De Caro & Kapen, LLP: Press & Media Center
De Caro & Kaplen, LLP, welcomes press and blogger inquiries and is available to comment on all aspects of brain injury law, personal injuries, medical malpractice, and all types of accident law. The partners are also available for comment on the ongoing NFL and NHL concussion lawsuits, proposed legislation for youth tackle football, and concussion in youth sports.
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About De Caro & Kaplen, LLP
De Caro & Kaplen, LLP is a nationally recognized New York personal injury law firm with a special emphasis on traumatic brain injury cases. The firm’s partners, Shana De Caro and Michael V. Kaplen represent victims of brain injury caused by motor vehicle accidents, truck and bus crashes, premises and construction accidents, and medical malpractice in their struggle to receive just and fair compensation.
Preferred lawyers Brain Injury Association of America, Best Law Firm (US News and World Report)
Michael V. Kaplen is a senior partner in the New York personal injury law firm, De Caro & Kaplen, LLP. His practice focuses on personal injury and medical malpractice with an emphasis on representing individuals who have sustained a traumatic or acquired brain injury and other catastrophic injuries.
Memberships
Past president, Brain Injury Association of New York State
Chair, New York State Traumatic Brain Injury Services Coordinating Council
Past chair, American Association for Justice, Motor Vehicle, Highway and Premises Liability Section
Past chair, American Association for Justice, Traumatic Brain Injury Litigation Group
Past member Board of Directors: New York State Academy of Trial Lawyers
Board of Governors: American Board of Professional Liability Attorneys
Awards
Public Policy Award, Brain Injury Association of New York State “to champions of legislation, regulations, and other policies which promote equal access to services, community re-entry, inclusion, and acceptance of persons with brain injury and their families.”
New York Super Lawyers: 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019
Top 100 New York Trial Lawyers, National Trial Lawyers Association
Trial Lawyers for Public Justice, Public Justice Achievement Award for Pro Bono Representation of 9/11 Victims
Founder’s Award, Brain Injury Association of New York State
Who’s Who in America
Best Lawyers 2019, 2020
Shana De Caro is a senior partner in the New York personal injury law firm, De Caro & Kaplen, LLP. Her practice focuses on personal injury and medical malpractice with an emphasis on representing individuals who have sustained a traumatic or acquired brain injury and other catastrophic injuries.
Memberships
Officer and member of the Board of Directors, Brain Injury Association of America
Secretary, Civil Justice Foundation
Board of Trustees, Civil Justice Foundation
Advisory Board, Acquired Brain Injury Program, The George Washington University, Washington, D.C., Graduate School of Education and Human Development
Past Chair, Traumatic Brain Injury Litigation Group, American Association for Justice
Awards
New York Super Lawyers 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019
President’s Award, New York State Academy of Trial Lawyers
Top 25 Brain Injury Lawyers, American Trial Lawyers Association
Top 100 New York Trial Lawyers, American Trial Lawyers Association
Top Women Attorneys in Metro New York
Trial Lawyers for Public Justice, Public Justice Achievement Award for Pro Bono Representation of 9/11 Victims
Million Dollar Advocates Forum
Multi-Million Dollar Advocates Forum
De Caro & Kaplen Logo
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The Invisible Rain Cloud
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Living With A Stranger
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The Concussion Delivery System
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Attorney Michael Kaplen, who teaches a course on traumatic brain injury at George Washington University, said that allowing young children to participate in organized tackle football “is the equivalent of playing Russian roulette.”
“Evidence continues to accumulate that children who engage in tackle football have a greater risk of sustaining a life-altering brain injury,” Kaplen told members of the committee chaired by Assemblyman Richard N. Gottfried.
Michael Kaplen, Associated Press (10/30/2019)
“It might also give us some further insight into what the NFL knew, and should have known, that has been hidden from public view,” Kaplen said. “The public has a right to know about all of this. It doesn’t only affect NFL players.”
Michael Kaplen, Law360 (05/15/2019)
“The NFL and other organizations have launched an effective publicity campaign to convince public officials, educators and parents that football can be made safe,” Kaplen says. “This is based on distortion and misinformation designed to deceive those concerned with the health and safety of children who engage in tackle football.”
