Workers' Compensation & Personal Injury Trial Attorney







PROFESSIONAL HISTORY

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Material presented on the Burke and Burke, P.C. website is intended for information purposes only. 

It is not intended as professional advice and should not be construed as such.

Attorney Joseph M. Burke has been representing injured workers and their families since 1983. His practice in workers’ compensation and personal injury law covers a vast range of cases including traumatic brain injury, defective products, and construction site accidents. He has settled more workers' compensation cases for upwards of $1 million than any other lawyer in Massachusetts because unlike most other workers compensation lawyers: he understands because he has been there.

Having worked his way through college, business and law schools as a laborer, then a foreman, then a manager at a brass mill in Connecticut, Attorney Burke witnessed the dangers associated with hard manual labor. As a former college football player, he has seen first-hand the effects of brain and head injuries play out over the remainder of athletes' lives. He understands how dramatically injuries affect the futures of workers and their families - physically, mentally, emotionally, and financially - because he has been a part of that experience himself.  Having been there, he fights for his clients with grit and determination that few others attorneys possess.

Driven by core values of integrity, honesty, commitment, respect and care for his clients, and dedication to justice, Mr. Burke has represented injured employees and their survivors in workers’ compensation cases before the Department of Industrials Accident, and is counsel of record on numerous appeals before the Reviewing Board of the DIA and the Appeals Courts of the Commonwealth. Most attorneys never try jury trials to verdict in the Superior Court; Mr. Burke has tried over 60 to a verdict, all on behalf of those who have been needlessly injured. In addition, he has represented clients in Social Security Disability claims before the Office of Hearings and Appeals of the Social Security Administration in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island.

Mr. Burke founded BURKE AND BURKE, which focuses its practice exclusively on the representation of injured workers and their families in workplace accidents and products liability claims. His practice includes representation of people with traumatic brain injury, the litigation of construction site negligence, products liability claims and motor vehicle negligence in the Superior Courts of Massachusetts and Connecticut, as well as representation of clients before Hearings and Appeals of the Social Security Administration.  Attorney Burke also represented workers who were hurt on the job, during the 10 years that he was "Of Counsel" to the Boston law firm Parker|Scheer.


In addition to practicing with Burke and Burke, Mr. Burke's wife Rowena was "Of Counsel" to the Boston law firm Parker|Scheer where she represented injured employees and victims of car accidents.  Attorney Rowena Burke has served as Chair of the Friends of the Norwell Public Library. She also served on the Norwell Public Schools’ Strategic Planning Committee.


 

Education

A.B., Bates College
J.D., Suffolk University School of Law

Jurisdictions Admitted to Practice

Commonwealth of Massachusetts

United States District Court, Massachusetts

Professional & Bar Association Memberships

  • Massachusetts Bar Association
  • Association of Trial Lawyers of America


Legal Papers and Publications

  • “Representing a Claimant in a Workers’ Compensation Claim”, a 154-page primer on workers’ compensation law published by MCLE (Massachusetts Continuing Legal Education)
  • Lump Sum Settlements, MCLE (1991)
  • Workers’ Compensation Basics, MCLE (1994) 
  • Workers’ Compensation Experts View the Issues MCLE (1992)


Lectures Given at Massachusetts Continuing Legal Education:

  • "Representing a Claimant in a Workers’ Compensation Claim"
  • Lump Sum Settlements
  • Workers’ Compensation Experts View the Issues 
  • Workers’ Compensation Basics,
  • Brain Injuries and Psychological Disorders