Our firm restricts its practice exclusively to personal injury and wrongful death litigation. This includes cases arising out of car, truck and motorcycle accidents, commercial aviation and private airplane accidents, product defects, construction accidents, slip and falls, medical malpractice, and other incidents involving negligent conduct resulting in injury or death. We only represent plaintiffs (the parties seeking money damages).

We have never engaged in any form of legal advertising. Although such advertising is legally permissible, we believe it can be very unbecoming to the profession, especially as conducted by some of the leading advertisers.  Instead of touting our successes on the local television and radio stations, we have chosen to allow our reputation among other attorneys, judges and former clients to speak for us. In this day and age, however, more and more people are relying on the internet to find telephone numbers and information concerning services. For this reason, we feel it has become necessary to provide this informational website.

Despite the fact that you won’t see us bragging about our abilities on television or beaming down from billboards, all of the attorneys in our firm have been trying cases successfully for many years. We have obtained numerous multimillion-dollar verdicts and settlements for our clients, including several record verdicts in Western and Central New York counties. While many of those cases have generated media attention, we have frequently agreed to court orders requiring that details of settlements remain confidential at the request of a defendant or out of concern for our clients’ welfare. 

The senior partner in our firm has over forty (40) years of trial experience. He is a Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers, an elite honorary association restricted to the most experienced and capable trial attorneys in the nation (at present, only 20 Buffalo attorneys have been elected to membership and just six of them regularly represent plaintiffs in personal injury litigation). He is also one of but nine Buffalo plaintiffs’ attorneys selected to appear under “Personal Injury Litigation” in the Best Lawyers in America, by Naifeh and Smith, a reference book compiled based upon ratings by fellow attorneys and has been listed in that publication for each of the 26 years since its first publication. In August of 2002, he was selected as United States "Litigator of the Month" by the National Law Journal. In 2012, he was named as "Buffalo Medical Malpractice Law Lawyer of the Year" by Best Lawyers in America.  He is a former instructor in Trial Technique at the State University of Buffalo School of  Law, a former President of the Western New York Trial Lawyers Association and a charter member of the Western New York chapter of the American Board of Trial Advocates.

Other members of our firm include another former President of the Western New York Trial Lawyers Association, holders of other offices in that Association, and officers and directors of the Erie County Bar Associations, the New York State Academy of Trial Lawyers and the State Women’s Bar Association. Two members of the firm have been selected by their peers in the Business First/Buffalo Law Journal “Who’s Who in Law” personal injury category. Two members have been selected for inclusion in “New York Super Lawyers,” an honor bestowed on only five percent of the attorneys in Upstate New York. The firm itself has long carried the highest rating for both abilities and ethics (AV) from Martindale-Hubbell, the premier directory and rating organization for attorneys throughout the United States.  The firm has also been named as a Tier 1 law firm in plaintiff's personal injury litigation by the U.S. News -- Best Lawyers® "Best Law Firms" in each year of that publication  http://bestlawfirms.usnews.com/firms/smith-miner-o-shea-and-smith-llp/overview/27198/.

Average litigation experience of firm members is 30 years. 

Initial consultation is always without charge, and we handle cases that we accept on a contingent fee basis, meaning there is no fee unless we are successful in securing a monetary award for the client. Unlike some personal injury attorneys, we do not affirmatively seek out clients, but rather wait for them to request our services.