Michael Kaplen, Family Minded (03/21/2019)
Attorney Michael Kaplen of De Caro & Kaplen LLP, who specializes in traumatic brain injury cases, called the amounts that could go to the NHL players "extraordinarily low." "What bothers me is that amount does not recognize the seriousness of this type of injury," Kaplen said. "Anyone who has a brain injury will have lifelong consequences, and this type of settlement in no way, shape or form recognizes the seriousness, and in some ways minimizes it."
Michael Kaplen, Law360 (11/14/2018)
De Caro & Kaplen's youth tackle football portal cited by The New York Times.
(09/21/2018)
“That principle of law might cause liability to attach to them in a variety of different cases because plaintiffs attorneys will be able to look to this particular case and say a jury made a decision on certain issues against the NCAA even if at the end of the day they find no causation in this particular factual circumstance between the NCAA’s conduct and the ultimate death of this man,”
Michael Kaplen, Law360 (06/24/2018)
“If this gets out to the public it would be a Pandora’s box, it will be the NFL’s worst nightmare coming true,” said Michael Kaplen, a trial attorney specializing in traumatic brain injury, and who filed briefs several years ago opposing the NFL concussion settlement on behalf of the Brain Injury Association of America. “That’s why they settled the case with the players to begin with because they didn’t want to release this type of documentation.”
Michael Kaplen, BizJournals (04/13/2018)
Michael Kaplen, a Pleasantville, New York-based attorney for the Brain Injury Association of America, is not surprised by the players’ growing uneasiness about the settlement.
“It’s playing out exactly as I predicted,” Kaplen said.
In October 2016, Kaplen wrote a brief to the Supreme Court asking the country’s ultimate judiciary to take a look at a settlement that, according to Kaplen, “neither recognizes nor compensates the majority of players suffering the long-term consequences of brain trauma.”
Michael Kaplen, Newsday (04/01/2018)
“It’s played out the way I anticipated,” Kaplen said in an interview. “These players are beginning to wake up and understand the settlement is a fraud. The majority of players who deserve compensation are not going to get compensation.”
Michael Kaplen, Washington Post (03/20/2018)
“As a result of the missing stop sign, the vehicle in which Oddetth and Kaiden were passengers was struck by another vehicle,” Davidson’s lawyer, Michael Kaplen, said.
Michael Kaplen, New York Post (02/01/2018)
“It’s my understanding that he wasn’t happy with his golfing that day and he let the club swing right out of his hand,” Kaplen said. “He says, ‘Godd—-t, I’m not having a good day.”
Michael Kaplen, New York Daily News (01/23/2018)
“The gentleman we’re suing wasn’t particularly pleased with his performance,” Touhey’s attorney Michael Kaplen said, in a gross understatement.
Michael Kaplen, New York Post (01/23/2018)
Michael Kaplen, a New York City malpractice lawyer and member of the American Board of Professional Liability Attorneys, said that if doctors were choosing not to practice in the Bronx, financial considerations, not malpractice claims, were most likely the reason.
Michael Kaplen, New York Times (12/15/2017)
“Football is a concussion-delivery system. You cannot make it safe because after any hit, the brain is moving within the skull,” says Kaplen. “There is no such thing as safe tackling. This whole focus on CTE — while troubling in terms of the nature of the disease — is misdirected in terms of the problem. The problem is repetitive head trauma, where CTE is one of many end results. Repetitive hits cause brain damage.”
Michael Kaplen, New York Daily News (11/07/2017)
“I’m concerned about injured players being victimized again by unscrupulous money lenders posing as concerned friends,” said Michael Kaplen, a lawyer and a former chairman of the New York State Traumatic Brain Injury Services Coordinating Council. “Protections need to be put in place by their attorneys, who purportedly are representing their interests.”
Michael Kaplen, The New York Times (02/07/2017)
“It wasn’t unexpected,” Michael Kaplen, the past president of the Brain Injury Association of New York and an attorney specializing in brain injury cases, said of the Supreme Court’s decision. “But what you will see is players realizing they are not going to receive anything. Their lawyers are going to have to explain how their clients were hoodwinked into thinking this was such a great settlement.”
Michael Kaplen, New York Daily News (12/12/2016)
“It wasn’t unexpected,” Michael Kaplen, the past president of the Brain Injury Association of New York and an attorney specializing in brain injury cases, said of the Supreme Court’s decision. “But what you will see is players realizing they are not going to receive anything. Their lawyers are going to have to explain how their clients were hoodwinked into thinking this was such a great settlement.”
