Managing Partner

Mr. Bubalo is Board Certified in Civil Trial Advocacy by the National Board of Trial Advocacy (“NBTA”).  He is listed in The Best Lawyers in America® 2009 (Copyright 2009 Woodward/White, Inc., of Aiken, S.C.).

Mr. Bubalo was born in Evansville, Indiana on June 3, 1955.  He graduated Magna Cum Laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Illinois College in 1977.  In May 1980, he graduated Magna Cum Laude from Indiana University School of Law, where he served as an Associate Editor and then Note and Development Editor for the Indiana Law Review.  He was admitted to the bars of the Supreme Courts for the Commonwealth of Kentucky and the State of Indiana, and subsequently to the United States District Courts for the Eastern and Western Districts of Kentucky, the Northern and Southern Districts of Indiana, and the United States Courts of Appeal for the 6th and 7th Circuits.

Mr. Bubalo first represented clients as an associate with Greenebaum, Doll & McDonald .  Thereafter, the firm of Ogden, Newell & Welch (presently Stoll Keenan Ogden, PLC) offered him a partnership, where he practiced law until July 1995 defending physicians in medical malpractice actions and appearing in complex commercial cases.

In July, 1995, Mr. Bubalo became "Of Counsel" at Ogden, while primarily serving as Vice President and General Counsel for Paradigm Insurance Company as well as President of its subsidiary, Universal Fire and Casualty Company.  Working for these companies, he supervised a network of lawyers in over thirty (30) states involving both personal injury and corporate cases.

In June, 1999, Mr. Bubalo was invited by Gary Becker to become Assistant Managing Partner for the Becker Law Office.  There, he helped manage the firm but primarily served as the Lead Trial Attorney representing injured people and small businesses, routinely opposing large companies, especially insurance companies. 

After Mr. Becker’s retirement in 2004, Mr. Bubalo continued his personal injury and general trial practice through the creation of Bubalo, Hiestand & Rotman, PLC.  His firm presently has ten (10) attorneys with offices in Louisville and Lexington, Kentucky as well as attorneys in Boston, Massachusetts.  Mr. Bubalo is the Managing Partner.  Attorneys in his firm are admitted to practice in the bars of Kentucky, Massachusetts, Tennessee and Indiana, but practice cases in many other states and courts across the country.

Mr. Bubalo has appeared in various types of trials.  A few examples follow. 

In Loomis v. St. Mary's Hospital, he was Lead Trial Attorney, resulting in one of the largest personal injury verdicts recorded in the State of Indiana. Mr. Bubalo sought compensation for a neurosurgeon who was injured, resulting in Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy (“RSD”), also generally known as Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (“CRPS”).  The Judgment for almost $17,000,000 was unanimously affirmed by the Indiana Court of Appeals in St. Mary’s Medical Center of Evansville, Inc. v. Loomis, 783 N.E.2d 274 (Ind. App. 2003).  Click Here to view full opinion of the Indiana Court of Appeals.

Since 1999, Mr. Bubalo frequently has represented people injured by defective drugs.  Some recent cases include his appearance in October, 2008 as co-counsel in Stribling v. Wyeth, Superior Court of New Jersey, Bergen County, Docket No.: BER-L-2352-07 MT.  Mr. Bubalo presented technical pharmacological evidence to the jury, which awarded Mrs. Stribling $3,000,000 for pain and suffering damages.  The jury found that the defendant Wyeth, “intentionally concealed from the FDA knowledge of the harmful effects,” of its drugs.  Click Here to view Stribling verdict.  Similarly, in early 2009, Mr. Bubalo was trial counsel in Kohler v. Wyeth, Superior Court of the State of California, County of Los Angeles, Central Civil West, Diet Drug Case No. DD 004290.  The trial sought damages for a young lawyer who had taken Wyeth’s defective drugs, causing her to suffer from the progressive and eventually fatal disease, Primary Pulmonary Hypertension (“PPH”).  The trial was broadcast streaming live on the web via www.courtroomview.com, between 3/4/09 to 4/22/09.  A mutual resolution of the case was reached by the parties and recorded under seal by Judge Mohr shortly after the start of Defendant Wyeth’s proof.

Mr. Bubalo’s clients are his ultimate concern. Click Here for client thank you letter.

Mr. Bubalo is rated "AV" (the highest possible) by the Martindale-Hubbell Law Directory.  In 2009, he was again elected to the Kentucky Justice Association’s Board of Governors.  He is a member of The Multi-Million Dollar Advocates Forum . He is married with one child and a member of Christ Church United Methodist in Louisville, Kentucky.