Debra A. Weinrich Associate

Drawing on her many years of clinical nursing experience, Debra Weinrich focuses her legal practice on medical malpractice defense.  She is responsible for developing and preparing all aspects of defense in complex medical malpractice litigation on behalf of a variety of healthcare clients, including physicians, nurses and other healthcare personnel, as well as hospitals, multi-site healthcare systems and physicians' practice groups. 

Debbie practiced as a Registered Nurse for approximately 10 years, principally in the area of Maternal-Newborn Services, and was certified in Inpatient Obstetrics.  Her nursing experience provides her with special skills and insight which are of great assistance to her healthcare clients.  Not only does she have clinical expertise which provides an advantage in the investigation, discovery and trial phases of litigation, she also has administrative nursing experience which provides further insight into the workings of a hospital setting.  

Healthcare clients and practitioners find Debra's involvement in cases extraordinarily helpful and reassuring.  While her clinical area of expertise was developed primarily as a Labor & Delivery nurse, Debra has handled many cases which span the broad healthcare spectrum including preparing defenses in adult and pediatric patient populations. 

Her caseload includes matters involving catastrophic injury and death with plaintiff demands in the tens of millions of dollars, as well as negligence cases stemming from obstetrical, emergency department, surgical, oncology and other specialty areas of practice. She has also assisted in defending Nursing Licensure cases.     

While in nursing school, Debra was inducted into the International Honor Society of Nursing, Sigma Theta Tau.  She maintains her nursing license in Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

Debra received a legal writing award, as well as a Pro Bono Service Award, while at Rutgers and served as Articles Editor for the Rutgers-Camden Journal of Law and Religion.

Representative Matters

• Assisted in obtaining a defense verdict in a case brought against an internal medicine specialist and a pulmonologist practicing at a major teaching hospital in Philadelphia; plaintiffs alleged a delay in diagnosis and treatment of an infection causing death
• Assisted in obtaining a defense verdict in Philadelphia County where plaintiffs alleged that an obstetrician improperly “stripped” a patient’s membranes which was alleged to have caused a neonatal Group Beta Strep infection and resultant injuries
• Assisted in obtaining a defense verdict in a case naming several midwives and nursing personnel in a suburban hospital, where it was alleged that the providers’ failure to ensure earlier delivery of an infant lead to its death
• Assisted in successful defense of an obstetrician in Lackawanna County where it was alleged that obstetrician’s failure to perform a cesarean section caused a brachial plexis injury and long term developmental injuries including Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder
• Assisted in reaching resolution of many matters via an Alternative Dispute Resolution format including cases involving catastrophic long term injuries and in cases involving  obstetrical, oncologic, surgical, neurosurgical, emergency, gastrointestinal, neonatology, radiology and other specialty areas of practice