One of the problems of the settlement, Kaplen says, is that if an NFL player is diagnosed with the crippling, degenerative brain disease, chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), after the date of the settlement, he would not be entitled to benefits. “They will get nothing,” said Kaplen. “There is going to be a revolution when guys realize they’re getting nothing. It will be interesting to watch the claims resolution process. It’s stacked against these players.”
Michael Kaplen, New York Daily News (12/12/2016)
George Washington University Law School’s Michael V. Kaplen, who specializes in the legal issues surrounding brain injury, told the New York Daily News that Trump’s dismissal of the concussion protocol “demeans and disparages people with brain injuries.” Each year, 2 million people in the United States suffer from a brain injury, he said.
Michael Kaplen, The Washington Post (10/13/2016)
“It’s a constant battle that really defaults every step of the way to the legal profession to handle on behalf of the millions of people who get injured,” Kaplen told his students last month. “The legal profession becomes in one way or another the champion because nobody else is there to do it. The lawyer has to become the doctor, has to become the social worker, has to become the neuroscientist and put that together for the individual.”
Michael Kaplen, The New York Times (04/13/2014)
The NFL, Kaplen says, still has a long way to go when it comes to head injuries.
"Let's give him his due," Kaplen says of Goodell. "But don't forget that the NFL was disingenuous for a long time when it came to brain injuries - and that is being kind. They denied what everybody knew about brain injuries and long-term health problems for years. They were like the tobacco companies denying the dangers of smoking."
Local expert says NFL, Roger Goodell have 'moral responsibility' to protect players from concussions
Michael Kaplen, New York Daily News (10/23/2010)
Featured In
Press Releases
- 10/28/2019: ‘Football Is a Concussion Delivery System’ - New York Brain Injury Lawyer Urges Lawmakers To Adopt Tackle Football Bill
- 10/03/2019: California Student Who “Surpassed The Odds” Wins Traumatic Brain Injury Scholarship Award
- 09/19/2019: Concussion Awareness Day: New York Brain Injury Lawyers Highlight “Extreme” Forces In Football
- 07/24/2019: New Video Highlights What It's Like To Be The Spouse Of A Brain Injury Survivor
- 02/05/2019: New York Attorneys Provide Complimentary “Reminder Pads” For Brain Injury Survivors In The USA
- 01/09/2019: New Animated Video Explains “What It’s Like To Live With A Brain Injury” (download PDF)
- 10/03/2018: Brain Injury Law Firm, De Caro & Kaplen LLP Announce 2018 Traumatic Brain Injury Scholarship Winner (download PDF)
- 09/21/2018: On National Concussion Awareness Day, New York Attorneys Write Open Letter To Parents Of Children Involved In Sports (download PDF)
- 09/12/2018: Tackle Football Legislation Must Not Be Kicked Out of Play, Say New York Brain Injury Lawyers (download PDF)
- 08/22/2018: Traumatic Brain Injury An “Urgent Public Health Crisis”, Warn New York Brain Injury Attorneys (download PDF)
- 06/07/2018: Loris Karius Woes Highlight Need for Greater Awareness of Concussion in Sports, Say New York Brain Injury Attorneys (download PDF)
- 05/25/2018: Deadline Approaching For $1,000 Traumatic Brain Injury Scholarship Applications (download PDF)
- 05/17/2018: With Epilepsy on The Rise, Thousands of Americans Are Turning To The Internet For Advice (download PDF)
- 05/01/2018: New York Attorneys Hail Success of Brain Injury ID Card Initiative, But Seek To Help More Survivors (download PDF)
- 03/02/2018: Youth Tackle Football Ban:, New York Attorneys Launch ‘One-Stop Portal’ For Tracking Legislation In All States (download PDF)
- 01/17/2018: De Caro & Kaplen Announce Introduction Of Free Personalized Brain Injury Identification Card (download PDF)
- 12/19/2017: Brain Injury Association of America (BIAA) Announces Year End Appeal To Help Support Survivors Of Traumatic Brain Injury (download PDF)
- 09/05/2017: Press Release: De Caro & Kaplen LLP Announce 2017 Traumatic Brain Injury Scholarship Winner (download PDF)
Contact Information
De Caro & Kaplen, LLP
427 Bedford Road, Suite 360
Pleasantville, NY 10570
t: (914) 747-4410
e: press@brainlaw.com