Allen TittleFounder of
Tittle & Perlmuter

Allen Tittle never planned on founding a law firm from his dining room table. But then again, in Allen’s case, he’s always had to embrace the unexpected – even from the very beginning.

Because at just two weeks old, Allen was left on the doorstep of his great-great aunt and uncle’s home in a small Ohio town.

Fortunately, the couple took him in, raised him with love and discipline, and gave him a sense of purpose that would define the rest of his life. That selflessness taught him the meaning of service, and that early lesson became the foundation of everything he would soon build for himself, his family, and his community.

“When I started [Tittle & Perlmuter], I was $120,000 in law school debt, I had recently bought a house, and my wife was pregnant with our first child. Even though it probably wasn’t the best time to start a business, I didn’t let that stop me. I knew it was better to gamble on myself than someone else,” Allen remembers.

That gamble has paid off. Today, Allen is founder of his contingency fee law firm, Tittle & Perlmuter: one of Ohio’s most respected law firms for catastrophic injury, medical malpractice, and nursing home neglect.

But he doesn’t shoulder that responsibility on his own. Allen works alongside colleague and law firm partner, Scott Perlmuter, who joined with a similar drive to serve people at their most vulnerable – and to build something that lasts.

“Trial lawyers are the last bastion of hope for people against oppression by companies that are only concerned about their profits and not about individuals,” says Scott. “We want to advocate for the right people and advocate for them in the right way.”

The phrase “it takes a village” is almost an understatement for these two lawyers, even years after leaving their homes, finishing law school, and becoming business owners. Both have witnessed firsthand the power and importance of strong support systems, a principle they’ve woven into Tittle & Perlmuter’s culture – where hard work, empathy, and resilience are passed down, shared, and paid forward.

Fighting for Those Who Need It Most

Like Allen, Scott finds his work at Tittle & Perlmuter deeply important – not just as a career, but as a calling. In fact, his roots in fighting for justice run deep. As the grandson of Holocaust survivors, Scott carries with him a generational memory of injustice and survival, and a moral conviction to never stay silent in the face of negligence.

“That’s why, from day one, my parents instilled in me a real sense of social justice,” Scott says. “It’s deeply ingrained and plays a large role in who I am as an attorney.”

In a similar way, Allen always felt called to something bigger than himself, like improving the safety and wellbeing of his community. Perhaps it’s the result of the kindness imparted on him by his aunt and uncle from the start.

“I don’t get out of bed in the morning thinking I have to win a case for one person,” Allen explains. “I want to handle big issues and make sure they don’t happen to anybody else. Someone’s got to step in and do something, and that’s trial lawyers.”

This legacy of courage and resistance informs Tittle & Perlmuter’s mission today. Based in Cleveland, the law firm serves clients across Ohio, focusing on high-stakes cases involving corporate and/or institutional negligence.

“We handle the most catastrophically injured clients. When a person needs someone to not back down against a billion-dollar insurance industry, a hospital conglomerate, or some huge corporation, they call us,” Allen says.

The Cost of Accountability

Recently, Allen’s determination was exemplified through a $6.19 million jury verdict in a medical malpractice case against a prominent medical center. In the case, Allen’s client suffered a traumatic brain injury (TBI) after a preventable fall caused by hospital staff negligence.

“Quite simply, it was a complete system failure,” Allen remarks.

After his client was admitted, he was placed on several medications – each known to increase a patient’s fall risk. And to make matters worse, the hospital staff failed to implement the mandatory fall precautions for Allen’s client.

As a result, Allen’s client fell while attempting to use the restroom, causing a devastating brain bleed and permanent injury that left him in a wheelchair, requiring 24/7 homecare.

This was Allen’s argument during the 10-day trial, where a jury not only agreed, but awarded the second-largest medical malpractice verdict in Erie County, according to the law firm’s website.

What’s more, the verdict wasn’t just a win for Allen’s client, but for the whole of future patients at that particular medical center.

“After the fact, what we found was that the entire fall prevention system at this hospital changed,” Allen explains. “And it changed to the system that we advocated for [during] trial.”

