Covid lawsuits put Buffalo law firm Tiveron Law in the spotlight as it grows

Buffalo Business First

A Getzville law firm that’s been in the spotlight for challenging some of the state’s Covid-related restrictions has not only stayed busy this year, but also is growing.

Diane Tiveron, managing partner at Tiveron Law PLLC, said the firm has received more inquiries since it led the charge in challenging the legality of some state mandates over the last year.

“I think people do react to what they see as far as law firms engaging in this type of litigation,” she said. “We’ve gotten inquiries in numbers that we probably haven’t seen before. We get a lot of ‘Thanks for what you’re doing.’ ”

Tiveron said that while business has increased, it’s difficult to peg that to the attention the firm has received in the last two years.

“The numbers have gone up, but they’ve gone up for us every year,” she said. “It’s been extraordinarily busy, but I don’t know if that’s necessarily because of the number of clients we’ve had from Covid or because of the attention we’ve gotten.”

Additional business is a “pleasant problem” to have, Tiveron said, and the firm is tackling that by hiring paralegals and attorneys.

“We’re talking to anyone who we feel is qualified and can help our office,” she said.  

In the last year, the firm filed lawsuits challenging the state’s restrictions that affected its own office as well as clients in youth sports, restaurants, gyms, and beauty salons. More recently, work has been done on behalf of parents to determine whether the mask or vaccine mandates make sense for their children and for people whose employment is being affected by vaccine mandates.

“Our position is not pro-masks, anti-masks, pro-vaccine or anti-vaccine,” Tiveron said. “Our position is representing people who feel they need the help of an attorney to process what they feel is affecting their rights. It’s not about a political leaning.”

Keeping up with ever-changing mandates and those mandates’ effects on clients, plus finding the resources needed to challenge mandates in court, kept Tiveron Law’s 28 attorneys and staff busy this past year.

“The minute a mandate or something comes out, we expect calls, so you need to be able to respond to people knowing what you can and cannot do,” Tiveron said. “You have to be on your game.”