Workers’ Compensation and Personal Injury Attorneys Serving Western New York Since 1944
Lewis & Lewis is a Western New York law firm with more than 80 years of experience representing injured workers and accident victims across the region. Since 1944, our attorneys have recovered more than $1 billion in compensation for clients who suffered workplace injuries, construction accidents, and serious harm caused by the negligence of others.
We are one of the few firms in New York State that has made workers’ compensation our primary focus, not an afterthought, not a case type we occasionally handle, but the core of who we are and how we spend our days. Our attorneys appear before the New York State Workers’ Compensation Board on a near-daily basis. That frequency of courtroom presence is not incidental. It is the foundation of everything we do well.
We serve clients from six offices across Western New York, in Buffalo, Depew, Niagara Falls, Batavia, Jamestown, and Olean, and we represent workers at every stage of their claim, from the first hearing at the Workers’ Compensation Board to the final resolution of benefits that may continue for the rest of their lives.
If you were hurt at work, you are not dealing with a minor inconvenience. You are dealing with your livelihood, your health, and your future. We take that seriously, and we have for eight decades.
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Why Was Lewis & Lewis Founded?
Lewis & Lewis is a Western New York law firm with more than 80 years of experience representing injured workers and accident victims across the region. Since 1944, our attorneys have recovered more than $1 billion in compensation for clients who suffered workplace injuries, construction accidents, and serious harm caused by the negligence of others.
We are one of the few firms in New York State that has made workers’ compensation our primary focus, not an afterthought, not a case type we occasionally handle, but the core of who we are and how we spend our days. Our attorneys appear before the New York State Workers’ Compensation Board on a near-daily basis. That frequency of courtroom presence is not incidental. It is the foundation of everything we do well.
We serve clients from six offices across Western New York, in Buffalo, Depew, Niagara Falls, Batavia, Jamestown, and Olean, and we represent workers at every stage of their claim, from the first hearing at the Workers’ Compensation Board to the final resolution of benefits that may continue for the rest of their lives.
If you were hurt at work, you are not dealing with a minor inconvenience. You are dealing with your livelihood, your health, and your future. We take that seriously, and we have for eight decades.
What Makes Lewis & Lewis Different from Other Workers’ Compensation Firms?
Lewis & Lewis is different for a reason that most people don’t think about until they need it: we will still be here.
A workers’ compensation claim is not a one-time event. It can span years. Surgeries happen. People recover, return to work, and then re-aggravate their injury. Medical benefits can continue for life. Lost wage benefits can continue for years in serious cases. The Workers’ Compensation Board may schedule hearings for the duration of a claim, and that duration can be measured in decades, not months.
We have clients who were injured in the 1980s and who we are still representing today. We have been able to do that because we are a firm with roots, with staff who have been here for 15, 20, and 30 years, and with a deep enough bench to ensure that if an attorney retires, their clients are not left without representation.
Our managing legal assistant, Tina, is celebrating her 30th year with Lewis & Lewis. She started here at 18 years old, and she is still here, advocating for clients, managing files, answering the phone, with the same dedication she brought to this firm three decades ago. She is also fluent in Spanish, which allows us to serve the full range of our Western New York community without barriers. Tina is not an anomaly.
Emily Downing also marks 30 years with the firm this year. Several other members of our staff have been with us for 15 years or more. That continuity matters to the people we represent in ways that are practical, not symbolic: when your case comes up for a hearing, the person handling your file knows your history. You do not have to re-explain everything from the beginning.
One attorney with the firm described it this way:
“Your workers’ compensation claim continues for your entire life. I have clients that got hurt in the ’80s and we’re still representing them. We’ve been representing them the whole time because our firm has been around for 80 years. Whereas if you go to a really small firm or a firm that doesn’t have that history, doesn’t have that future, you might end up without an attorney.”
We have also never worked for the other side. The attorneys in our workers’ compensation department have built their entire careers representing injured workers, not insurance carriers. When someone asks us to imagine defending a denial, cutting off benefits, or arguing against a worker who has been genuinely hurt, the answer is simple: we could not do it.