As a whole, the case demonstrated how civil justice can do more than just secure compensation by catalyzing change and sending a clear message to healthcare providers: patient safety protocols matter.

“This verdict is proof that the jury system works and delivers justice,” Allen said after hearing the verdict.

Life Among Deception and Neglect

For Scott, a notable case that comes to mind involved a different kind of crisis – one rooted in not only negligence, but also deceit.

At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, a wave of infections swept through a Cleveland-area nursing home – something unbeknownst to the public at the time.

It might have stayed that way, if not for one daughter – and Scott’s eventual client – visiting her 73-year-old mother, a resident of the nursing home. That’s where she found her mother, who was normally alert and mobile, slumped in a wheelchair, barely responsive. Alarmed, the daughter insisted she be transferred to a hospital, where she was then diagnosed with COVID-19.

That one diagnosis started unraveling something far more sinister, where an investigation led by the Ohio Department of Health and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Service (CMS) revealed how the nursing home had been operating unlawfully and putting its residents in jeopardy.

“[We learned] they had falsified and misreported the results of COVID-19 tests so that they didn’t have to make reports to the state or the families,” Scott explains.

Even worse, one article reports a nursing assistant’s experience where she was instructed to “float” between COVID-negative and COVID-positive units without changing her protective gear. Experts also accused the home’s former administration of backdating and falsifying COVID-19 samples before sending them to labs for testing.

In the end, the investigation reported 27 infected residents, putting the home’s near-200 residents at risk. And as a result of its negligence, six residents were hospitalized and three eventually died – one being the mother of Scott’s client. From there, he set out to ensure accountability was dealt and justice was attained.

“Our litigation [caused] a change of ownership in that nursing home,” says Scott. “Owners that cannot be good stewards of the patients should be moved out of the industry.”

Most notably, the nursing home terminated its Administrator, Director of Nursing, and Assistant Director of Nursing following the results of the investigation. The home also paid an $80,000 fine.

“In recent years, nursing homes have become a system that is too often concerned with the bottom line versus the health and safety of their patients and staff,” Scott states. “Patients [in nursing homes] are so frequently disregarded, and what little voice they have is taken away by a system that’s just not set up to care for them.”

A Bank That Gets It

Contingency fee law firms like Tittle & Perlmuter operate differently from most businesses. They don’t bill clients by the hour. They take cases on the promise that they’ll only be paid if they win – and that payment might come years after the work begins.

That means they front the costs for everything: from expert witnesses, depositions, medical records, and travel to keeping the office’s lights on and bills paid. Some cases require hundreds of thousands of dollars in expenses long before a verdict or settlement is reached.

“We realized a few years in that self-funding cases didn’t allow us to grow as a firm, and it didn’t allow us to represent clients in the way that we wanted to,” Scott recalls.

Like many contingency fee businesses, Tittle & Perlmuter struggled to find a bank that fit their needs and understood the gravity of their day-to-day work.

“Normal banks just don’t get it. They don’t understand the contingency fee model or what a law firm like ours needs to succeed,” explains Allen. “I remember when I called our banker to increase our line of credit, and they basically wanted our firstborn child in order to do it. And that’s when we started to look at other options and found Esquire Bank.”

For Tittle & Perlmuter, a financial relationship built on common ground made all the difference. Since Esquire was founded by attorneys for trial lawyers, the bank was well-equipped with the right financial solutions to meet the firm’s needs and growth goals.

“Every day, I’m able to relish the successes we’ve had on behalf of people in this community, of people throughout Ohio and nationwide,” Scott beams. “It’s something that we simply could not accomplish to this degree without the support of Esquire Bank.”

“Esquire is there to make sure that our cases are properly funded, to be a true partner in our litigation,” Allen says.

With this unique partnership, Tittle & Perlmuter has been able to take on more complex, high-stakes cases. The kind that can change not just one life, but entire systems. For Allen and Scott, that has been the vision all along, and certainly one for the future.

“[Trial lawyers] make sure that not only do our clients get justice, but the system is put on trial to make sure that it doesn’t happen to any other person in our community,” notes Allen.

“What motivates me is giving a patient, family, [or person] a voice and making sure that their rights are accounted for and that the safety of their community is accounted for,” Scott says.