Welcome to the Hughey Law Firm Nursing Home and Long Term Care Blog.  I am attorney Nathan Hughey. This site is going to contain information related to various aspects of litigation involving long term care litigation.  A large percentage of our practice at Hughey Law Firm consists of handling claims for victims of abuse or neglect at nursing homes, assisted living facilities (also known as community residential care facilities), adult day care centers, abuse or neglect coming from home health agencies, and hospital claims for victims of abuse or neglect. I began my career defending these places for six years, and I was a partner in a law firm that did so.

I had the opportunity to go out on my own and help people, and I left a six figure salary and the comfort of hourly

Hughey Law Firmbilling for zero salary and taking the risks associated with being a Plaintiff’s lawyer.  I now have the honor to represent people and families instead of corporations.  I made this switch because I care.  My partner, attorney Stuart Hudson, and I began working together in 2003, and he also formerly defended these type of cases.  He switched for the same reasons that I did, we love to help people.  All of these facilities and entities fail in many ways at providing the very care that they promise – to those persons most vulnerable and in need of care.

billing for zero salary and taking the risks associated with being a Plaintiff’s lawyer.  I now have the honor to represent people and families instead of corporations.  I made this switch because I care.  My partner, attorney Stuart Hudson, and I began working together in 2003, and he also formerly defended these type of cases.  He switched for the same reasons that I did, we love to help people.  All of these facilities and entities fail in many ways at providing the very care that they promise – to those persons most vulnerable and in need of care.

It seems that every day some new law firm advertises nursing home abuse or neglect.  I am not comparing our firm to any others, I am only stating that, if you take a look at our website, and you will see examples of many cases we have handled over the years.  We also have former clients, not paid actors, who will tell you what we have done for them.  We have Affidavits from some of the people we go against testifying to our firm, and to my legal ability and ethical standards.  Every case is different, as outlined on our site, and we cannot guarantee results.

I am rated by Martindale Hubbell as AV-Preeminent in legal ability for civil litigation and ethical standards.  This is as high as an attorney can be rated.  This is a real, true, rating system, based on the evaluations of other lawyers and includes judges on the ratings panels.  In fact, the vast majority of our nursing home cases are referred to us by other lawyers, who come to us for our legal ability and ethics.  I am

Nathan Hughey Client Distinction Award 2013 Recognized for Excellence

also proud that Hughey Law Firm recently received a Client Distinction Award, which is given to only 3% of the 900,000 law firms evaluated by Martindale Hubbell.  This is based on our real clients’ reviews of our communication ability, quality of service, responsiveness and value.

I am writing this blog post today, and I just mediated and settled a case against and assisted living facility for well into the six figures that I worked on for two years yesterday, and got a great result.  Our client was very pleased.

Attorney Nathan Hughey and
Hughey Law Firm client, yesterday

Our mediation was in downtown Charleston, and while we were there another former client voluntarily drove on his lunch break to come meet us because he wanted us to videotape him talking about how helpful we were to him in his mother’s nursing home case, where she was a victim of falls, pressure sores, and wrongful death.  I work on long term care cases every single day at work.  We are do not advertise on television, and I do not hire people to write blog posts for Hughey Law Firm.  We will write about real experience as real lawyers handling real cases for real people.

Today, my day has consisted of getting up, serving an early Easter Brunch (on Saturday) on the Eastside in Downtown Charleston, leaving to go coach the Hughey Law Firm baseball team (9-10 year olds) that I sponsor and coach,

Nathan Hughey serving at
Easter Holy Brunch
for those in need

Hughey Law Firm baseball
Serving After Scrimmage Today

returning to the Easter event, and deciding to write this blog post while I was sitting in the Apple Store waiting on them to replace my iPhone because the speaker quit working.  I wrote most of it while sitting there, and I am finishing it while my three year old falls asleep next to me.  I do not hire production companies to put together an image, I speak from the heart.

I will write about the various regulations that cover nursing homes, both the federal OBRA or CFR regulations, and the South Carolina regulations from the Department of Health and Environmental Control.  I will write about how these interact, how they apply, and what the practical requirements are for the facilities.  I know this from experience, in my head, and not because I paid someone to write about it, or found articles on the internet.  I am not comparing our firm to other law firms, in fact it is prohibited by our state bar.  I am simply stating what we do at Hughey Law Firm, and what I have learned from handling these cases day in and day out my entire legal career.  I can tell you, or them, what they are required to do by the state or federal governments, and how they failed.  I can use their own policies and procedures to show what should have been done versus what was done.  I can use their advertising to show what they promise versus what they delivered.  This is how we work the cases up.

Hughey Law Firm
Nursing Home Neglect Client – yesterday

Hughey Law Firm handles all of our cases involving nursing home neglect, assisted living neglect or abuse, hospital malpractice, adult day care errors, and other long term care litigation on a contingency.  There is no fee unless we recover for you and we only charge a percentage of what you get.  We do not charge you anything if we do not get a recovery.  In other words, if we represent you, I will use my own money, to hire experts, pay court reporters, and prosecute the case.  We will extend it out, and if, for some reason, we did not get a recovery, you would not owe us anything.  We strongly believe in helping those who have been injured, and that is part of why we do what we do.  We give away a great deal of money to help local missions and churches, and I do a lot of pro bono work to help people.  It is a great blessing to have that opportunity, and it is something I enjoy.

We also handle negotiating any liens that need to be dealt with with from Medicare, Medicaid, or some private provider.  We want as much money to legally go to you as possible, not to the providers.  Fees are calculated based on a percentage, before expenses are taken out.  We handle your case from beginning to end with the hope that you will walk away pleased and be a client and friend for life.  We handle many other areas of civil litigation, including premises liability or slip and fall claims, automobile accidents, insurance claims, product defect claims, medical malpractice, wrongful death, and other such claims, and we will always be the first to point you to somewhere else if it is not something that we do.

We look forward to talking with you, and would love the opportunity to help you or your family.

– Nathan Hughey

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