This is not a marketing position. It is a reflection of why each of us chose this work in the first place. As one partner put it:
“If it was to represent an insurance company or don’t be an attorney anymore, there’s no question to me of what I would choose.”
Who Are the Attorneys at Lewis & Lewis?
Emily F. Janicz
Emily F. Janicz is a partner and one of the firm’s lead workers’ compensation attorneys. A lifelong Western New York resident, she earned her undergraduate degree in Business Administration, Registered Accounting Program, with honors, from the University at Buffalo in 2009, and her Juris Doctor, with honors, from the University at Buffalo School of Law in 2012.
She began her legal career clerking at Lewis & Lewis and joined the firm as an attorney upon admission to the New York State Bar, opening her career with a win in her very first Social Security disability hearing, two days after being admitted to practice.
Emily currently serves on the Board of Directors of the Injured Workers’ Bar Association and on the Board of Directors of the Workers’ Compensation Alliance. She previously served on the Advisory Council of the New York State Workers’ Compensation Board.
She also serves as Town Attorney for Newstead, New York, her hometown, a role that reflects both her roots in this community and her commitment to public service beyond the courtroom. She has presented at Continuing Legal Education (CLE) seminars throughout her career to help educate the next generation of workers’ compensation practitioners.
Her accounting background gives her a measurable advantage in workers’ compensation cases, where wage benefit calculations, past earnings reviews, and tax documentation are central to determining what a client is actually owed. She routinely reviews C240 forms, the documents that outline a claimant’s weekly earnings in the year before their injury, and can identify immediately whether the insurance company’s numbers hold up.
She describes it as doing forensic accounting on her clients’ claims, and it is a skill that most attorneys in this practice area simply do not have.
A colleague once told Emily:
“You’re not nice, but you’re kind, and that’s more important.” She considers it the best professional compliment she has ever received. It captures something real about how she approaches her work and her clients.
Emily L. Downing
Emily L. Downing is a partner who has been with Lewis & Lewis for 30 years, joining the firm directly from law school and never leaving. She earned both her Bachelor of Arts in Communications and her Juris Doctor, both cum laude, from the State University of New York at Buffalo. During law school, she was a member of the Buffalo Law Review and served as the publication’s book review editor.
She also holds certificates in taxation and environmental law, though it was the opportunity to work directly with real people facing serious problems that brought her to Lewis & Lewis and has kept her here ever since. During her three decades with the firm, Emily has worked across all aspects of the practice, including the trial of serious personal injury cases.
Sheri N. DeFazio
Sheri N. DeFazio is a partner who joined Lewis & Lewis’s workers’ compensation department in 2004. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Art and Science from the University of Toronto, where she graduated in 1993, and her Juris Doctor from SUNY at Buffalo, earned in 1998. She has practiced workers’ compensation law since 2000.
Notably, Sheri briefly worked in insurance defense before joining Lewis & Lewis, experience that gives her a firsthand understanding of how carriers build their cases, what arguments they will make, and where their strategies are most vulnerable. She has spent every year since on the other side of that table, representing the workers.
Michael T. Coutu
Michael T. Coutu is an attorney practicing in Personal Injury. He earned his Juris Doctor from Lewis & Clark Law School and practices out of the firm’s Buffalo and Niagara Falls offices, handling cases involving car accidents, construction accidents, premises liability, wrongful death, and related matters.
Daniel P. Kuhn
Daniel P. Kuhn is an attorney at Lewis & Lewis practicing in Western New York.
Michael C. Panebianco
Michael C. Panebianco is an attorney at Lewis & Lewis practicing in Western New York.
Adam DelleBovi
Adam DelleBovi is an attorney practicing in Personal Injury. A Buffalo native, he earned his Bachelor of Arts in History and Political Science from the University at Buffalo in 2010. Before attending law school, he served five years on active duty in the United States Navy as a Hospital Corpsman, medical training he now brings to his personal injury practice in evaluating injuries and understanding the medical dimension of his clients’ cases.
