L. Richard Fried, Jr.
About L. Richard Fried, Jr.
L. Richard Fried, Jr. is one of the founding members of the firm and has practiced law for over 55 years. He has a national reputation in personal injury, medical malpractice (with more than 50 verdicts and settlements exceeding $1 million), and aviation law. He is listed and holds the highest ratings in multiple lawyers' directories, including Best Lawyers in America, and has been named Lawyer of the Year in Hawaii for 2012, 2021, and 2025. Mr. Fried served as President of the Consumer Lawyers of Hawaii in 1984 and 2001 and received that organization's first trial lawyer of the year award in 1994. He was appointed by the Chief Justice of the Hawaii State Supreme Court to serve on the Judicial Evaluation Committee and by the Chief Judge of the Hawaii Federal District Court to serve as a delegate to the federal district judges conference. He is an active member of the Hawaii Innocence Project (serving as Executive Director since 2017), the Hawaii Theater Center board, and the Hawaii Make-a-Wish Foundation board. Mr. Fried frequently conducts teaching seminars for other attorneys in various aspects of tort law.
Notable case results
After proving through 12.5 million internal company documents that Bristol-Myers Squibb and Sanofi hid for twelve years that Plavix was ineffective in patients with a common genetic variant, the State of Hawaii secured a $700 million settlement in 2025, the largest pharmaceutical recovery in the state's history.
A federal bench trial awarded $24.7 million to a Navy family after Tripler Army Medical Center physicians failed to administer IV antibiotics for roughly 48 hours following a post-delivery infection, leaving the patient with permanent kidney failure.
A federal judge awarded $16.5 million to the family of a newborn who suffered permanent brain damage after an Army pediatrician at Tripler Army Medical Center administered carbon dioxide instead of oxygen for 42 minutes following his birth. It was the largest single personal-injury judgment for an individual in Hawaii history at the time.
The City and County of Honolulu agreed in October 2021 to pay $10 million to settle a wrongful-death claim brought by the family of cardiothoracic anesthesiologist William Travis Lau, who was struck and killed on a Kakaako sidewalk when a drunk driver fleeing an HPD high-speed pursuit veered off Ala Moana Boulevard in January 2019.
A Honolulu jury awarded $5.62 million to Jeff Kim, a Mililani flight attendant whose oral tumor grew from lima-bean to fist size over three years because Straub Clinic & Hospital physicians failed to order a readily available diagnostic test.
In State of Hawaii v. Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. (Plavix Litigation, First Circuit Court, 2024)
In Campano v. U.S. (USDC Hawaii, 2018), named a Top Ten Court Award in the U.S.
McKenzie v. Hawaii Permanente Med. Group, 98 Hawaii 296, 47 P.3d 1209 (2002)
Abramson v. Aetna Ins. Co., 75 F.3d 304 (9th Cir. 1996)
Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Each case is unique and depends on its own facts.
