Arthur V. Lynch

Telephone: 201-288-2022
E-mail: [email protected]

Mr. Arthur V. Lynch is known as one of the premier trial lawyers in the New York metro area. He has tried cases throughout New Jersey, the five boroughs of New York City and the surrounding suburban counties outside of New York City. He has also been invited to participate and litigate cases in Ohio and North Carolina. His 20 years as a defense attorney prior to switching sides provide him with a unique perspective on handling personal injury cases for consumers. He has achieved many awards/settlements of over $1,000,000.* In 2014, The New Jersey Law Journal recognized him in the Personal Injury Hall of Fame. In January 2019, Mr. Lynch was appointed by Superior Court, Passaic County Judge Raymond Reddin to act as a law guardian to examine whether a settlement was fair and reasonable for a child that suffered brain damage as a result of the actions of a drunk driver.

Awards

The New Jersey Law Journal recognized him in the Personal Injury Hall of Fame in 2014. He was also featured in the National Law Journal’s “Big Money Wins of 2013” for a multi-million-dollar settlement he obtained at trial during that year.* The journal placed this settlement among the nation’s top 50 verdicts/settlements. He is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as Civil Trial Attorney. He has also gained entry into the Multi-Million Dollar Advocates Forum.

Reputation with Court and Other Attorneys

Mr. Arthur V. Lynch has many verdicts and settlements that approach and exceed $1,000,000. He is a sought-after speaker on trial practice issues for continuing legal education courses for attorneys. He is often hired by other attorneys to handle personal injury cases.

Million Dollar Verdicts/Settlements

$4.26 Million, Essex County, New Jersey*
$2.5 Million, Essex County, New Jersey*
$1.1 Million Richmond County, New York*
$1.0 Million Rockland County, New York*
$1.0 Million Queens County, New York*

*Note some of the matters above were settled for limited amount shown based on available insurance coverage for the defendants involved.
*Mr. Lynch has many additional verdicts not listed here as well as hundreds of settled matters.

Publications / News Events

Arthur Lynch has been featured on the front page of The New York Law Journal and has published noteworthy books and other literature on insurance issues. He has appeared in the New Jersey Law Journal, most recently in October of 2014. The first, entitled The New York Tort Threshold, is a legal treatise authored to teach personal injury attorneys as well as people in the insurance field about the complicated insurance issues that surround injury claims arising from automobile accidents. The second, The 10 Commandments for Buying Insurance, co-authored with James S. Lynch, is a comprehensive book geared toward consumers regarding automobile, homeowner’s and life insurance.

Speaking / Teaching

Arthur continuously speaks and teaches other lawyers on issues concerning trial practice. He has been a regular speaker on these issues for the New Jersey Association for Justice as well as local bar organizations. He takes great pride in teaching others. Some of the issues that he has lectured on are: direct examination, cross examination, opening statements, demonstrative evidence and trying to make the complex easily understandable.

Arthur Lynch has been invited to lecture at the following events during 2015 and 2014:

• Live Jury Trial of a Verbal Threshold: NJAJ Meadowlands Convention
• Preparing a Verbal Threshold Trial: NJAJ Meadowlands Convention
• NJAJ Exposing Deceptive Defense Medicine Seminar: Atlantic City, NJ
• Medical Experts and Records Seminar: National Business Institute, Cherry Hill, NJ

Dedication to Customer Service

Mr. Arthur V. Lynch started working as a stock boy and later as a cashier in his father’s health and beauty aid store (think CVS with no prescriptions) at the age of 10. His father, Jay, was the owner of this neighborhood store located in the Bronx. Almost every weekend, Arthur would work in the store along with his brother Jim, now his law partner. They had to be at the store before 5:00 a.m., otherwise the newspapers that were thrown off the truck on to the sidewalk would be stolen. The phrase “Can I help you?” was imbedded in Arthur at an early age by Jay, who implored that every person who came into the store looking for merchandise had to be helped. At age 12, he graduated to the job of cashier. The truism that the “customer is always right” was something that was discussed every day. The store was near a subway and bus stop, and making sure that the customers were served quickly and with a smile was very important.

Hard Work and Honesty

Prior to law school, Arthur held a wide variety of jobs: groundskeeper, ($2.30/hour), dishwasher, warehouse worker, auto-body shop helper, fast food restaurant worker, deli counter man, construction worker. All of these jobs required him to connect with people and to work hard. Arthur’s father was known in the community as an honest businessman. On more than one occasion, Arthur personally observed someone try to tempt him with some goods that had “fallen off the truck,” or in other words stolen. Arthur’s father always threw the “seller” out of the store and told him never to come back. Jay would never permit someone to damage his integrity. Arthur never forgot that. The value of hard work and honesty was instilled early on.

