Cerebral Palsy Attorney in Kansas City

Fighting for Kansas City Families Since 1997. No Fees Unless We Recover.

Cerebral palsy is a group of permanent neurological disorders affecting movement, muscle tone, and posture, caused by damage to or abnormal development of the brain before, during, or shortly after birth. When that damage traces to a preventable error during labor or delivery, families have the right to pursue accountability. At Bertram & Graf, L.L.C., we handle cerebral palsy malpractice cases for families throughout the Kansas City metro on both sides of the state line, and we’ve been doing it since 1997.

A CP diagnosis often doesn’t come until months or years after birth, when developmental milestones are missed and testing begins. By then, families are already managing the medical and emotional weight of the condition. Our job is to investigate whether negligence contributed to your child’s diagnosis and, if it did, pursue every category of compensation the law allows.

We offer free consultations, including virtual meetings, with no obligation. Our firm works on a contingency fee basis, so you owe us nothing in legal fees unless we recover on your behalf. Call our cerebral palsy attorneys in Kansas City today at (888) 398-2277 to get started.

A Firm Built for Complex, High-Stakes Litigation

Cerebral palsy malpractice cases are among the most demanding in civil litigation. They require command of obstetric medicine, neonatal neurology, fetal monitoring interpretation, and life-care economics. Bertram & Graf, L.L.C. has built a reputation for excelling in exactly this kind of detailed, high-stakes work. We build every case strategy from the ground up, tailored to the specific facts of each family’s situation, because no two cases are alike.

We’re not deterred by the size of the institution on the other side. Our firm has litigated against some of the country’s largest medical device manufacturers and technology companies, and that same willingness to take on well-resourced defendants applies here. Our five-attorney team includes attorneys admitted in Missouri and Kansas, giving families across the full Kansas City metro a single firm with standing on both sides of the state line.

Our attorneys carry recognized credentials to match. Benjamin A. Bertram has been rated by SuperLawyers for five years, was named a Top 100 Civil Plaintiff lawyer by The National Trial Lawyers Association in both 2016 and 2017, and was named in the 2017 Mass Tort Trial Lawyers Top 25. J. Scott Bertram holds five consecutive SuperLawyers ratings. Gregory C. Graf is AV Rated by Martindale-Hubbell. We communicate honestly throughout every case and keep clients in control of their decisions at every stage.

How Medical Negligence Causes Cerebral Palsy

Most cerebral palsy cases rooted in malpractice involve brain damage from oxygen deprivation during birth, a condition known as birth asphyxia or hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy (HIE), meaning insufficient oxygen and blood flow to the brain. Physical trauma during delivery can also cause neurological damage. What matters legally is whether the medical team met the accepted standard of care and, if not, whether that failure caused the injury.

Common acts of negligence that give rise to a cerebral palsy malpractice claim include:

• Failure to monitor fetal heart rate for warning signs of fetal distress during labor
• Delay in performing an emergency C-section when one was medically necessary
• Improper use of delivery instruments such as forceps or vacuum extractors
• Failure to diagnose or treat maternal infections that endangered the baby
• Failure to address prolonged labor that placed the infant at risk of oxygen deprivation

Building a cerebral palsy malpractice case requires careful review of fetal monitoring strips, nursing notes, delivery records, and APGAR scores to identify when warning signs were present and whether the medical team responded appropriately.

Types of Cerebral Palsy & What They Mean for Your Claim

The specific diagnosis shapes both the child’s care plan and the scope of the legal claim. There are four recognized forms:

• Spastic cerebral palsy accounts for roughly 80 percent of cases. It involves abnormal muscle tone and stiffness caused by damage to the motor cortex and is the form most commonly associated with birth injury and birth-related medical errors.
• Dyskinetic (athetoid) cerebral palsy involves involuntary, uncontrolled movements stemming from damage to the basal ganglia, a region of the brain involved in movement coordination.
• Ataxic cerebral palsy affects balance and coordination and arises from damage to the cerebellum. It’s the least common form.
• Mixed cerebral palsy involves symptoms of more than one type, indicating damage to multiple brain regions.

Type and severity directly influence the lifetime care needs a child will have, which in turn affects the full range of compensable damages the claim may seek.

Damages Families Can Pursue

Cerebral palsy is a lifelong condition, and a malpractice claim must account for the full arc of your child’s needs, not just current expenses. Recoverable damages can include current and future medical costs, ongoing physical, occupational, and speech therapies, assistive devices, home modifications, special education services, lost parental income, and pain and suffering. We work with life-care planners and economic professionals to establish the long-term financial impact with precision, because underdocumented claims can leave families without resources they may eventually need. We’re also willing to travel to meet with clients when it benefits the case, so families managing a child’s serious medical condition don’t have to carry the added burden of getting to us.

Kansas City Families: Know Your Filing Deadline

Under Missouri Revised Statutes Section 516.105, the standard statute of limitations for medical malpractice is two years from the date of the negligent act. For minors, the same statute provides that a child under 18 has until their 20th birthday to file. That extended window exists for good reason, but waiting is still a risk. Fetal monitoring strips, delivery records, and provider notes must be preserved, and the people who were in that delivery room remember details most clearly in the years closest to the event.

Families in Kansas may be subject to different deadlines. An attorney can advise which state’s law applies based on where the delivery occurred and who provided care. Don’t assume the deadline is farther away than it is.

What Working with Our Firm Looks Like

Every case starts with a free, confidential consultation, by phone, in person, or virtually. We review your child’s medical records from pregnancy through delivery and into early childhood, consult qualified medical professionals, and build a strategy designed around your family’s specific facts. We handle all communication with insurance companies and defense teams. The institutional resources hospitals and insurers bring to these cases are considerable, and we’ve stood up to them before to pursue meaningful results for clients.

Many cerebral palsy malpractice cases resolve through settlement. Others go to trial. We prepare every case as if it will go before a judge and jury, because that preparation can create leverage at every stage of the process.

Talk to a Kansas City Cerebral Palsy Attorney Today

If your child has been diagnosed with cerebral palsy and you have reason to believe a medical error during pregnancy, labor, or delivery played a role, Bertram & Graf, L.L.C. is ready to review your case. We serve families throughout the Kansas City metro in both Missouri and Kansas. Consultations are free, virtual options are available, and you pay no legal fees unless we recover on your behalf.

Call us at (888) 398-2277 to schedule your free consultation with a cerebral palsy attorney at Bertram & Graf, L.L.C..