About Regina Powers
Regina Powers is a civil rights attorney and client-centered advocate who fights for people harmed by abuses of power and systemic neglect inside jails and prisons. Regina brings a relentless commitment to holding government agencies accountable for the suffering inflicted on people in custody and for families whose loved ones are killed or seriously harmed behind bars.
Before joining Trial Lawyers for Justice, she clerked for a federal judge in Kentucky and litigated civil rights and police misconduct cases at Beldock Levine & Hoffman LLP in New York. There, she helped secure the largest civil rights verdict in the Northern District of New York for the family of a man whom corrections officers beat to death in prison. She also contributed to the largest pre-verdict settlement with New York City for a man who suffered a hypoxic brain injury in jail, won certification of a class action challenging racially biased marijuana policing, and prevailed in a federal appeal establishing constitutional liability for jail suicides during drug withdrawal.
Regina’s dedication to advocating for incarcerated people and their families began while she was a student at Harvard Law School, where she represented clients in parole proceedings through the Prison Legal Assistance Project, helping secure the release of individuals serving life sentences. She graduated summa cum laude from Kentucky Wesleyan College.
Proven verdicts and settlements at Trial Lawyers for Justice
These results are credited to Trial Lawyers for Justice. A result appears under an attorney's own name only when a published source names them as counsel on the case.
Carrie DeJongh, 40, of Hull, Iowa, died on June 9, 2015 after receiving iodinated contrast dye for a CT scan at Sioux Center Health, when the physician treating her gave her an antihistamine but did not immediately check her vital signs or give epinephrine. Her family sued Sioux Center Health and Dr. Roy T. Slice for negligence, and both defendants denied the allegations. A Sioux County jury in Orange City returned a $29.5 million verdict on June 13, 2018, covering DeJongh's pain and suffering before her death and loss of consortium for her husband and four children. No appeal, remittitur or reduction has turned up since.
In February 2017, a physician assistant at a UnityPoint urgent care clinic in Des Moines diagnosed Joseph Dudley with the flu despite a negative flu test, sent him home on Tamiflu, and never ordered a complete blood count. Two days later Dudley was hospitalized with bacterial meningitis caused by an undetected heart valve infection, spent eight days in a medically induced coma, and suffered a series of strokes that left him with permanent brain damage, hearing loss, vertigo and nerve damage. A Polk County jury tried the malpractice claim against physician assistant Melanie Choos and Central Iowa Hospital Corp, doing business as UnityPoint Clinic, over a week in November 2022 and returned a $27,000,000 verdict, all of it noneconomic damages. The defense moved for a new trial afterward and UnityPoint said it was weighing an appeal.
Richard J. Pellock, 80, had surgery to remove bladder cancer at UnityPoint Health Finley Hospital in Dubuque, Iowa in January 2015, and the operation succeeded. Days later he needed a second procedure for a post-surgical complication, and the nurse anesthetist handling that procedure induced anesthesia without first emptying his stomach despite signs he had a full one. Pellock aspirated, developed aspiration pneumonia and respiratory failure, and died. His widow and son sued the anesthesia group and a Dubuque County jury returned a $10 million verdict against it in September 2017, awarded entirely as loss-of-consortium damages. Defense lawyers were reported as saying they would challenge the verdict, but no Iowa appellate decision in the case has ever been published.
Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Each case is unique and depends on its own facts.
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