Published in 2024 Virginia Super Lawyers magazine
By Natalie Pompilio on April 24, 2024
The day before last Thanksgiving, Stephanie E. Grana braved I-95 holiday traffic to meet two new clients. Normally, the journey from her Richmond office to the clients’ Fredericksburg home would take about an hour each way. On Thanksgiving eve, each leg took more than three hours.
She could, of course, have arranged for a phone chat or video call. But these clients had recently lost their adult son in a collision, and Grana, 54, a plaintiff’s personal injury lawyer with Cantor Grana Buckner Bucci, understands how difficult the holidays can be for those in mourning.
“I know what it’s like, when each holiday comes, to remember, ‘That was their chair’ and ‘That was their favorite food’ or ‘They always said the prayer at the start of the meal,’” says Grana.
It’s not just sympathy; she knows.
In 2008, her brother and father were killed when the small plane her brother was piloting crashed hours before the family was to celebrate the first communion of Grana’s daughter. Unsure what had delayed the pair, the rest of Grana’s family went ahead to the church, and she remembers turning around every time a door opened to see who was entering. It was never them.
Grana had already been practicing law for more than 15 years and was well-established in her field. But she believes the tragedy changed her professionally as well as personally.
Grana’s family sued Honeywell International, the manufacturer of the plane’s autopilot system, claiming it caused the plane to become uncontrollable. “She was there for every day of the jury trial as a party, and not as a lawyer,” says Scott Bemberis, Grana’s husband of 27 years and a family law attorney. “It is very different when the testimony is about your family and, day after day, you have to listen to the defense blame and point fingers at those who are not there to answer. She is stronger, better, and a more empathetic lawyer for it.”
And if her clients ask, Grana will hit the road on one of the most highly trafficked days of the year.
“This is the worst time of their lives,” she says. “This is just the start of a journey that we will take together to achieve justice, and a face-to-face meeting is invaluable.
“I cannot hug my client and say, ‘I’m sorry for your loss’ over Zoom.”
Grana’s colleagues keep electing her to various leadership positions. In 2022, she became the first person of Hispanic descent, and the seventh woman, to serve as president of the Virginia State Bar in its 85-year history.
While Grana is proud of this accomplishment, she’d prefer it weren’t so.
“I would have loved to have been the 50th woman,” she says. “I would like not to have been the first [Hispanic president], but at least now that there’s been a first, there can be a second and a third. Women come up to me and say, ‘You’re a role model.’ I say, ‘What can I do to further you in your law practice so we can get away from firsts?’”
Before leading the state Bar, Grana helmed the Virginia Trial Lawyers Association (VTLA), the Metropolitan Richmond Women’s Bar Association, the Lewis F. Powell Jr. American Inns of Court, and the Virginia chapter of the American Board of Trial Advocates.
“Everything Stephanie does, she does 100 percent,” says Irvin Cantor, who has been her law partner for more than 20 years. “When she was a young lawyer, it was very difficult for female trial attorneys to get to the top of the field. It was a male-dominated profession. That’s changed due to folks like Stephanie.”
Henrico County Commonwealth’s Attorney Shannon Taylor recalls hearing that, as Grana finished her term as VTLA president, she “immediately turned around” and told her husband she wanted to lead the VSB.
“What else could he say but ‘of course?’” says Taylor. “His reaction was due to Stephanie’s amazing attributes—her dedication to a profession in which she believes, her work in making that profession more equitable and fair, and her commitment to ensuring the legal field in Virginia is more diverse, both demographically and geographically.”
Grana believes it’s important to be a “citizen lawyer,” saying she and her colleagues “have an added duty to the community. … Lawyers can change lives. I really, firmly believe that.”
But change requires involvement. In addition to her Bar association work, Grana chairs the board of the nonprofit Commonwealth Community Trust, which helps people who are vulnerable, injured or have special needs. She’s been on the board of the nonprofit Community Brain Injury Services since 2013 and is currently its secretary. (“It’s exhausting reading her résumé,” Bemberis jokes.)
