Joel E. Smith

Joel Smith is a trial lawyer featured in “The Best lawyers in America.” He is a founding partner of the Kosieradzki Smith Law Firm, a national practice firm known for its expertise in medicine and health care, and a deep knowledge of discovery law and strategy. Joel and his partner, Mark, have been honored by successful law firms throughout the country who have invited Kosieradzki Smith to join their trial teams to assist with cutting edge discovery strategies, unraveling corporate shells, and navigating the nuances of nursing home cases.

In 2024, the Minnesota State Bar Association honored Joel with its Professional Excellence Award, which the Association defines: “This award is presented to commend one or more attorneys who are actively involved in the legal profession and who combine excellence in professional service with outstanding service to and on behalf of the Minnesota State Bar, the legal profession, or the public.  This award recognizes attorneys who strive to meet the many responsibilities of a lawyer, including efforts to improve the administration of justice and practice of law, efforts to promote access to justice, efforts to serve and govern the profession, and service of benefit to the community.”

Joel is the co-author of the premier nursing home litigation textbook, Nursing Home Cases: When Caregivers Stop Caring, Thompson-West Publications’ Tort Litigation chapter on nursing home litigation.

Joel has also been the co-author of the Minnesota State Bar Association’s Elder Law Handbook chapter on nursing home litigation.

Joel is a thought leader in Nursing Home / Elder Abuse litigation who is a frequent speaker on liability for nursing homes and assisted living facilities.

Joel has also been a leader in trial bar serving on the Minnesota Association for Justice’s Board of Directors for over 20 years and on the Governing Council for the Minnesota State Bar Association’s Elder Law Section.

He has been a member of the American Association for Justice Leadership Forum and an active member of the American Association for Justice national Nursing Home Litigation Group.

Joel has been a member of the Multi-Million Dollar Advocates Forum and has been recognized as a “Super Lawyer” for over two decades.

Joel is a graduate of St. John’s University (Collegeville, MN) and the University of Minnesota Law School.

Praise for Joel and Mark’s book, Nursing Homes Case: When Caregivers Stop Giving:

• “Mark Kosieradzki and Joel Smith, two tenacious litigators who have spent their careers fighting to protect the elderly, have generously shared their wealth of knowledge and experience in this book.  It is an excellent resource for attorneys desiring to pursue cases involving neglect of the elderly.  It is a must read for anyone undertaking to litigate nursing home cases, including newcomers as well as those experienced in this area.”
  
• “You think you can do a plaintiff’s nursing home case and not read this book? Really? Kosieradzki and Smith have distilled decades of hard-fought nursing home litigation experience into an easy to read, practical approach to success. This book provides a masterful – and practical – blueprint to litigating a nursing home case start to finish, filled with numerous templates for success. Practitioners in the field who fail to read this book do so at their, and their client’s, peril.”
• “A must have masterwork! Inspiring, insightful and complete. Kosieradzki and Smith bring us the best guide to winning nursing home cases ever written. Two great mentors share their roadmap to success.”
• “Mark and Joel have done it again—they have made a complicated subject matter easy to understand.  This compendium belongs on the shelf of every lawyer who handles, or wants to handle, nursing home neglect and abuse cases.  It is written in a style that encourages the readers to continue on, to keep learning more, and provides a wealth of information regarding the most important areas facing nursing home plaintiff’s lawyers today.  In over twenty years of practice, I have not yet encountered such a comprehensive but simply written guidebook in any other practice area.  Superbly written.”
• “Kudos to Mark and Joel for writing the book the rest of us have been waiting on for years – an encyclopedic work on nursing home litigation that covers every topic with the same passion and insight that these tireless advocates bring to their everyday practice on behalf of their clients and their mission to educate litigators and trial lawyers to be personally and professionally better every day.”
• “I highly recommend Mark and Joel’s primer on how to litigate nursing home cases. The book is a rare combination of the academic nuts and bolts of the case work-up process interspersed with the wisdom and advice that only comes from actual experience of fighting in the nursing home litigation trenches.  My son Evan and I had the pleasure of joining with Mark and Joel in litigating a nursing home abuse and neglect case.  We were able to observe firsthand many of the skills and strategies that are discussed in the book. If you have never tried a nursing home case or have made a career of representing victims of nursing home abuse or neglect, Mark and Joel’s book should be in your bookcase. Better yet, the book should be on your desk, all marked up and tagged with notes.”
• “Thirty years from now, the best lawyers in our country who champion the rights of those abused in nursing homes will look back on their careers and cherish the day they found this incredibly comprehensive, well-researched and practical guide. To try and litigate nursing home cases without it would be a serious mistake.”