensation benefits cover the original injury, and negligent treatment by a provider may support a separate claim. The two must be handled together, because settlements and credits in one can affect the other.
Will my workers’ comp benefits stop if I file a malpractice claim?
Filing a malpractice claim does not by itself end comp benefits, but insurers sometimes use the situation to dispute what caused your ongoing problems. Telling your comp attorney early helps head off that argument.
What evidence matters most in a case like this?
Complete medical records, a clear timeline, imaging, billing records, and expert physician review. Notes from a second provider who treated the consequences are often especially valuable.
Should I contact the hospital or the provider’s insurer myself?
It is better not to give recorded statements or sign releases before speaking with a lawyer. Insurers use early conversations to limit what they owe.
Can Spanish-speaking family members take part in the case?
Yes. The firm serves Spanish-speaking clients in their own language from the first call through the end of the case.
What if the harm was caused by a Mississippi provider?
The firm also represents injured people across Mississippi. Mississippi has its own rules, including a two-year limit for medical malpractice and a $500,000 cap on noneconomic damages in those cases, so the state where the care was given determines the framework.
Serving Injured Patients and Families Across New Orleans and South Louisiana
The firm represents clients throughout Orleans Parish and the greater New Orleans area, from the French Quarter, the Marigny, and the Garden District to Uptown, Mid-City, Gentilly, and New Orleans East. Families come to us from Algiers, Lakeview, the Lower Ninth Ward, and Bywater, and from across the river and the lake in neighboring Jefferson, St. Bernard, Plaquemines, and St. Tammany parishes. We also serve clients in Metairie, Kenner, Harahan, Gretna, and Slidell.
Our reach continues across South Louisiana into Baton Rouge, Lafayette, and Lake Charles, and north to Shreveport, as well as throughout Louisiana. In Mississippi, we serve Jackson, Madison, Hattiesburg, Southaven, the Gulf Coast, the Delta, and communities across north Mississippi. Wherever your care took place, we can review what happened.
Talk With a New Orleans Medical Malpractice Attorney Today
If you believe medical negligence changed your life or took someone you love, the time to act is now, not after the deadline has quietly passed. Call to speak with a New Orleans medical malpractice attorney at Lunsford, Baskin & Priebe PLLC. Our phones are answered 24 hours a day, the consultation is free, and you pay no fee unless we recover for you. Tell us what happened, and we will give you a straight answer about where you stand.
