Dudensing Law founder Ed Dudensing presented a continuing legal education webinar for the California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform (CANHR), teaching plaintiff-side elder abuse attorneys how to read and use nursing home financial records as litigation evidence.
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.
Levin Associates, an industry side publisher of data relating to mergers, acquisitions, and finance in health care and seniors housing, recently posted a video discussing trends in the long-term care sector. Among other things, this video addressed Dudensing Law’s recent $110 million jury verdict against a publicly traded real estate investment trust (REIT), Colony Capital, and a private equity firm, Formation Capital. The video warns that the verdict could “scare off capital” from investing in the long-term care space.
Dudensing Law is proud to welcome four exceptional law students to the firm this summer each bringing a background in service, advocacy, and a commitment to standing up for those who have been wronged.
A recent investigation by Hunterbrook reports that The Ensign Group, the largest operator of skilled nursing facilities in the United States, systematically understaffs its facilities, resulting in millions of hours of missing care for some of the nation’s sickest and most vulnerable residents.
Part one of the investigation examined millions of CMS datapoints and reviewed thousands of pages of documents, finding a 5-million-hour gap between the nursing care Ensign’s residents needed and the care they received between July and November 2024.
Hunterbrook interviewed Dudensing Law founder Ed Dudensing as part of its reporting. “The regulation is that you have to staff to meet the needs of residents, and that consistently does not happen,” said Ed. “That’s illegal.”
The investigation also found that Ensign facilities consistently failed to meet minimum state staffing requirements in California, Washington, Tennessee, and Kansas on more than 18,000 cumulative days between 2020 and 2025.
We’re proud to announce that Dudensing Law has once again been recognized in the prestigious 2026 Chambers and Partners USA Guide, maintaining its ranking in Band 3 for Litigation: Mainly Plaintiffs – California. This year’s recognition carries added distinction, as firm founder Ed Dudensing also earned an individual ranking in the same practice category.
Dudensing Law is proud to announce that Founder Ed Dudensing has been named an “Attorney of the Year” finalist for the 2026 California Legal Awards, presented by Law.com and The Recorder.
The California Legal Awards recognize the state’s most accomplished attorneys across practice areas, honoring those who have demonstrated exceptional skill, leadership, and impact in the law.
Ed Dudensing has built Dudensing Law into one of California’s premier firms for elder abuse and neglect litigation. Combining meticulous trial strategy with a deep commitment to fighting for elders and their families, he has secured historic jury verdicts and multimillion-dollar recoveries while driving systemic reform in long-term care facilities across the state.
Dudensing Law Founder Ed Dudensing is featured in a new KFF Health News investigation published in NPR that exposes how real estate investment trusts (REITs) have taken control of the nation’s nursing homes and assisted living facilities with devastating consequences for residents.
The piece, “Real estate investors are buying up long-term care facilities. Residents can suffer,” discusses a recent Dudensing Law verdict. In March 2026, a Sacramento County jury awarded a $110 million total verdict against Colony Capital, the publicly traded REIT, and Formation Capital, the private equity investment firm that oversaw Greenhaven Estates, on behalf of the four daughters of Mildred Hernandez. Mildred was 100 years old, lived with Alzheimer’s dementia, and died of hypothermia after wandering from the facility in the middle of the night. The verdict is the largest elder neglect verdict against an assisted living facility in California history.
As Ed told NPR: “REIT money is very detached from knowing about or caring about patient or resident outcomes, because it’s not in their business model. Their allegiance is to their investors.”
April 15, 2026 Originally published by Daily Journal
Dudensing Law Founder Ed Dudensing recently authored an article in the Daily Journal titled “Why Loosening Sedative Rules in Nursing Homes Would Put Vulnerable Patients at Serious Risk.” The piece offers a powerful look at the growing threat of chemical restraint to nursing home residents across the country and the federal rollback that could make it worse.
The Department of Health and Human Services’ own watchdog recently confirmed what elder abuse attorneys have long known: nursing homes are administering dangerous antipsychotic drugs to dementia patients not for medical need, but to reduce staffing demands, and falsifying diagnoses to hide it.
The article details the human cost of this practice, including the case of Alando Williams, a Dudensing Law client and California nursing home resident who died in January 2023 after it is alleged that staff sedated him with Ativan and morphine as a substitute for proper supervision. “Mr. Williams’ case is not an exception,” Ed warns, citing a 2021 federal review that found more than 12,000 residents receiving antipsychotics never appeared in facility records as having received them.
Ed’s piece raises concerns about a federal proposal to roll back reporting requirements for antipsychotic use in nursing homes. “The answer to an imperfect oversight mechanism is not to gut it,” he writes. “The answer is to strengthen it by requiring non-pharmacological interventions to be documented before prescribing, closing the schizophrenia diagnosis loophole, and implementing staffing requirements that would make sedation unnecessary in the first place. “
Dudensing Law is proud to announce that Founder Ed Dudensing has been named to the 2026 Lawdragon 100 Managing Partners You Need to Know guide. The guide highlights the nation’s top law firm leaders who combine exceptional legal skill with outstanding firm management and vision.
Office Manager and Senior Litigation Secretary Kari Kalista recently celebrated 15 years with Dudensing Law.
With deep expertise in civil procedure, court rules at every level, and every phase of case development, she has been an anchor of the firm's operations since day one.
Dudensing Law Founder Ed Dudensing led a presentation titled "Financials 101 for Elder Abuse Lawyers" for a California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform (CANHR) webinar, equipping plaintiff-side elder abuse attorneys with the tools to read nursing home financial records as litigation evidence.
The session discussed key financial paperwork and how each document type can reveal deliberate cost-cutting decisions, profit-shifting to affiliated companies, and the financial control structures that connect parent companies to individual facilities.
“How would you describe Dudensing Law’s approach to handling your case?”
Former client Ralph V. says it best: even across three time zones, the Dudensing Law team made sure every member of his family felt informed, supported, and never alone in the process.
That is the standard we hold ourselves to for every family we represent.
If you or a loved one has experienced elder abuse or neglect, we are here to help: dudensinglaw.com/contact/
The nursing home that neglected your loved one probably doesn't own itself.
In his Rutter Group treatise on elder abuse litigation, founder Ed Dudensing writes extensively about the corporate structures behind California's long-term care facilities.
A typical defendant isn't a single entity; it's generally a licensed operator owned by a management company, owned by a holding company, owned by a private equity fund, with the actual assets held somewhere entirely separate.
Founder Ed Dudensing was recently interviewed by Law.com's The Recorder in recognition of his selection as a finalist for the 2026 California Legal Awards “Attorney of the Year”.
The piece dives into what drives Ed's work, passions, and what he sees as a defining threat to elder care today.
As Ed told Law.com, "Now, with big finance becoming more and more involved, there's just such a fundamental misalignment, because big finance reports to investors. 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."