Decision to become an Attorney

Arthur’s grandfather, Arthur V. Lynch, was an attorney who was a professor at St. John’s University. He was unusual in that he became a professor after spending his career as a successful trial attorney in New York City. Arthur’s grandfather ultimately became one of the most popular professors at the school because he brought his real-world experience to the classroom. He pushed for new and innovative classes like Legal Medicine.

Growing up, Arthur’s uncle – his father’s brother – Harry V. Lynch was a practicing attorney, having continued in the firm established by his father, Arthur. Harry practiced primarily in Orange County, New York. Harry represented people who had been injured or as he put it, someone who had a “bad break in life.” He was on the cutting edge of the law and was involved in cases that changed the old traditional common law in New York State. Back then, there were strict limitations on what someone could recover if they were injured by someone who did not take care of their property. Arthur saw the legal field as one where he could help people and change things.

Arthur’s mother, Helen, was a junior high school teacher who was assigned some of the most troubled kids. She enjoyed the challenge of her career and never complained about it. The reward would come years later, when a former student stopped her in the supermarket to tell her that their time in the classroom forever changed them, motivating them to become a better person.

Arthur wanted a career that would be challenging and rewarding. He wanted to help people like his mother did and also change things like his grandfather was doing. There were so many attorneys in the family besides his own grandfather. His grandmother, Elizabeth T. Lynch, (one of the few female attorneys in her graduating class) and her father, James J. O’Byrne, had been attorneys. The idea of becoming an attorney had always been in the back of his mind.

Law School

Arthur followed his grandfather, grandmother, and uncle to St. John’s Law School in Queens, New York. He graduated from St. John’s University School of Law in 1988. He had the distinction of being the first third-generation graduate in the history of the school. The New York Daily News reported the event.

Early Years

Arthur began his career at Composto & Longo in Brooklyn. The firm was known as stepping stone for those who aspired to the bench. At the time, the firm boasted an Appellate Division Justice as well as several Supreme Court Justices. Even today, there remains a sitting Supreme Court Justice, the Honorable Guy J. Mangano, Jr. (Justice Mangano worked in the office directly next to Arthur). Arthur was admitted to the bar of the State of New York on November 16, 1988. He was believed to be the first person who took the bar in July of 1988 to be admitted to practice law in the State. The Composto firm was retained by Allstate, Liberty Mutual, and others to defend people who had caused an accident in which someone was injured.

In early 1989, Arthur tried his first case. Over the next four years with the Composto firm, Mr. Lynch was involved in over 100 cases that reached the trial stage. In this time frame, Mr. Lynch probably was involved in more jury trials than most attorneys have in their entire career.

Arthur decided to move on and was employed as an attorney defending cases for Progressive Insurance Company. The firm was based in White Plains, New York, however, he spent most of his time in Brooklyn and Queens. The time spent at Progressive was not as court-intensive and Arthur had more time in the office. The time was well spent, as Arthur developed a pre-computer system that permitted him to have an immediate update on every case that he handled. In addition, the customer service sense that was instilled in him by his father (calling people back when they called, etc.), made him extremely popular with Progressive.

Establishment of Lynch & Lynch

By 1994, Arthur’s brother, Jim, had also become an attorney. Following law school, Jim chose to work for Pitney, Hardin, Kipp and Szuch in Morristown, New Jersey. The Pitney firm – one of New Jersey’s largest – handled large corporate cases. Jim was assigned to the environmental law department. He found the work unrewarding, and after 2 years, he left the Pitney firm to establish his own law firm. Arthur and Jim had always dreamed of joining forces and getting involved in a practice area where they could help people, not corporations. Arthur had experience handling personal injury cases for the defense. Jim, therefore, had to play catch up and learn how to handle personal injury cases. He was and (is) smart, tough and willing to learn.

On April 1, 1994, Jim and Arthur set up shop in a small office on Windermere Avenue in Greenwood Lake, New York. They resolved to help people and handle plaintiff’s personal injury cases. The law firm was two doors down from their uncle, Harry V. Lynch, who had operated the family firm also named Lynch & Lynch. Harry’s health, unknown to Jim and Arthur, was failing.

Jim and Arthur got a slow start, however, hard work and dedication prevailed. After about a year, there was enough plaintiff’s personal injury business to keep the firm going. Something else happened. The people that Arthur and Jim had worked for were also calling. Jim began to try plaintiff’s cases for other lawyers, and Arthur began to field calls from Progressive and the Composto firm to handle work for them.

Harry eventually realized that he could not continue running the family firm, which had been in operation since 1942. He turned over some of his cases to Jim and Arthur, which they completed on behalf of the family firm. Since Arthur and Jim took over what was left of the family firm, they now could trace the roots of their operation back to 1942.

Insurance Company Defense Practice

Jim’s reputation as a plaintiff’s attorney was growing. He was taking cases that no one wanted and winning them for his clients. Other lawyers were noticing, and sent him their cases to handle. The success that Jim was experiencing was exactly what they had envisioned when they joined forces.

