Law.com Spotlights Founder Ed Dudensing as Attorney of the Year Finalist for 2026 California Legal Awards
June 29, 2026
Originally published by
dudensinglaw.com
Law.com’s The Recorder has named founder Ed Dudensing as one of three finalists for “Attorney of the Year” at the 2026 California Legal Awards, and sat down with him to discuss his career and convictions that led to the recognition.
In the interview, Ed reflected on what drew him to elder abuse litigation in the first place, years as a Sacramento County deputy district attorney working with crime victims, and his wife’s firsthand accounts as a UC Davis physician of patients arriving from nursing homes in troubling condition.
“Those are the things that were my initial spark,” he told Law.com. “I knew I wanted to do something involving vulnerable people, a vulnerable patient population, and it all came together in that way.”
The profile highlights Ed’s recent $110 million jury verdict against Formation Capital, a private equity firm, and Colony Capital, a publicly traded real estate investment trust (REIT) — the owners of Greenhaven Estates — on behalf of the family of Mildred Hernandez, a 100-year-old woman who died of hypothermia after wandering from her residential facility in 2019. The verdict is the largest elder abuse verdict against an assisted living facility in U.S. history.
Ed also spoke about what he sees as a defining threat to elder care today: the increasing role of REITs and private equity in nursing homes and assisted living facilities.
“Now, with big finance becoming more and more involved, there’s just such a fundamental misalignment, because big finance reports to investors,” he said. “They don’t even pretend to be caring about the residents of these end-use facilities. It’s a real estate play, and so it’s very frightening.”
The winner of the Attorney of the Year award will be announced at an evening ceremony at the Sheraton Grand Hotel in Los Angeles.
Read the full Law.com interview here.