Nancy Ledy-Gurren
Partner
White Plains Office
399 Knollwood Road, Suite 303
White Plains, New York 10603
Nancy Ledy-Gurren is a partner in the White Plains office at Quintairos, Prieto, Wood & Boyer, P.A. She has over 45 years of experience practicing in the areas of class action defense, risk management, appellate practice, health care liability, health product defense, commercial litigation, long-term care and nursing home litigation, medicolegal issues of first impression, and defamation claims. Specifically, Ms. Ledy-Gurren has extensive experience within the pharmaceutical and medical fields, involving biomedical products, infertility practices, and human tissue processing. Ms. Ledy-Gurren is national counsel to a Florida-based biotech company that produces allografts and xenografts for surgical transplantation. For over 20 years, she served as national counsel, supervising all tort litigation (PL/GL), risk management and third-party administrators' services, for a major senior living provider operating approximately 300 properties. She is currently national supervising counsel for a wound care company with in excess of 400 individual sites nationally. She has extensive experience in class action defense, specifically in the areas of general business law claims.
Ms. Ledy-Gurren has decades-long experience handling infertility litigation, risk management and consent issues; and since 1978, she has served (and now continues to serve) as counsel to several infertility programs and individual fertility practices for the purpose of risk management (informed consent issues) and the defense of pending litigation, both commercial and tort-based.
In the areas of product liability, she has significant involvement in asbestos, DES, lead paint, pesticide, IUD, birth control pharmaceuticals, breast implant, pelvic mesh (allografts) controversies with significant litigation experience in the infertility and genetics fields.
Ms. Ledy-Gurren has attained a rating of AV® Preeminent(TM) from Martindale Hubbell Law Directory; the rating is the highest level secured by her peers and the judiciary for ethical standards and legal ability.
Before joining QPWB, Ms. Ledy-Gurren was a partner at Ledy-Gurren, Bass & Siff LLP, an "AV" rated boutique litigation and minority owned law firm in White Plains, New York, specializing in litigation on behalf of commercial and institutional clients with both tort and commercial litigation portfolios, where she practiced since the firm's founding in 1994. Previously, she was an associate and partner with a premier New York City law firm specializing in medicolegal litigation and medicolegal issues of first impression, she also handled product liability, medical malpractice, appeals and class actions.
Notable Representative Achievements
- Following an allograft product recall, and after five years of litigation without disposition, managed the litigation of 1,000 lawsuits in federal and state courts involving allograft recipients, successfully negotiating and completing a global settlement within the client's defense insurance limits in federal and state courts.
- Received a defense verdict in a commercial arbitration for a biotech company involving a $25 million indemnity claim.
- Second-chaired in the trial of the first "test tube baby case" DelZio v. Columbia Presbyterial Hospital - U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York (1978).
- Representation of institutionally based infertility programs in class actions involving allegations of "success statistics."
- Represented claims regarding infertility treatments before the New York Court of Appeals in the first General Business Law claim Karlin v. IVF America, 93 NY2d 282 (1999).
Ms. Ledy-Gurren's appellate practice is diverse. She has represented a wide range of significant matters on behalf of her clients in federal and state courts of appeals, Ms. Ledy-Gurren has attained a full span of knowledge in appellate advocacy, not only in product cases but also in an array of commercial, professional liability (for attorneys and accountants), and coverage matters. She has handled appeals in all of the New York Appellate Division Departments, the New York Court of Appeals, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
Select Representative Matters
- National counsel to wound care specialty company, providing both supervisory legal services nationwide, and TPA services through risk management entity. Supervise insurance claims, and self-insured claims of employment disputes, and contractual disputes.
- National counsel to producer of biologic products. Lead counsel regarding In Re Human Tissue Litigation, representing a tissue processor that received human tissue donations from a tissue recovery company that falsified the consents and records of donors. Lead counsel in a series of Multidistrict Litigation involving surgical use of biologics for pelvic organ prolapse (POP) and stress urinary incontinence (SUI) repair.
- National counsel for major senior living provider, supervising all tort litigation involving all levels of care (skilled nursing, assisted living and independent living). Personally conduct all mediations/arbitrations of significant exposure cases.
- Argued before Court of Appeals first General Business Law claim regarding infertility treatments. [Karlin v. IVF America, 93 NY2d 282(1999) and recent SOL issue in wrongful life context (2018).
- Litigated significant commercial arbitrations in the biologics and FinTech arenas.
- Litigated significant products liability/procedural issues before New York Court of Appeals.
- Litigated (and achieved summary judgment) before Court of Appeals on liability of attorneys, in the absence of privity, for negligent misrepresentation. [Prudential Insurance Co. v. Gilmartin, Poster & Shafto, 80 N.Y.2d 377 (1992).
- Handled civil rights litigation, under both Section 1983 and New York Executive Law.
- Litigated significant procedural issues, including the construction of the General Obligations Law (15-108).
Ms. Ledy-Gurren received her Juris Doctor magna cum laude from New York Law School in 1975 and Bachelor of Arts in 1972 from Sarah Lawrence College.
She is licensed to practice law in New York and is admitted in U.S. District Court for the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York; and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
Academic Appointments
- Pace University School of Law, Adjunct Faculty, Professor of Law: New York Procedural Law 1979-1995
- New York Law School, Adjunct Faculty, Professor of Law: Legal Medicine, Psychiatry and the Law
Publications
Ms. Ledy-Gurren is author of various articles appearing in legal-medical publications.
- "Defendant" a publication of the Defense Association of New York and "Contraceptive Technology Update." Topics have included procedural issues, product liability defense and psychiatric malpractice.
- Note, "Judgment by Your Peers? The Impeachment of Jury Verdicts and the Case of the Insane Juror" (with Lefkowitz, E.), 21 N.Y.L.F. 57 (1975).
Seminars and Lectures
Ms. Ledy-Gurren is a frequent lecturer and has presented various programs on risk management for corporate and medical institutions clients. Topics include:
- Documentation
- Witness preparation
- Records preservation
- Informed consent issues
- Labeling
- Reserving issues
Her speaking engagements include:
- Speaker at ASRM, on various issues facing infertility.
- Hospital in-house lectures on medical malpractice and nursing practice.
- Lectures for PLI and Bar associations, primarily on procedural issue.