Associate
Professional Liability
Phone: 215-587-1055
Fax: 215-320-4177
mschumaker@postschell.com
Defends healthcare systems, hospitals, physicians, and nurses in complex medical professional liability litigation.
Melinda A. Schumaker is an Associate in the Firm's Professional Liability Defense Practice Group. She specializes in the defense of healthcare systems, hospitals, physicians, and nurses in complex medical professional liability litigation. She accepts and handles cases directly assigned to her by clients and provides senior associate level assistance to multiple established partners.
Ms. Schumaker handles all aspects of cases from their initiation to their successful resolution. She second chairs trials, binding arbitrations, and complex mediations; independently handles no-pay mediations; deposes plaintiffs and fact witnesses; prepares and presents witnesses for their depositions; collaborates with and retains expert witnesses; argues and prepares motions and preliminary objections; manages multifaceted discovery; completes pleadings; and conducts initial interviews of physicians and nurses.
In 2020, Ms. Schumaker was named by her peers as a Pennsylvania Super Lawyer Rising Star in the category of Medical Malpractice. For information about these selections and an overview of common third-party publications, rankings, and lists methodologies, click here.
Prior to joining Post & Schell, P.C. in 2008, Ms. Schumaker practiced in the Health Care Litigation and Risk Management Department of a major mid-Atlantic law firm. In that position, Ms. Schumaker served as a litigator assisting in defending medical professional liability lawsuits and as an advisor dedicated to preventing additional lawsuits. This latter aspect of her practice involved both pre-litigation handling of potential claims and claims reduction by identifying and mitigating liability risk and enhancing patient safety and quality of care.
From September 2005 to September 2006, Ms. Schumaker served as a judicial law clerk to the Honorable James P. Cullen of the Court of Common Pleas of Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Judge Cullen presided over medical professional liability cases, giving Ms. Schumaker the unique opportunity to participate in these matters from the court’s vantage point and to learn the judicial perspective on key legal issues.
