About Our Pennsylvania Medical Negligence Attorneys

Most people who call this firm did not set out to find a lawyer. They set out to find an answer — about a surgery that went wrong, a diagnosis that arrived too late, a baby who was fine on the monitor and then was not. The lawyer part comes later, once it becomes clear that nobody at the hospital is going to explain it.

John A. Caputo & Associates, P.C. is a small Pittsburgh firm that handles those cases. Two attorneys — John A. Caputo and Elizabeth L. Jenkins — have spent many years on medical negligence, birth injuries, catastrophic injury, and serious trucking collisions, in Allegheny County and across Pennsylvania.

We are not a volume practice and we are not trying to become one. We take a limited number of cases, we commit to them completely, and we try them when the alternative is accepting less than a family deserves.

What follows is how the firm works — what we take, what we turn down, where we go, and what any of it costs you. The short answer to that last one is nothing, unless we win.

What Kind of Firm Is John A. Caputo & Associates?

John A. Caputo & Associates, P.C. is a small Pittsburgh firm concentrating on medical negligence and catastrophic injury. Two trial attorneys handle the work, the firm accepts a limited number of cases, and most of those cases arrive as referrals from other lawyers rather than from advertising.

The referral point says something advertising cannot. When a lawyer who does not handle medical cases gets one — an attorney whose client’s mother died after a missed diagnosis, a family lawyer whose client’s baby was injured at delivery — that case has to go somewhere. It goes to a firm the referring lawyer has watched work, or heard about from someone who has.

That is where most of our cases come from. The rest come from former clients and their families.

The firm’s structure follows from that. Two attorneys. A limited docket. No assembly line, and no reason to take a case we cannot pursue properly.

Who Are the Firm’s Attorneys?

John A. Caputo founded the firm, and Elizabeth L. Jenkins is a partner and senior litigator. Both earned their law degrees at Duquesne University School of Law, both have spent many years on medical negligence cases, and both personally handle the matters the firm accepts.

• John A. Caputo — founder of the firm. He has taught trial advocacy as an adjunct professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, served on the Disciplinary Board Hearing Committee of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, and led the Academy of Trial Lawyers of Allegheny County as its president.
• Elizabeth L. Jenkins — partner and senior litigator. A Pittsburgh native, she has built her career almost entirely on medical negligence, and she is a member of the Allegheny County and Pennsylvania Bar Associations, the American Association for Justice, and the Pennsylvania and Western Pennsylvania Trial Lawyers Associations.

Both attorneys are graduates of Duquesne University School of Law in Pittsburgh. Two attorneys is not a limitation. It is the reason a case does not get handed to an associate you have never met.

What Cases Do We Take, and What Do We Turn Down?

We handle:

• Medical negligence — surgical error, missed or delayed diagnosis, medication error, emergency department failures, and infections that went unrecognized
• Birth injuries — cerebral palsy, hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy, Erb’s palsy and other brachial plexus injuries, and oxygen deprivation during labor and delivery
• Catastrophic injury — brain injury, paralysis, and amputation caused by negligent care
• Wrongful death — death claims and survival actions arising from negligent care or a fatal collision
• Trucking collisions — catastrophic crashes involving commercial vehicles

Where Do We Handle Cases in Pennsylvania?

Allegheny County is home, and the firm has tried cases throughout Western Pennsylvania — including Butler, Armstrong, Beaver, Westmoreland, Washington, and Fayette counties. For a case that warrants it, we will travel anywhere in the Commonwealth, from Erie and Crawford in the northwest to Harrisburg and the counties east of it.

Our office is in the Grant Building on Grant Street, a few minutes’ walk from where the Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas hears civil cases.

That proximity matters less than it once did. Pennsylvania changed its venue rules for medical cases in January 2023, and healthcare defendants now sit under the same rules as everyone else — which can mean a health system operating across a dozen counties is answerable in more than one of them.