He received his Juris Doctor from the University at Buffalo School of Law in 2020, where he was active in the trial advocacy program and received the Robert J. Connelly Trial Technique Award in May 2020. When he is not in the office, he is rooting for the Buffalo Bills, a commitment that fits right in here.
How Does Lewis & Lewis Approach Workers’ Compensation Cases?
Workers’ compensation cases at Lewis & Lewis are handled with the understanding that the insurance company is not on your side, even when it seems like they are.
One of the most common things we hear from new clients is that they thought everything was fine. The insurance company was paying them. They did not think they needed an attorney. What they did not know was that they were likely being paid incorrectly, that they were not being told about benefits they were entitled to, including mileage reimbursement for every medical appointment, and that they were not taking the steps necessary to protect their claim going forward.
Workers’ compensation in New York requires specific documentation that most injured workers do not know about and that insurance carriers have no incentive to explain. Your treating physician must comment on your level of disability every 90 days. Medical opinions must come from a provider authorized by the New York State Workers’ Compensation Board.
Written notice of your injury must be provided to your employer within 30 days. If you have a partial disability, you may have an obligation to document your active search for work, a requirement that can span years and requires consistent follow-through. These are not administrative formalities. They are requirements that the insurance company will use against you if they are not met.
We intervene early so that you understand what is required, why it matters, and what comes next. We handle communication with the insurance carrier directly, so you do not have to worry about whether you said the right thing to an adjuster. We help you find the right medical providers, ones who are authorized by the Workers’ Compensation Board, who understand how to document your condition for legal purposes, and who can provide the kind of consistent, well-supported medical opinions that hold up at a hearing.
And when something goes wrong, when a claim is denied, when benefits are cut off, when an IME doctor submits a report that does not reflect the reality of your injury, we respond. On the subject of Independent Medical Examinations: the word “independent” is misleading.
IME doctors are consultants hired by the insurance company. We routinely cross-examine them, examining their credentials, their actual specialization relative to the injury they are evaluating, and whether their opinions are supported by the medical record. An orthopedic hip and knee specialist evaluating a back injury is not giving you an objective opinion. We make sure that distinction is made on the record.
What Can Clients Expect When Working With Lewis & Lewis?
From your first call to the resolution of your case, which may take months, years, or in some situations span the rest of your life, you can expect the same things from us.
You will speak with someone who knows your case. With six offices across Western New York, you can come in when something is urgent. You can drop off paperwork. You can sit across from your attorney and ask your questions in person. We are not a firm in New York City that you found through an ad and will never be able to visit. We regularly hear from people who signed with a firm and later realized those attorneys were hundreds of miles away, that they could never get a meeting, and that urgent paperwork had nowhere to go. That does not happen here. We are across Western New York and we invite our clients to come in whenever they need to.
You will be told the truth. Workers’ compensation claims do not always settle quickly. They do not always resolve on a timeline that feels satisfying. We will tell you where things stand honestly, even when that is not what you want to hear. Realistic expectations protect you far better than reassurances that do not hold up at a hearing.
You will have continuity. The attorney and staff member assigned to your case are the ones who see it through. If your case continues for years, as many serious cases do, you will not be handed off to someone who does not know your history.
You will not pay unless we recover. Our fees in workers’ compensation and Social Security disability cases are contingent, which means we only get paid if you do. There is no upfront cost to speak with us.
What Types of Cases Does Lewis & Lewis Handle?
What Does It Mean to Be a Buffalo Law Firm?
Emily Janicz grew up in Buffalo. Her parents grew up here. Her grandparents grew up here. She has traveled widely and returned each time with the same conclusion: nowhere else feels like home.
Buffalo is called the City of Good Neighbors, and that is not a tagline, it is something that shows up in how this community actually operates. People help each other. They show up. They push each other out of snowdrifts, commiserate about the Bills, and get back to work on Monday. There is a toughness here that does not get enough credit, and a warmth underneath it that makes this place worth staying for.
Many of the workers we represent are union members, tradespeople, healthcare workers, municipal employees, and the firm has deep respect for that tradition. Emily’s mother was a union member. Her grandparents were union members. She understands firsthand what union membership provides: not just wages and benefits, but job protection that can be the difference between recovering from a serious injury and losing your career permanently.
