Meet Lori M. Bencoe
Lori M. Bencoe
Founding partner
ACCOLADES
Lori is an experienced trial lawyer in New Mexico who has been fighting to obtain justice for people hurt by wrongdoers for her entire legal career. Since becoming a lawyer in 1993 she has recovered tens of millions of dollars in verdicts and settlements for clients throughout New Mexico and in other states. She has obtained settlements and jury verdicts against many healthcare corporations, hospitals and providers.
While most of Lori’s clients have medical malpractice claims, she also helps clients and families with negligence and wrongful death claims for unsafe premises and car and truck crashes. She believes in safety and in corporate accountability for mistakes that cause harm. When insurance and other companies refuse to take responsibility for the harm their mistakes cause, she seeks full accountability from a jury.
After eleven years with an Albuquerque personal injury firm, Lori started her own boutique medical malpractice litigation firm in 2004. Since then, her firm has worked tirelessly as a team and with many lawyers from New Mexico and other states to take on even the largest corporations who engage in unsafe conduct and practices. Her firm has extensive experience with pretrial discovery to obtain the evidence that proves their cases at trial. Lori takes pride in teaching complex medical issues to juries, and routinely seeks out the most qualified medical experts in specialty fields to evaluate cases and teach medicine to the juries who will decide her clients’ cases. Her firm takes a team approach for clients that involves matching her firm’s abilities with other lawyers in and outside New Mexico, including Nick and Courtney Rowley and other TL4J members.
Lori’s life experiences of losing a parent to cancer, helping her husband of 32 years survive cancer, and managing chronic pain for over twenty-fiveyears of her successful career give her unique insight about her clients’ damages. She believes in her clients’ right to pursue damages for loss of life, liberty and happiness due to their medical and personal injuries, and she understands what a ripple effect of harms and losses an injury or healthcare betrayal can have on a client and their entire family.
Lori is a native of Albuquerque, New Mexico. She attended the University of Arizona on a music performance scholarship (oboe/saxophone), graduating in 1990 with a BA in Communications (magna cum laude, Honors and Phi Beta Kappa), and from the University of New Mexico Law School with a JD in 1993. She is married, has a son and daughter-in-law bound for graduate/ medical school. In her spare time she enjoys home improvement projects, cooking, music (classical to ALL genres of rock), movies, and playing Game of Throne Conquest, where her warrior dragon is named Mary Jane to honor her late mother. Her chile preference is Christmas (meaning red AND green), she wholeheartedly supports balloonists especially for Fiesta in October, and she believes no home is complete without at least one or two dogs and presently has three.
Education
- University of New Mexico School of Law, Albuquerque, New Mexico
- J.D. – 1993
- Honors: Teaching Assistant, Legal Research and Writing Program
- University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona
- B.A. – 1990
- Honors: magna cum laude
- Honors: Phi Beta Kappa Honor Society
- Honors: Rhodes Scholar semifinalist
- Honors: Minor in Music Performance (attended on full music scholarship – oboe)
- Honors: Mortar Board Honor Society
- Honors: Student House Manager, Centennial Hall
- Major: Communications
Pro-Bono Activities
- New Mexico Medical Review Commission volunteer, 2004 to Present
Professional Associations
- New Mexico Trial Lawyers Association, Member, 1991 to Present
- American Association for Justice, Member/Sustaining Member, 1995
- American Association for Justice, Member, Litigation and Medical Negligence Section
- New Mexico Medical Review Commission, Member/Volunteer, 1994 to Present
- National Association of Professional Executive Women, 2010 to 2010
- New Mexico Trial Lawyers Association, Board of Directors, 2002 to Present
- New Mexico Trial Lawyers Association, Secretary/Treasurer, 2007 to 2008
States
- New Mexico
- U.S. District Court District of New Mexico
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