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Young Best Lawyers Pave the Way for Big SuccessBy: Jeannie GreeleyJune 28, 2009 
It takes some attorneys an entire career to accomplish what 40-year-old lawyer Marianne C. LeBlanc has achieved since entering her practice at Boston's Sugarman and Sugarman in 1993.Now a partner at Sugarman, one of Boston's leading Personal Injury firms, the trial attorney's recent successes include settlements involving nursing home, product liability and medical negligence claims, some of which led to multi-million dollar awards. These mark the continuation of an enviable track record begun very early in her career. "I think being a woman attorney brings with By that point, she had already earned her first multi-million dollar verdict in a premises liability case against a bar that served minor patrons who later chased 23-year-old Tommy Christopher into oncoming traffic, resulting in his death. At the time, it was a record-setting $28 million verdict, which included a remarkable $25 million punitive damages award against the bar. Just two years later, LeBlanc won an unprecedented $1.2 million jury verdict, then the largest in the Bay State's district court system. The case involved a negligence claim against a gynecologist for his treatment of her client, who was left suffering from chronic pain after surgery. The case was originally dismissed from Superior Court when a judge deemed it to be valued at less than $25,000. After filing it in district court, LeBlanc won her client the recordsetting verdict. "That was a case that had basically been kicked out of Superior Court because the judge didn't think it would be worth more than $25,000," recalls LeBlanc. "It was really a matter of explaining to the jury how this affected her." But LeBlanc's achievements extend far beyond the courtroom. She has been a tireless supporter of women in the profession, having served as president of both the Women's Bar Association and the Women's Bar Foundation. She feels her presence as a female attorney in a trial firm offers clients a unique service to meet their needs. "We will often have people call and say, 'I want to speak to a woman attorney,'" says LeBlanc. "I think it's very helpful to be able to relate to them at a certain level as a woman. I think that aided me in representing them." She once handled back-to-back cases involving breast cancer patients, both of whom were mothers of four. And, when arguing the District Court gynecology case, LeBlanc herself was pregnant with twins. "I think being a woman attorney brings with it great opportunities and an ability to perhaps connect with some clients in a very special way. And Sugarman has always been a firm that values the contributions of women attorneys" she adds. "That allows me to get a bit closer to some of their issues and be able to communicate those to a jury." Her proudest accomplishments during her bar presidency include creating a Women of Color Committee and helping to increase the presence of women on the bench during the Romney administration. "His track record at that point was not good, and we brought attention to it and got some major press on it," she says of the former governor. "Following that, there were a number of women who were appointed to the bench. I was very proud that we were able, as a bar association, to shine the light on that." A cum laude graduate of both Wellesley College and Boston College Law School, LeBlanc is a longstanding leader of the Massachusetts Academy of Trial Attorneys, the American Association for Justice and the Massachusetts Bar Association, among other memberships. She was named by Boston Magazine as one of the "Best Lawyers in Boston," has been selected by her peers for inclusion in Best Lawyers in America® since 2005, and was named one of the "Top 50 Women Massachusetts Super Lawyers" from 2004 through 2008. Asked to reveal the secrets of her success, LeBlanc attributes her success and her preparedness to her mentors at Sugarman and their personalized style and service to their clients. "One of the mottos (of the firm) is we are always the most well prepared lawyers in the courtroom," she says. "It's a matter of giving it all to every case, every time." Laughing off the idea of early retirement given her degree of success, LeBlanc says she looks forward to continuing to advocate for the rights of litigants on both the state and national level. "They have been under attack for so long and continue to be," she says. "I'm very lucky, in that I started in a firm that I grew to love and I'm just so happy where I am," she adds. We have a great team of partners with an exciting future." |
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