Kristin Connors concentrates her practice in the representation of health care providers and facilities and has also defended claims of product liability. She has been in practice since 1992. Attorney Connors is a highly regarded trial attorney, having successfully defended high exposure medical malpractice claims on behalf of physicians and care providers, acute care hospitals, long-term rehabilitation hospitals, skilled nursing facilities and home health agencies. The cases her clients have entrusted to her to defend have involved nearly every specialty of medicine and a wide variety of issues. The cases she has defended have included catastrophic injuries and death. Attorney Connors has long had a busy trial practice, including one malpractice case where evidence was conducted over the course of ten weeks. Further, she has successfully handled the appeals of those matters following jury verdicts in favor of her clients.
This trial experience benefits various health care clients in Attorney Connors’ representation of them in administrative and regulatory proceedings before the State of Connecticut Department of Public Health (DPH), the then Office of Health Care Access (OHCA), now the Office of Health Care Strategy, as well as the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and Office of Medicare Hearings and Appeals (OMHA).
Attorney Connors has conducted hearings before OHCA as both an Applicant and Intervenor for over twenty years. Most notable among those hearings include obtaining approval, over the objection of multiple Interveners, for a comprehensive cardiac program, first as a Demonstration Project and then a separate proceeding for permanent status. That approval was the first time OCHA approved a comprehensive heart program for a private hospital since OHCA’s inception. She also represented a health network at hearings before OHCA and State of Connecticut Office of the Attorney General in connection with efforts to be acquired by a for-profit entity. That effort involved three separate hearings before terms agreeable to all the Applicants and the State were acceptable. She has also been involved in multiple other contested OHCA hearings regarding radiological imaging, sleep laboratories and others.
Attorney Connors has also been approved to serve as trial monitoring counsel for a national insurance/reinsurance corporation for medical malpractice trials involving catastrophic injuries in the northeast and mid-Atlantic states. She also serves as personal monitoring counsel for physicians in matters where they are represented by counsel retained by the physicians’ insurers.
Attorney Connors provides counsel to healthcare providers and facilities regarding all manner of topics such as issues related to risk management, peer review, credentialing, health information technology, medical staff, EMTALA, physician recruitment, patient care issues, resident and fellows, institutional review board, medical staff bylaws, certificates of need, licensing, accreditation, Medicare and Medicaid compliance and reimbursement, privacy/HIPAA law, among many other issues. She lectures to state and national organizations on various health care and medical malpractice litigation topics. She also served as the lead of the Health Care team of her prior firm for over 14 years.
Practice Areas
Bar Admissions
- Connecticut Superior Court
- U.S. District Court Connecticut
- Supreme Court of the United States
Education
- Villanova University, BA, 1988
- University of Connecticut School of Law, JD, 1992
Memberships
- American Health Lawyers Association
- Connecticut Trial Lawyers Association
- Connecticut Bar Association
Honors & Accolades
- The Best Lawyers in America, Medical Malpractice Law
- New England Super Lawyers, Health Care
- Connecticut Super Lawyers, Health Care and Medical Malpractice
- Selection by the Judges of the Superior Court to the Connecticut Bar Association Grievance Committee, Hartford County
- Connecticut Bar Association Health Law Section Co-Chair
- Connecticut Bar Association COVID 19 Task Force Executive Committee Member
Publications
- Health Care Law Alert: Connecticut Supreme Court Recognizes Apparent Agency as a Viable Claim Against Hospitals
- Health Care Law Alert: High Bar for Bystander Emotional Distress Claims in Medical Malpractice Cases
- Health Care Law Alert: Connecticut Reverses Course, Now Recognizes Claims for Loss of Parental Consortium
Speaking Engagements
- National Conference of the National Association of Pediatric Nurse Practitioners on “Professional Liability Issues for the Pediatric Nurse Practitioner”
- Connecticut Advanced Practice Registered Nurse Society on “Medical Malpractice and Risk Mitigation”
- The Connecticut Legal Conference and Annual Connecticut Bar Association Meeting on the “Electronic Trial”
- Dozens of presentations to acute care hospitals, long term rehabilitation hospitals, skilled nursing facilities, home health agencies and attorneys on various health care, risk management and medical malpractice topics
Community Involvement
- Newtown Youth and Family Services, Past Board Member
- Greater Waterbury Regional Chamber of Commerce Health Care Council, Past Board Member