About Robert Higgins
Robert M. Higgins is recognized as one of the most successful trial lawyers in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. He achieved the state's largest medical malpractice award, a $40 million verdict for a baby brain damaged at birth. In 2023 alone he obtained multiple courtroom verdicts including $29 million for an undiagnosed aortic aneurysm, $28.8 million for a blood clot misdiagnosed as sciatica resulting in amputation, $4.95 million for failure to test for cancer at Lahey Clinic, and a $15 million settlement involving Boston Children's Hospital for a sleep study death. Additional notable verdicts include $29.8 million for a baby's brain injury during delivery, $19.8 million for failure to diagnose cervical cancer, and $16.7 million for failure to diagnose lung cancer. Named Lawyer of the Year in Medical Malpractice Law for 2025 by Best Lawyers, he has been included in The Best Lawyers in America for 18 consecutive years and is listed on the Top 10 Massachusetts Super Lawyers and Top 100 Super Lawyers lists. He is a 1991 graduate of the University of Maine and received his J.D. from Suffolk University Law School in 1994. He joined Lubin & Meyer as an associate in 1994 and became a partner in 2001. He lectures regularly for Massachusetts Continuing Legal Education, the Massachusetts Academy of Trial Attorneys, and Suffolk University Law School, and was invited by Harvard Medical School faculty to speak to fourth-year students on patient safety.
Notable case results
A Middlesex County jury returned the largest personal-injury verdict in Massachusetts history after finding that an obstetrician waited more than five hours to perform an emergency C-section despite clear signs of fetal distress, causing a Dracut boy to develop cerebral palsy.
An Essex Superior Court jury awarded $29 million to the two daughters of Joseph Brown, 43, after Salem Hospital emergency physicians failed to order a CT scan that would have revealed a fatal aortic aneurysm and dissection in time for lifesaving surgery.
A Middlesex Superior Court jury awarded Steven Luppold $20 million after Lowell General Hospital emergency staff misdiagnosed a leg blood clot as sciatica on two separate visits, delaying treatment until amputation was unavoidable.
A Suffolk Superior Court jury awarded $16.7 million after a Brigham and Women's Hospital radiologist read a 2006 chest X-ray as normal, missing a visible lung nodule that would develop into terminal cancer within 13 months.
Lubin and Meyer secured a $15 million settlement for the family of six-month-old Jackson Kekula, who suffered catastrophic brain injury after going without oxygen for more than 20 minutes during a sleep study at Boston Children's Hospital and died 12 days later.
A Suffolk Superior Court jury awarded $13.5 million (a $9.4 million verdict plus interest) to the family of Amy Altman, 40, who died of a flesh-eating bacterial infection in July 2003 after Dana-Farber oncologists failed to investigate 17 consecutive days of diarrhea during an experimental chemotherapy protocol.
Largest medical malpractice award in Massachusetts history, baby brain damaged at birth
Baby's brain injury during delivery
Undiagnosed aortic aneurysm at North Shore Medical Center
Blood clot misdiagnosed as sciatica at Lowell General Hospital
Failure to diagnose cervical cancer
Failure to diagnose lung cancer
Sleep study death at Boston Children's Hospital
Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Each case is unique and depends on its own facts.
