Portland, Oregon Medical Malpractice Lawyer Resources

Medical malpractice is the hardest kind of personal injury case to win, and in Portland, where the major health systems employ armies of in-house defense counsel and the expert witnesses on both sides tend to know each other, it is harder still. Oregon law does not make it any easier: plaintiffs must prove that a provider breached the standard of care, that the breach caused identifiable harm, and that the harm produced measurable damages, usually through expert testimony from a qualified physician. Any one of those three pieces, missing or weak, can sink an otherwise sympathetic case.

The cases I see most often in Portland involve delayed or missed cancer diagnoses, surgical errors, medication errors in hospital settings, birth injuries, and failures to escalate care when a patient's condition was clearly deteriorating. Oregon's statute of limitations for medical malpractice is generally two years from the date the injury was discovered or reasonably should have been discovered, with a longer outside statute of repose. Claims against public hospitals or providers employed by public entities, for example OHSU, are further constrained by the Oregon Tort Claims Act, which imposes a short notice requirement and caps on damages that private defendants do not face.

I am George Goldberg, founding partner of Goldberg & Loren. In more than 32 years and over 20,000 injury cases, with a 98% success rate, I have learned that medical malpractice cases are won or lost on the quality of the medical experts you can put in front of a jury, not on the emotional strength of the story. My firm works with experienced physician reviewers and is selective about the cases we take, which means when we take a case, we are committed to it.

Below you will find our Portland-focused medical malpractice resources and the questions we hear most often in initial consultations. If you believe you or a family member has been harmed by a Portland-area doctor, nurse, or hospital, call our Portland office at (971) 339-8080 or our toll-free line at 1-888-352-9243. All consultations are free and confidential. Our Portland office is at 6500 S Macadam Ave Ste 380, Portland, OR 97239.