Arthur was being pulled in a different direction. When Arthur left Progressive, upper management was disappointed that he was no longer an employee of the company. They took the unusual step of placing him on the list of those approved to handle cases for their company. He was only 31 years of age when approved by Progressive.

Progressive began to send Arthur the cases that had difficult clients, difficult attorneys and other tasks that other established firms refused to handle. The results for Progressive were excellent, as was the customer service. They began sending more and more cases, which brought Arthur closer to New York City and New Jersey. In 1996, Arthur and Jim decided to move closer to where the business took them, which was Newark, New Jersey. They later moved to Paramus, New Jersey.

Arthur and Jim had always been interested in the latest technology for their firm. Early on, they understood that computers and databases would transform the legal industry. This was in stark contrast to rest of the industry. At that time, the people running law firms were much older and most of them typically never used computers. Therefore, the firms did not understand how information was changing the industry. Arthur was constantly trying to improve his customer service and met with management to find out what they needed. They wanted quick, reliable customer service. In a conversation with an insurance adjuster, Arthur realized that he could send a “Lotus note” from the outside directly to insurance adjuster’s computer. This “discovery” became transformational to Arthur’s relationship with Progressive. Instead of waiting 7 days to hear from an attorney, which was the standard, Arthur was sending an update within hours by e-mail.

According to Progressive’s attorney rating system, Arthur’s early adoption of e-mail to interact with the company made him their highest rated attorney for responsiveness and customer service in the New York/New Jersey area. The employees of Progressive could send out their files to any attorney on the list, which was composed of dozens of attorneys and firms. Since Arthur was the easiest to do business with and obtained excellent results, Progressive began to send files, seemingly by the truckload. Arthur took on a partner, Victor Timoshenko to help handle the work. By 2001, Arthur was told that his firm handled the most cases from Progressive of any firm in the country. In 2002, Arthur was told that his firm had 80% of the litigated files in the Downstate New York/New Jersey area. Other insurance companies had heard of Arthur and the firm and were sending him their cases as well. Over the years, Arthur defended cases from Farmers, Travelers and others.

The insurance companies were sending cases not only because Arthur was dedicated to customer service, but because he was winning in Court. Over the course of a twelve-year period from 1996-2008, Mr. Lynch won every case that he tried. In these cases, the jury always awarded less money than the insurance company’s final offer. In many instances, the jury came back with no award at all.

Questioning Practicing as Defense Attorney

Jim’s practice as a plaintiff’s attorney continued to surge. He had built a practice based upon the cases that other attorneys trusted him to handle as well as word of mouth. Arthur was always in the background, helping out Jim with his cases when possible. However, he was busy with his own practice, which was composed of work from insurance companies. Over time, Mr. Lynch became more and more convinced that there were consumers – plaintiffs – who would unjustly leave the courthouse with little or no compensation. Even though the jury did not know that the cases involved insurance, almost every personal injury case involves an insurance company. He felt that in many cases, the insurance carrier was the winner, while the consumer, who deserved more, was the loser.

Even though Mr. Lynch was on the “winning” side, he began to feel that he was not doing justice by taking cases from the insurance carriers. He also noticed that there were many lawyers who represented plaintiffs that did not prepare their cases well enough or understand the correct legal arguments that had to be made. This caused the attorneys to lose their cases or have very poor outcomes.

More importantly, he began to question what he was doing and whether “winning” for multi-billion-dollar insurance companies was really helping people or changing things for the better – which was the reason that he became an attorney in the first place.

Plaintiff / Consumer-Oriented Practice

Jim’s reputation among other lawyers and in the community was soaring. Arthur had begun to work more closely with Jim on his cases. In 2006, they tried their first plaintiff’s case as co-counsel. The result was a $1 million verdict.* By 2008, he felt that he needed help to maintain the level of service and commitment to excellence that he had always provided. At that point, Arthur was ready to end his twenty-year relationship with the insurance companies.

In 2009, Mr. Lynch began trying cases exclusively for the plaintiffs, or consumers. Based upon his defense experience and the insights that very few attorneys have, he knew all the defense arguments and tactics. He also understood that representing clients and trying cases on the plaintiff’s side was different and more difficult.

Presently, Arthur tries cases on behalf of consumers (plaintiff) who have been injured because of the dangerous conduct of someone else. He understands that although he has a long and successful track record, he must continue to work hard each and every day to represent the clients that have selected him as their attorney.

Interests

Over the years, he has volunteered his time as a Foreclosure Mediator, having been appointed by the State of New Jersey to hear such cases. He has also been a volunteer for the Planning Board and handled zoning issues in his local community. He has also coached baseball, softball, soccer and basketball in his community. Mr. Arthur V. Lynch continues to play men’s softball on a team with his son, as well as his brother Jim, his law partner.