Aaron DeShaw

Aaron DeShaw is a personal injury lawyer with Dr. Aaron DeShaw, Esq., P.C. His $77,523,748 verdict in M.M. and N.S. vs. Nicolopoulos is the largest personal injury verdict in Oregon history (1), and the second largest amputation verdict in US history.(2)  He has individually and with other firms, obtained over $1 billion in recoveries for his clients. He is the recipient of the Presidential Award from the Oregon Trial Lawyers Association for lifetime achievement in law.  He has been selected for the American Board of Trial Advocates, a select group of less than 100 trial lawyers and judges in Oregon.

Dr. DeShaw's practice focuses on traumatic brain injuries, amputation cases, truck crashes, car accidents, dram shop claims, wrongful death and insurance bad faith. He has 25 years of experience. He is also CEO and founder of Trial Guides, the leading litigation publishing company where he has overseen the creation of the best selling litigation method texts for lawyers. He is the co-founder of Settlement Intelligence, an AI demand letter platform for plaintiff lawyers, based upon his research on bodily injury claim software used by insurers.

After completing his undergraduate work at Willamette University, Dr. DeShaw attended Western States Chiropractic College where he earned a Doctor of Chiropractic. Returning to Willamette University College of Law, he studied and obtained his Juris Doctor. From 1996 to 2000 he concurrently attended law school and practiced as a doctor in Europe. He attended Pepperdine School of Law in London. He retired as a doctor in 2000 to work as a lawyer full time. Since graduation he has completed a program at Harvard Law School for AI and Law.

Dr. DeShaw is admitted to practice in both Oregon and Washington, but has also been admitted pro hac vice in other states as co-counsel. Dr. DeShaw is a member of the Oregon Trial Lawyers Association, the Washington State Bar Association, and the Oregon State Bar. He is a former member of the American Association for Justice and the organization’s Traumatic Brain Injury Litigation Division. 

To actively give back to his community and help as many people as possible, Dr. DeShaw was a board member of the Brain Injury Alliance of Oregon from 2014 to 2021.

With his health care background, he is uniquely qualified to handle complex medical injury cases.  The law firm's web site discusses our history of handling highly complex traumatic injury cases.

The author of three books and speaker in multiple recorded Continuing Legal Education programs, Dr. DeShaw has been a legal resource for organizations such as BusinessWeek, MSNBC, CNN and A.M. Best. Lecturing to both legal and medical professionals, he has presented for the North American Brain Injury Society ("NABIS"), the Brain Injury Association of California Med Legal Conference, Trial Guides, the Veterans Administration, the Spine Research Institute of San Diego, the American Association for Justice, the National Trial Lawyers Association, the Brain Injury Alliance of Oregon, Torts Made Perfect, 360 Advocacy, and multiple state physician and trial lawyer associations.

1. (The tobacco case, Williams v. Philip Morris, obtained a verdict of $821,485 in compensatory damages and $79.5 million in punitive damages, but was reduced to $521,485 in compensatory damages and $32 million in punitive damages.)

2. The largest amputation verdict in US history was a verdict for $95,000,000, obtained by Joseph Powers, Jr. in Illinois.