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Matthew P. Keris Receives DRI Foundation Community Service Award

August 29, 2023

Matthew P. Keris, shareholder in Marshall Dennehey’s Scranton office, has been named the recipient of the Defense Research Institute (DRI) Foundation Community Service Award. The award honors a DRI member who has demonstrated a commitment to the well-being of the general public by initiating or participating in programs which have a positive impact on the community.
 
Keris has been active in the leadership of DRI and is the outgoing President of the DRI Foundation which provides support to DRI members and their communities. Proceeds raised by the Foundation go directly to funding DRI charitable initiatives including community service, member attorney support programs, disaster recovery, support for the judicial system, and diversity programming.
 
A member of Marshall Dennehey's Health Care Department, Keris chairs the firm’s Electronic Medical Record (EMR) and Audit Trail Practice Group. He represents physicians, medical groups and health care institutions in EMR litigation and a variety of health care liability matters. In addition to his defense practice, he lectures nationally on litigation issues pertaining to the use of electronic medical records and is the author of the book, Electronic Medical Records and Litigation, published by Thomson Reuters.

Keris is a member of the Pennsylvania Bar Association and American Legal Connections (ALC), a consortium of legal and insurance professionals devoted to insurance defense education and initiatives. He is a past president of the Pennsylvania Defense Institute and the Pennsylvania Association for Health Care Risk Management. A graduate of Shippensburg University and Roger Williams University School of Law, he is admitted to practice in Pennsylvania, New York and Connecticut. 


 

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Appellate Division Affirms Dismissal of Legal Malpractice Counterclaim Against Martin Law Firm

In Martin v. Loury, 2026 N.J. Super. Unpub. LEXIS 1617 (App. Div. July 15, 2026), Martin Law Firm represented Kirk Loury in an employment matter Mr. Loury filed against his former employer, Concord Equity Group Advisors LLC (“Concord”). The allegations included, among other things, that Loury was not fairly compensated for his employment with Concord. After a bench trial finding in Loury’s favor, the Appellate Division remanded this matter in February 2016 for a second trial. During the second trial, Concord CEO, Lee Argush, testified to lower compensation estimate than first trial. On remand, the second trial judge awarded Mr. Loury the same damages as the first judge, finding Mr. Argush not credible. After the findings during the second trial, Martin Law Firm filed an action against Mr. Loury to recover legal fees and costs of representing Mr. Loury in a second bench trial and Mr. Loury filed a counterclaim against Martin Law Firm for legal malpractice, alleging he should have received an even higher award in the second bench trial. In this allegation, Mr. Loury, through his expert, claimed that Martin Law Firm should have recalled Mr. Loury to the stand to rebut Mr. Argush’s testimony to allege an alternative theory of damages. Mr. Loury’s expert admitted that the second judge already rejected Mr. Argush's theory and accepted Loury's damages theory. The trial court barred Mr. Loury’s expert and dismissed Loury's counterclaim with prejudice before convening the collection trial, and the jury ruled in Martin Law Firm’s favor. Mr. Loury appealed the trial court's pretrial rulings barring his liability expert from testifying in support of his legal malpractice counterclaim, denying his motion for summary judgment on that counterclaim, and denying his motion to amend his counterclaim by adding attorney Joseph A. Martin as a codefendant. In affirming the trial court’s decision, the Appellate Division held that the trial court properly excluded Loury’s expert testimony in the counterclaim against Martin Law Firm because the expert could not explain how calling Loury as a rebuttal witness would have increased damages when the second judge already rejected Mr. Argush's testimony and accepted Loury's damages theory, making the expert’s causation opinion speculative. The Appellate Division also held that the trial court properly denied Mr. Loury's summary judgment motion on his malpractice counterclaim because reasonable minds could differ on whether Mr. Martin's alleged failures would have changed the second judge's damages award, given the judge already found Mr. Argush not credible, creating genuine factual disputes precluding summary judgment. Also, the Appellate Division held that the trial court properly denied Loury's May 2023 motion to add Joseph Martin individually because the statute of limitations expired in February 2022, six years after the 2016 appellate remand when Mr. Loury incurred new legal costs, and relation back did not apply because Mr. Loury knew Mr. Martin's identity throughout and strategically chose to sue only Martin Law Firm in his 2019 counterclaim.