Paul J. Perkins

Selected by Super Lawyers as a top-rated personal injury, business litigation and criminal defense lawyer, for over twenty-five years Paul has represented:

• plaintiffs in complex, catastrophic personal injury, wrongful death, and professional malpractice cases;
• plaintiffs in fraud, Qui Tam, and consumer protection matters;
• injured workers in claims against third-parties;
• plaintiffs and defendants in business disputes involving contracts, fraud, misrepresentation, insurance bad faith and insurance coverage matters; and
• individuals charged with all manner of crimes.

Paul has extensive trial experience before juries, trial judges and administrative law judges. He is one of the few lawyers in Vermont to obtain a punitive damages award in a personal injury case and maintain the award on appeal. For years, he has taught intensive trial practice to Vermont Law School students and coached them in annual national trial competitions.

Paul is the former Chair of the Insurance Law Section of the Vermont Bar Association and has given many continuing legal education courses on insurance coverage and litigation. He is an adjunct professor of law at Vermont Law and Graduate School and delivers annual lectures on ethics at Dartmouth College.

Paul’s cases include:

Reliant Life Sciences, LLC v. AGC Biologics, Inc. and Daigle Computer Systems, Inc., no. 22-cv-137, D. N. H. 10/25/2022 (approving Paul’s removal of the case to federal court, denying the plaintiff’s motion for remand and dismissing all claims against Paul’s client for lack of personal jurisdiction); Carpentier v. Tuthill, 2013 VT 91, 195 Vt. 52, 86 A.3d 1006 (2013) (affirming the compensatory and punitive damages awards Paul obtained in an attempted sexual assault case); two cases in which Paul convinced Vermont trial courts to hear claims under Vermont’s Consumer Protection Act for the failure of insurers to provide insurance benefits to his clients: Blake v. Progressive Northern Ins. Co., No. 164-9-15 Oecv and White River Traffic Group, Inc. v. United Ohio Ins. Co. and Cass Insurance, Inc., No. 330-7-17 Wrcv; Griffith v. Mozaffari, No. 451-9-15 Wrcv (August 13, 2018) (granting Paul and Michael’s motions under the collateral source rule, which prevented the introduction of evidence to reduce the calculation of their client’s medical bills); Choiniere, P & D Consulting, Inc. v. Marshall and Harris Beach LLP, No. 10-1-05 Wrcv (September 13, 2016) (granting Paul’s motion to bar the defendant from reducing any verdict for the plaintiffs by introducing evidence of plaintiff’s settlements with former defendants); Parker v. Malletts Bay Boat Club, Inc., 2010 AMC 2518 (D. Vt. 2010) (granting Paul and Michael’s motion to apply admiralty law and pure comparative fault in a case involving an injury on a yacht club tender on Lake Champlain); In re Dayco, Inc., No. 07-061-I (Vermont Department of Banking, Insurance, Securities, and Health Care Administration) (reversing a Vermont Worker’s Compensation Appeals Board decision that misclassified Paul’s client’s workers); Robinson v. Springfield Hosp., File No. 1:09-CV-75, 2010 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 10160 (D. Vt. February 5, 2010) (granting Michael and Paul’s motion to compel hospital employees to testify about their discussion of a deceased patient’s case, despite the defendants’ assertion of the peer review privilege); Fine Paints of Eur., Inc. v. Acadia Ins. Co., Case No. 2:08-cv-81, 2009 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 24188 (D. Vt. March 24, 2009) (granting Michael and Paul’s motion for summary judgment to compel their client’s insurer to defend their client in a claim for property damage to a historic property); Nichols v. Brattleboro Retreat, 2009 VT 4, 185 Vt. 313, 970 A.2d 1249 (reversing judgment against Michael and Paul’s client and ordering a new trial in a medical malpractice case for the failure of the defendant to present expert testimony in open court). 

Paul is a former U. S. Navy Special Warfare/Special Operations Deep Sea Diver. After military service, Paul returned to college and graduated with double majors and academic awards. In law school, he competed in mock trial and moot court competitions, represented the law school in a national mock trial competition, co-authored legal publications in the area of criminal law, and under Vermont’s law student internship rule, sat second chair in attempted murder and other trials. Paul initially maintained a vigorous trial practice in the criminal and juvenile courts of Vermont, then joined Plante & Hanley, P.C. where he began practicing in the areas of insurance defense, subrogation, and bad faith for a Fortune 100 insurer before practicing in the areas he handles today: complex, catastrophic personal injury, business litigation and criminal defense.