“That’s part of my calling: I like to help others and I like to leave things better,” she says. “My friends have asked, ‘Must you lead everything you join?’ But that’s not how I go into it. I’m not good at sitting and just observing. If I think I can add to it or improve it or enhance it or get other people involved, that’s what leads me to do more.”
Such dedication extends to her family. When her three now-adult children—Nicole, Garrett and Dakota—were younger, she volunteered with the PTA and the dance team. She went to the gymnastics competitions and dance performances; the soccer, basketball and baseball games; and taekwondo matches. She went above and beyond, Bemberis says, including participating with her kids in taekwondo and becoming a black belt.
“We used to joke that some days she’s a great lawyer and other days she’s a great mom,” Bemberis says. “Her never-ending energy meant she could come home from work and start bedazzling a costume. It takes a lot of effort to add that bling, and she’s a world-champion rhinestone applier.”
Grana grew up in Malverne, a Long Island village of about 8,000 with a picturesque downtown. Her father, Joseph, grew up speaking Spanish. When he reached school age, he was sent home for not speaking English. “That happened multiple times,” Grana says.
Eventually he became an aeronautics engineer and teacher.
After finishing high school in North Dakota, Grana’s mother, Kathy, saw limited options before her—one sister was a nun, the other a teacher. She bought a bus ticket to Long Island and moved in with a relative as she looked for work, eventually meeting and marrying Joseph.
Grana’s brother, Joseph III, was born in 1967. She followed 18 months later. When the pair started school, their mother decided to go to college to earn her associate’s degree.
“We were both small, and I remember her studying at the dining room table with us,” Grana says. “One of her classes involved dissecting a fetal pig, and I remember she had that out in the garage.”
Growing up, Grana aspired to be either a lawyer or a veterinarian. But then she realized she didn’t love science—and perhaps the dissected pig in the garage had something to do with that. In high school, she excelled at debate. After graduation, she attended the University of Richmond, earning her undergraduate degree in three years. From there, she moved on to the University of Richmond School of Law, clerked for Court of Appeals Judge Joseph E. Baker, and found a job at Ed Taylor’s med-mal firm in 1994.
“Here was this solo attorney who was going to put all of this time into me, and he didn’t know if he’d lose me to marriage and children within the first three years,” she says. “I had zero experience. I didn’t come from a Virginia family or a family of lawyers. … But he took a chance on me and, 30 years later, I’m still in practice.”
Taylor taught her the key to medical malpractice cases was knowing the medicine. Grana got a library card to the Medical College of Virginia.
“I knew where the surgical textbooks were, where the obstetrical textbooks were, and on weekends, I’d collect my cases—all of the people who’d called me during the week—and open these textbooks,” Grana recalls. “My first experts were authors. I’d literally cold-call them.”
While research is less time-consuming today, she emphasizes that it’s still crucial. “You can’t explain to a jury what the issue is unless you know it yourself,” she says. “No matter the case, if you have complicated injuries, you still need to know how they’re treated and what the future holds for that person.”
Grana says she doesn’t necessarily always consider herself the most eloquent person in the courtroom—“but nobody’s going to outwork me.”
She adds, “I will make sure I can go toe-to-toe with any big firm defense lawyer who has three or four associates with them, because that’s what my client needs, that’s what the case needs, and that’s the attention it’s going to get.”
Cantor says he doesn’t think Grana sleeps much.
“When we’re trying a case together, she’s working virtually from the end of the trial day to the beginning of the next day,” Cantor says. “I need a good night’s sleep. I’ll wake up in the morning and I’ll have 15 messages or texts about things she’s thought about for that day.”
Though Grana reviews hundreds of potential cases each year, she takes on only a few.
“Case selection in medical malpractice is essential,” she says. “Every case is difficult, takes years to pursue, costs between $50,000 and $100,000, and is vigorously defended by highly qualified defense attorneys, with trials lasting five to seven days.”
Grana builds relationships with clients that last long after the trial. She gets invitations to their weddings, photos of their children, emails about their progress in healing.