Union contracts often protect members’ positions for six months, a year, or longer during a period of disability, protection that non-union employees generally do not have, and that most employers are not required by law to provide.
That understanding of working people, their lives, their vulnerabilities, what is actually at stake when they are hurt, is built into how we practice law. It is not something we perform for clients. It is something we came from.
Western New York is not a market we serve. It is where we live, where our families are, and where we have been practicing law since the 1940s. That is what local means to us.
Frequently Asked Questions About Lewis & Lewis
Do your attorneys go to trial?
Yes. Workers’ compensation attorneys at Lewis & Lewis appear before the New York State Workers’ Compensation Board on a near-daily basis. Unlike personal injury attorneys who may go a year or more between trials, our workers’ compensation attorneys are in the courtroom regularly, building arguments, examining witnesses, and advocating in real time. In personal injury matters, we prepare every case as if it will go to trial, because that preparation is what produces serious results.
What makes Lewis & Lewis different from other workers' compensation law firms?
Longevity, continuity, and focus. We have been doing this since 1944. Our staff has been with us for 15, 20, and 30 years. We have represented some clients continuously for more than four decades. We have recovered more than $1 billion for injured workers and accident victims across Western New York. And unlike firms that treat workers’ compensation as one of many practice areas, we have made it our primary focus, and we have the depth of daily courtroom experience to show for it.
Do clients work directly with attorneys?
Yes. You will have a dedicated attorney and a dedicated staff member on your case. You can call, visit any of our six offices, and drop off documents when something is urgent. We do not operate a call center. We operate a law firm, staffed by people who know your case.
How are attorney fees handled?
Our fees are contingent. We only get paid if you recover. There is no upfront cost and no fee if there is no recovery.
What if workers' compensation denies my claim?
Contact an attorney immediately. The insurance carrier will have legal representation at every hearing where your claim is contested. You should too. A denial is not the end of your case, it is the beginning of a process that requires experienced legal advocacy to navigate effectively.
Can I choose my own doctor in a workers' compensation case?
Yes, with one important qualification: the provider should be authorized by the New York State Workers’ Compensation Board. Only opinions from Board-authorized providers are considered in determining your benefits. We can help you identify the right providers from the very beginning of your case.
What should I do immediately after a workplace injury?
Seek medical attention first, and try to see a provider authorized by the New York State Workers’ Compensation Board. Then provide written notice of your injury to your employer within 30 days, an attorney can do this on your behalf and should, because the Workers’ Compensation Board claim form contains questions that are easy to answer incorrectly and difficult to correct after the fact. The earlier you contact us, the better positioned your case will be from the start.
Does a pre-existing condition prevent me from filing a workers' compensation claim?
No. In New York, employers and insurance carriers take you as they find you. If a workplace accident aggravated an existing condition, even one you were already treating, you still have a claim. The question of how much of your condition is attributable to the work injury versus something pre-existing is called apportionment, and it is a contested legal issue we routinely argue on behalf of our clients. Having a prior injury is not a reason to assume you have no case.
What types of cases does the firm handle?
Workers’ compensation, including occupational disease, hearing loss, scaffold law, and toxic exposure claims, personal injury, including car accidents, construction accidents, slip and fall, medical malpractice, and wrongful death, and Social Security disability.
What areas do you serve?
All of Western New York, with offices in Buffalo, Depew, Niagara Falls, Batavia, Jamestown, and Olean.
What if I signed paperwork or accepted a check from the insurance company before hiring an attorney?
Call us anyway. Depending on what was signed and when, there may still be options. What we can tell you with certainty is that insurance companies sometimes approach injured workers early, before they have representation, with offers that are a fraction of what the case is actually worth. Once a release is signed, the window closes. If you have not signed a release, do not do so without speaking to an attorney first.
Get in Touch
Lewis & Lewis has six offices across Western New York. Call us at 716-854-2100, visit any of our locations, or fill out the contact form on this page. One of our attorneys will be in touch within 24 hours.
We represent clients on a contingency fee basis. You pay nothing unless we recover for you.
