De Caro & Kapen, LLP: Press & Media Center

As for the injured, while the diagnosis is a mild TBI, "there's nothing mild about a brain injury," Michael Kaplen, a brain injury lawyer and a lecturer at The George Washington University Law School, told Insider.


"The term mild is really a misnomer when it comes to traumatic brain injury," he explained. "It trivializes a very serious and significant injury."

The common use of the word "mild" to characterize a TBI has its genesis in the Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS), a basic tool for emergency trauma care which ranks head injuries as mild, moderate, and severe. "It has become misused to characterize what a brain injury is in terms of its consequences," Kaplen said.

Any brain injury can have certain troubling physical, cognitive, emotional and behavioral repercussions, some of which may last a lifetime.

Michael Kaplen, Business Insider (1/31/2020)

Michael Kaplen, chair of the New York State Traumatic Brain Injury Services Coordinating Council and past president of the Brain Injury Association of New York State said that he was “shocked at the ignorant statement” made by Trump at a press conference earlier today discussing traumatic brain injuries.

“To equate traumatic brain injuries as just a headache is insulting and disrespectful to the thousands of military service members suffering from the signature wound of the Iraq/Afghanistan conflict,”

Michael Kaplen, The Guardian (1/22/2020)

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.”

​Should Your Kid Play 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."

NHL Ends Concussion MDL With $19M Tentative Settlement

Michael Kaplen, Law360 (11/14/2018)

De  Caro & Kaplen's youth tackle football portal cited by The New York Times.

The Coach Says He’s ‘Built for Football.’ His Parents Worry About C.T.E.

(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,”

NCAA Avoids Adverse Verdict, Settles CTE Case Mid-Trial

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.”

Insurers ask for NFL concussion documents

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.”

NFL stalling on concussion payouts, ex-players say

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.”

Dementia claims in NFL concussion settlement are going unpaid, lawyers say

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.

Mom sues for $45M over missing stop sign that caused son’s crash

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.”

Woman files suit against golfer whose airborne club allegedly fractured her face

Michael Kaplen, New York Daily News (01/23/2018)