“I practice in an area where I’m changing someone’s life,” Grana says. “I can’t restore limbs, but money changes things. If money can get someone the best motorized wheelchair out there, that’s what I want. If money can provide a future safety net for a family … that is life-altering.”
Grana is well-suited for this area of law, says Virginia Court of Appeals Judge Doris Henderson Causey, because she pays attention “not only to the legal cases, the law, and what she needs to do while trying a case, but also the emotions of the parties and understanding where they’re coming from.
“Sometimes people complain their lawyers seem detached, but not Stephanie.”
In 2014, Grana represented a boy who suffered a birth injury due to unrecognized fetal distress. The case was especially challenging, Grana says, as the child was almost 7 before his parents connected his birth injury to his developmental delays. The jury awarded the boy $5.5 million plus interest, which brought the total to more than $9 million. “It was a lot of footwork to figure out who was in the room at what time,” she says. But it ultimately led her to file suits against both the nurses and physician. “We settled with the nurses pre-trial, and their testimony was helpful in the trial against the physician and her practice group.”
The outcome, she adds, “opened doors for him to go to a special school, then that opened doors to other opportunities. He’s forging his own path now.”
Another memorable case involved a woman who went into cardiac arrest after giving birth, then suffered a stroke. She not only had to relearn how to walk and talk, she also needed a kidney transplant.
“Other lawyers turned her down, but she wanted to be heard,” Grana recalls.
She was. In the end, the jury granted Grana’s client a $4 million award.
More recently, Grana represented the families of three women who died after a doctor misread their mammograms, delaying critical treatment, as well as seven other women who survived the mistakes. All cases were settled.
“All of the clients I’ve had have had an impact on me,” she reflects.
“I can’t do a closing argument without thinking of my father and my brother.”
When Grana finished her stint as president of the VSB, colleagues gifted her a state map with dots marking each place she’d visited that year. It was almost completely covered.
During her term, Grana hosted the organization’s third annual Forum on Diversity in the Legal Profession. She stressed the importance of equity and inclusion, applying that not only to race, gender, nationality and sexual orientation, but also to geography.
“It’s not about, ‘You need a quota of 10 women or 10 minorities,’” she says. “These are quality people you might be overlooking who are going to excel and whose work you will benefit from.”
She’s currently involved with a new VTL Foundation program that seeks to diversify trial practice by offering 10-week summer internships and scholarships to two law students from diverse backgrounds.
“Sometimes, when you’re climbing the ladder of success, you keep going and never look back. Stephanie is constantly looking back,” Causey says. “She doesn’t shut the door. She leaves it open so that others can enter behind her.”
Taylor says Grana’s legacy is not only how she shapes an organization as its leader, but also how she leaves it, “advancing the organization so that the next leader who follows has concepts already in place that can be advanced and supplemented.”
When younger lawyers see Grana’s résumé, they’re often unable to imagine ever being so successful.
“I say, ‘It didn’t start that way,’” Grana says. “‘I started as a young, unknown, nobody, inexperienced lawyer.’ I almost want to show them my résumé when I was five years out to compare to my résumé 31 years in. This is not some unachievable thing. You just build. You build upon relationships and cases. This didn’t happen overnight.
Civil Law
In 2019, the Virginia Association of Defense Attorneys (VADA) honored Stephanie Grana with its annual Civility and Professionalism Award for her respectful manner toward courtroom opponents.
“[Grana’s] distinguished career is proof that being a zealous advocate and upholding the high standards of civility and professionalism are not mutually exclusive,” the plaque notes.
“Stephanie is recognized by the defense bar across Virginia as a top-level opponent and a highly skilled trial lawyer,” says defense attorney Sean P. Byrne of Byrne Canaan Law. “Juries appreciate her genuine and authentic approach that comes without any blustering or nonsense. She is passionate without being melodramatic or pandering.”
Although Grana is a polished speaker, she was nervous when accepting her award at a VADA convention. “I’m sure I got red in the face,” she says. “To have folks on the other side of cases, who I have the utmost respect for, honoring me with this award was a very humbling experience.”
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