Sean E. Coonerty

Sean E. Coonerty is an accomplished personal injury attorney who consistently resolves cases for over $1 Million dollars, both at trial and pre-trial stages, on behalf of clients injured in accidents.  He has a particular interest in personally representing construction workers, including those who fall from a ladder, scaffold or any other elevated type of platform, as well as workers who have something heavy fall on top of them, and even those who slip/trip and fall on a construction site.  He is especially concerned with advocating on behalf of lower-level laborers who are often forced to do the most dangerous work, with the least safety protection.  As such, Sean is extremely well versed in the NYS Labor Law, the NYS Industrial Code, and OSHA, and he consistently prevails in obtaining judgment for his construction clients as a matter of law based on his legal writing alone. 

Sean is also very active in many community organizations.  He sponsors activities at construction worker organizations such as New Immigrant Community Empowerment (NICE), La Colmena, and the Liga Mexicana de Beisbol de New York Inc. baseball league. He is an active member of the Brain Injury Association of New York State (BIANYS) and is involved in church-based programs where he regularly meets with numerous pastors to provide help for their church congregants, especially in the Latin communities. 

Sean grew up in West Islip, Long Island, NY.  He attended West Islip High School and played Varsity tennis and soccer.  In his senior year, he was the tennis team’s Captain, was named the Most Valuable Player, and his doubles team was undefeated.  He graduated in the top 6% of his High School class of over 425 students.

Early in life, Sean began working on the Great South Bay.  At 15 years old he was a mate on the fishing boat, Captain Rod, out of the Captree Boat Basin.  At 16, he began as a deckhand at the Fire Island Ferries in Bay Shore.  By the time he was 19, he was a Ferry Captain in charge of a crew of 4, and up to 400 passengers aboard vessels up to 85 feet long.

Sean attended college at Binghamton University on an academic scholarship and received a B.A. in Economics.  Following graduation, and after working full time on the Fire Island Ferries for a year, he was offered a scholarship and attended Brooklyn Law School.  After his first year in Law School, he was a Summer Intern for the Federal Judge, Hon. Denis Hurley, in Hauppauge, NY. 

Following his second year in Law School he began as a Summer Associate for Aaronson, Rappaport, Feinstein & Deutsch, LLP, in Manhattan, NY.  At the end of that summer, Aaronson’s office offered Sean a full-time position upon graduating Law School.  He was the first Associate to ever be hired to the firm directly from Law School.  As an Associate Attorney, he was involved in all aspects of medical malpractice defense litigation.  He represented and defended physicians of various specialties, and medical institutions such as Brookdale Hospital, Brooklyn Hospital and Methodist Hospital.  In addition to preparing high exposure cases for trial, he also sat on steering committees for the Phen-Fen and Breast Implant class actions, as well as co-wrote an article for The New York Law Journal on the Physician-Patient Privilege.

After a couple of years defending doctors and hospitals, and witnessing first-hand the injustices suffered by the plaintiffs, Sean abruptly changed his career path.  He knew his true calling was to fight for the victims of negligence, not defend the perpetrators.  In February 2001 he began working as an Associate Attorney for Geller & Siegel, LLP, a plaintiff’s personal injury and medical malpractice firm.  By January 2008, Sean became a partner, and the firm changed names to Geller, Siegel & Coonerty, LLP. 

Since 2011 the firm has been Siegel & Coonerty, LLP, where Sean continues to represent a broad range of plaintiff clients in personal injury, medical malpractice and wrongful death cases, with specific focuses including construction/workplace accidents, automobile accidents, slip/trip and fall accidents, premises liability, as well as any other accidents caused by negligence.  He has controlled hundreds of cases on behalf of the injured from the initial interview through trial.  As a Trial Attorney he has achieved verdicts in the five boroughs of New York City, as well as Nassau, Suffolk, Westchester and Dutchess Counties.  One of his most notable trials was in Brooklyn where he represented a construction worker who fell 60 feet in an elevator shaft – 6 weeks into the trial it settled for $4.6 Million. 

Presently, Sean is the Managing Partner of the firm.  In addition to running the business, he reviews every single case at its inception, and provides a detailed outline for its handling until resolution.  His door is always open, and clients can call a direct line straight to his desk, because he believes that each client is a person – not just a file number.  Although significant trials are now primarily handled by his partner, Andy, he remains extremely active in resolving cases at pre-trial mediation, where he has achieved numerous multi-million dollar settlements.  

Sean is admitted to practice law in New York State, and the Federal Courts in the Eastern and Southern Districts.  He has been honored as a Super Lawyer continuously since 2014.  A Super Lawyer is the top 5% of lawyers in the specialty of personal injury and medical malpractice practicing in the State of New York, as selected by his peers.

In the course of conducting countless depositions, Sean met and fell in love with his favorite Court Stenographer, Ada Luz. They were married in May 2005, and they live in Garden City, Long Island, NY, with their two children.  Sean and Ada Luz are active in various charitable organizations, including The Coalition for Children Against Abuse and Neglect, Circulo de Hispanidad, Team for Kids, and the Children’s Medical Fund.  Sean is an avid tennis/platform tennis player and skier, a coach for his kids, and a sports enthusiast in general.