Overview

According to Chambers USA, “the ‘very entrepreneurial’ Richard Zielinski is held in high regard by sources. He has substantial expertise in bet-the-company litigation and is singled out by observers as an ‘aggressive litigator.’ Clients remark that ‘he is fantastic on his feet.’ He thinks seven steps ahead of everyone else."

Richard represents major law firms throughout the United States in malpractice cases, disciplinary matters and intra-firm disputes. He was recently named Boston's Legal Malpractice Defense Lawyer of the Year by peer-reviewed Best Lawyers in America.

Richard also has extensive trial experience in a wide range of business and real estate disputes, including cases involving the financing and construction of large office towers, breach of contract cases, partnership disputes, lender liability cases and cases under the Massachusetts Consumer Protection Act (Chapter 93A).

He also defends manufacturers in products liability, mass tort and class action cases and has been named Lawyer of the Year in these practice areas in the past. Representative industries include pharmaceuticals, electrical products and tobacco. Richard is a Director with the firm.

Representative Experience

• Defended Rogers Communications, Canada’s largest wireless communications company, in an action seeking damages and injunctive relief for alleged misappropriation of trade secrets and breach of contract in connection with unsuccessful negotiations to license the plaintiff’s wireless technology.  Case was dismissed based on the successful invocation of a contractual forum selection clause.
• Successfully defeated class certification in a putative class action against a Massachusetts-based public company under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, 47 U.S.C § 227
• Represented a group of world renowned physicians and scientists in various civil and criminal proceedings relating to the arthritis drug, Vioxx.
• Defense of a major, national law firm in a case arising out of a $330 million leveraged buyout of a manufacturing company which subsequently went bankrupt. 
• Successful representation of the developers of the largest office complex in Boston in a $300+ million dispute with their lender. 
• Defense of a major tobacco company in hundreds of products liability cases including individual and class actions, and the Medicaid reimbursement actions brought by various state attorneys general in the mid-1990s.
• Defense of a Birmingham, Alabama valve manufacturer in a $300+ million case arising out of a catastrophic explosion at a petrochemical processing plant located near Houston, Texas.