Rachel Fuerst
VerifiedAbout Rachel Fuerst
Rachel A. Fuerst is a partner at Henson Fuerst, Attorneys at Law in North Carolina. Her practice focuses on catastrophic liability, medical malpractice and birth injury, nursing home/assisted living/group home liability, life insurance litigation, and mass tort/class action matters.
Fuerst earned her Bachelor's degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with honors in 1998 and her Juris Doctor from the University of North Carolina School of Law in 2001. She practiced law in Atlanta for approximately 10 years before joining Henson Fuerst.
She is admitted to practice in North Carolina, Georgia, and Virginia, as well as multiple federal courts in those states, and has Department of Veterans Affairs accreditation.
She is a member of the North Carolina Advocates for Justice (former Nursing Home Section Chair, 2019-2020; Chair of Communications), the North Carolina Bar Association (Justice and Judiciary Committee), the Wake County Bar Association, the Virginia State Bar, and the American Association for Justice. She is a former Vice-Chair of the Disability Rights NC Board (2017-2019).
She has been selected to Super Lawyers (2024-2026), the NC Lawyers Weekly Medical Malpractice Power List (2024-2026), and the NC Lawyers Weekly Legal 250 (2026).
Notable appellate cases include Gay v. Saber Healthcare Group, LLC (N.C. Supreme Court, 2021), Register v. Wrightsville Health Holdings, LLC (N.C. Court of Appeals, 2020), and Vandevender v. Blue Ridge of Raleigh, LLC (4th Cir., 2018).
Notable case results
Rachel Fuerst of Henson Fuerst helped a North Carolina family reach a confidential $7.95 million settlement after a hospital's mismanaged labor and delayed delivery left their newborn with a permanent hypoxic brain injury.
A federal jury in Raleigh awarded $5.2 million for three residents who died at the Blue Ridge Health Care Center after its operators cut staffing and supplies, an award later limited to about $3 million once North Carolina's punitive cap was applied.
A North Carolina nursing home placed an 89-year-old man in a room with a resident it knew to be violent, and within three days the roommate beat him to death.
A North Carolina woman died after a series of falls during a roughly two-month nursing home stay, and her family settled wrongful-death claims against the facility's corporate operators for $4.25 million.
Gay v. Saber Healthcare Group, LLC (N.C. Supreme Court)
Register v. Wrightsville Health Holdings, LLC (N.C. Court of Appeals)
Vandevender v. Blue Ridge of Raleigh, LLC (4th Cir.)
Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Each case is unique and depends on its own facts.
