About Lance Cline
Lance Cline knew at a young age that when he grew up, he would be a personal injury attorney representing people who have been injured, and families who had had a member killed, as a result of the negligent conduct of others. His father was a successful and well-regarded personal injury attorney in Columbus, Indiana. Lance grew up listening to stories about how his father's clients had been injured, how the law allowed such individuals to seek redress for their harms and losses, and the hard work and excitement associated with jury trials. In high school, he worked in his father's office as a file clerk and attended several jury trials with his father.
Lance knew at an early age that his calling in life was to be a lawyer for injury victims. Lance attended the McKinney School of Law in Indianapolis, Indiana from 1977 to 1980. In addition to being a full-time student, Lance worked full-time as a law clerk in one of the busiest and most respected personal injury law firms in Indiana. He graduated from law school in 1980 and began his practice as a plaintiff personal injury attorney right away in the same law firm in which he had served as a law clerk.
He has continued his exclusive practice of personal injury law for forty-five years. Lance worked in his original law firm for thirteen years before leaving that firm with three other attorneys to open a new personal injury law practice. He continued to practice with those three attorneys for the next twenty-seven years. In 2020, Lance chose to continue his practice of law in a smaller law firm near his home.
He created The Cline Law Firm where he presently practices with Lindsay Popejoy and Spencer Hatfield. Lance has dedicated his forty-five year legal career to representing victims of health care malpractice, motor vehicle collisions, consumer product defects, and other injury-producing events. Lance's long legal practice has made him a knowledgeable litigator representing injured people and their loved ones against health care providers, motor vehicle operators, large corporations, and other formidable opponents. He is a tireless and fearless advocate for his clients.
Lance's dedication to his clients and his level of skill in trial advocacy have earned him membership in the prestigious Inner Circle of Advocates, a national organization limited to one hundred of the best plaintiff attorneys in the United States. Members of the Inner Circle are invited to apply for membership and undergo a rigorous selection process. Information is obtained regarding each nominee from peers, opposing counsel, and trial judges. Few attorneys are invited to apply for membership and even fewer are selected.
Lance is one of only three Indiana attorneys elected into to the Inner Circle during its 53 year history. The Inner Circle provides Lance with daily contact and consultation with many of the best plaintiff personal injury attorneys in the United States. Lance is also a member of the American College of Trial Lawyers, an organization comprised of only 1% of trial attorneys nationwide. Selection to that group is through peer nomination and voting.
In addition to his admission to the Inner Circle of Advocates and the American College of Trial Lawyers, Lance has been selected by his peers as an Indiana Super Lawyer every year since the inception of the award in 2004. He was selected as one of the Top 10 lawyers in Indiana in 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, and 2022. He has also been selected as a Top 50 lawyer in Indiana eighteen times. Lance has also been recognized by an organization known as the Best Lawyers in America in both personal injury law and medical malpractice law every year since 1997.
He has been voted the Indianapolis Medical Malpractice Lawyer of the Year in 2011-2012, 2013-2014, and 2014-2015 and the Indianapolis Personal Injury Lawyer of the Year in 2019 and 2025. The Indiana Trial Lawyers' Association honored Lance as its Trial Lawyer of the Year in 2018. Lance has obtained multiple seven figure jury verdicts for clients and has settled over one hundred cases for clients for seven figure amounts.
Proven verdicts and settlements
An Allen County jury awarded a Fort Wayne woman $2,670,000 after finding that Dr. Shashi Ahuja mishandled a relatively new medical device during a procedure and left a polymer fragment in an artery in her right leg, leaving her with a disfigured and largely unusable lower leg.
A jury found that an emergency room doctor's failure to diagnose a vascular injury caused a Wayne County, Indiana man to lose his right leg above the knee. Jerry Warren fell from a stepladder in June 2011, and when he was taken to the ER at Reid Hospital, the treating physician diagnosed a likely torn calf muscle despite a nurse's notes describing his foot as purple with no detectable pulse; within days the leg could not be saved. A Wayne Circuit Court jury awarded Warren $3.5 million in September 2024, which the trial court reduced to Indiana's $1.25 million medical malpractice cap applicable to his 2011 injury. The Indiana Court of Appeals affirmed the judgment in full on August 28, 2026, rejecting the defense's challenges to a photo of Warren's foot and to the trial court's handling of a juror who disclosed an outside phone call about the case.
Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Each case is unique and depends on its own facts.