Where we have litigated or tried cases:

• Allegheny County — Pittsburgh and the surrounding communities, including Penn Hills, Plum, Mount Lebanon, Upper St. Clair, Bethel Park, and Sewickley
• The surrounding counties — Beaver, Butler, Westmoreland, Washington, Fayette, and Armstrong. Over the years, the firm has achieved the largest injury and death awards in Centre, Mercer, Lawrence and Washington Counties which were surpassed years thereafter, but currently have achieved the highest verdicts in Butler and Armstrong Counties which are still the record.
• Northwestern Pennsylvania — Erie, Crawford, and Venango
• Central Pennsylvania and beyond — Blair County and Cambria County

Trying a case in Butler or Armstrong is not the same as trying one downtown. The jury pool is different, the pace is different, and we have done both.

Who Will Actually Handle My Case?

One of the firm’s two attorneys. When you call, you speak with a lawyer rather than an intake coordinator, and the attorney who reviews your case is the attorney who handles it. Cases here are not passed down to associates or managed by staff you never meet.

This is the part of a law firm’s About page that is usually a slogan. Here it is arithmetic. There are two attorneys, and there is no one else for your case to go to.

Our attorneys personally review every potential case — including the calls that turn out not to be cases. That is deliberate. What seems obvious from a hospital bed is often not what the records show, and sorting that out cannot be done from an intake script.

How Does the Firm Get Paid?

On a contingency fee. There is no charge for the consultation, no retainer, and no fee unless we recover compensation for you. We advance the costs of preparing a case — records, medical experts, depositions — and we do not ask a family to fund the litigation.

The contingency fee gets described often and explained rarely. What it means in practice:

• You pay nothing to have your case looked at. No retainer, no hourly rate, no consultation fee.
• If we take the case, we fund it. Records, expert review, depositions, trial preparation — all advanced by the firm.
• Our fee is a percentage of any recovery, agreed in writing before any work begins.
• If there is no recovery, you owe nothing — and the money we advanced is gone.

That arrangement exists for a reason. A family that just lost a parent, or that is now caring for a permanently injured child, cannot fund years of litigation against a health system. Without a contingency fee, most of these cases would never be brought.

It also puts our judgment on the line. We are paid only if we were right about the case.

Contact Our Pennsylvania Medical Negligence Attorneys

If you believe you or someone in your family was harmed by negligent medical care, call us. John Caputo and Elizabeth Jenkins will talk with you about it — not an intake coordinator, and not a screening service.

Call 412-391-4990 for a free consultation, or reach us online. Our attorneys personally review every potential case, and we represent clients throughout Pittsburgh, Allegheny County, Western Pennsylvania, and across the Commonwealth.

We work on a contingency fee basis. You pay nothing unless we recover compensation for you.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do I Have to Pay Anything to Have My Case Reviewed?

Nothing. The consultation is free, and we work on a contingency fee — no fee unless we recover compensation for you. We advance the costs of preparing a case, including records and medical experts, so a family is not asked to fund the litigation. The fee is agreed in writing before any work begins.

Will I Speak With an Attorney or With Intake Staff?

An attorney. Our attorneys personally review every potential case, and the lawyer who reviews yours is the lawyer who would handle it. The firm has two attorneys and no intake department, which is less a policy than a consequence of its size.

Does the Firm Take Cases Outside the Pittsburgh Area?

Yes. Allegheny County is home, and we have litigated or tried cases across Western Pennsylvania — Beaver, Butler, Westmoreland, Washington, Fayette, and Armstrong counties among them — as well as in Erie and central Pennsylvania. For a case that warrants it, we will travel anywhere in the Commonwealth. Whether we can take a matter depends on its facts.

What if I Am Not Sure Whether What Happened Was Negligence?

Most callers are not sure, and that is the normal starting point rather than a problem. Not every bad outcome is negligence — medicine carries real risk, and some harm happens despite careful care. The distinction generally turns on whether the provider met the accepted standard of care, and the only reliable way to answer that is to have the records reviewed. It costs you nothing.

What Should I Bring to a First Consultation?

Whatever you have, and no more. Discharge summaries, test results, and operative reports help if you have them, along with a written timeline as you remember it. You do not need a complete file — we can obtain records directly. What matters most is being able to describe what happened and what it has cost you.