Who gets a lawyer after a workplace injury in New York depends enormously on how badly the worker is hurt and which county they were hurt in. An analysis of 1.29 million claims from 2020 to 2024.
Every year, roughly a quarter of a million New Yorkers are hurt badly enough at work to file a workers' compensation claim. This analysis covers 1,291,694 assembled claims with accident dates from 2020 through 2024, the most recent complete data published by the New York State Workers' Compensation Board. It maps where those injuries happen, how people get hurt, and a pattern that has gone largely unexamined, namely who ends up with a lawyer and who does not.
The representation gap, county by county
Share of workers'-comp claims with an attorney or representative, by county of injury (2020 to 2024). Hover or tap a county, and the full table is below.
Counts exclude roughly 21,000 claims with no county recorded. “New York” county means Manhattan.
| County | Claims 2020–24 | Attorney-rep % |
|---|---|---|
| Queens | 130,727 | 36.9% |
| Kings | 118,589 | 36.1% |
| Bronx | 90,579 | 34.5% |
| Richmond | 30,036 | 31.2% |
| Nassau | 95,283 | 28.2% |
| Orange | 38,332 | 27.4% |
| Suffolk | 127,694 | 26.7% |
| Oneida | 13,284 | 26.5% |
| Herkimer | 9,547 | 23.9% |
| Westchester | 58,962 | 23.2% |
| Rockland | 20,408 | 22.7% |
| Dutchess | 25,893 | 22.5% |
| Greene | 3,873 | 22.4% |
| New York (Manhattan) | 76,212 | 21.7% |
| Sullivan | 6,293 | 21.3% |
| St. Lawrence | 7,362 | 21.0% |
| Niagara | 16,101 | 19.9% |
| Franklin | 3,120 | 19.3% |
| Lewis | 2,789 | 19.2% |
| Ulster | 11,365 | 19.1% |
| Putnam | 7,943 | 19.1% |
| Erie | 70,414 | 18.8% |
| Schenectady | 3,353 | 18.2% |
| Montgomery | 1,368 | 17.9% |
| Washington | 4,064 | 17.3% |
| Fulton | 8,020 | 17.2% |
| Columbia | 5,769 | 17.1% |
| Albany | 31,405 | 17.0% |
| Rensselaer | 13,262 | 16.8% |
| Jefferson | 6,997 | 16.3% |
| Wyoming | 1,788 | 16.3% |
| Cattaraugus | 6,341 | 16.0% |
| Madison | 5,428 | 15.8% |
| Genesee | 6,196 | 15.2% |
| Schoharie | 1,325 | 15.0% |
| Chenango | 3,407 | 14.7% |
| Cayuga | 10,390 | 14.6% |
| Otsego | 1,768 | 14.5% |
| Orleans | 3,449 | 14.3% |
| Delaware | 4,218 | 14.2% |
| Allegany | 4,041 | 14.1% |
| Saratoga | 16,818 | 13.7% |
| Warren | 5,296 | 13.5% |
| Monroe | 55,574 | 13.4% |
| Onondaga | 35,498 | 13.0% |
| Livingston | 4,775 | 13.0% |
| Wayne | 3,648 | 12.7% |
| Chautauqua | 9,589 | 12.4% |
| Seneca | 2,975 | 12.2% |
| Clinton | 6,845 | 12.0% |
| Oswego | 8,750 | 11.5% |
| Essex | 2,545 | 11.5% |
| Broome | 15,881 | 11.4% |
| Ontario | 9,406 | 11.1% |
| Hamilton | 326 | 10.7% |
| Chemung | 9,214 | 10.4% |
| Cortland | 1,752 | 10.4% |
| Steuben | 2,919 | 9.9% |
| Schuyler | 2,268 | 9.6% |
| Tioga | 2,743 | 9.3% |
| Yates | 866 | 8.7% |
| Tompkins | 3,644 | 7.4% |
A five-fold gap by county
Whether an injured worker has a lawyer varies enormously by geography. In Queens (36.9%), Brooklyn (36.1%) and the Bronx (34.5%), better than one in three claims involves an attorney. Upstate, the rate collapses. Erie/Buffalo sits at 18.8%, Monroe/Rochester at 13.4%, Onondaga/Syracuse at 13.0%, down to a low of 7.4% in Tompkins County. A hurt worker in Queens is roughly five times more likely to be represented than one in Tompkins.
Analysis. The injuries themselves do not differ five-fold from one county to the next, so the gap is unlikely to be about severity alone. More plausible explanations are the density of the plaintiffs' bar downstate, differences in industry mix, and how aware workers are that representation is even an option. That awareness gap matters, because as the next section shows, whether a worker is represented is tightly bound to how much is ultimately at stake in the claim.
The more serious the injury, the more likely a lawyer
Attorney-representation rate by claim severity.
| No-comp / minor | 6.2% |
|---|---|
| Medical only | 28.7% |
| Temporary disability | 56.7% |
| Perm. partial (scheduled) | 92% |
| Perm. partial (non-sched.) | 98.5% |
| Death | 88.2% |
| Perm. total disability | 98.7% |
Above the permanent-disability threshold, representation is all but universal. Only one to two percent of those workers go it alone.
This is the clearest signal in the data, and representation tracks severity almost perfectly. Just 6% of no-compensation claims involve a lawyer, but that climbs to 57% of temporary-disability claims and becomes near-universal for permanent injuries, at 92%, 98.5% and 98.7% across the three permanent-disability tiers.
Analysis. When a workplace injury permanently changes a worker's life, having a lawyer is the norm rather than the exception. Read together with the county map, that is the uncomfortable part, because the workers least likely to be represented sit in the same upstate counties. It raises a fair question about whether some seriously hurt New Yorkers there are navigating a complex benefits system without help.
How New Yorkers get hurt
Top causes of injury (claims, 2020 to 2024).
| Struck by coworker / patient | 98,501 | 18.1% |
|---|---|---|
| Lifting strain | 97,214 | 17.9% |
| Strain (other) | 74,179 | 13.7% |
| Fall to lower level | 71,639 | 13.2% |
| Fall, same level | 66,352 | 12.2% |
| Pushing or pulling | 52,183 | 9.6% |
| Struck by falling object | 43,725 | 8.1% |
| Cut / puncture | 39,043 | 7.2% |
New York's most common compensable injury is not a fall. It is being struck or injured by another person, narrowly ahead of lifting strains.
Where the injuries happen
Top industries by claim volume.
| Health care & social assistance | 255,714 | 24.7% |
|---|---|---|
| Public administration | 190,494 | 18.4% |
| Retail trade | 144,305 | 14% |
| Educational services | 117,967 | 11.4% |
| Transportation & warehousing | 112,303 | 10.9% |
| Manufacturing | 83,810 | 8.1% |
| Accommodation & food svc. | 70,156 | 6.8% |
| Construction | 59,094 | 5.7% |
Health care generates more claims than any other industry, and it drives that number-one cause, with 47,563 health-care claims being workers struck or injured by a patient or coworker, a measure of how routine violence and physical strain have become in caregiving work.
What gets injured
Most-injured body parts (claims, 2020 to 2024).
| Multiple parts | 148,054 | 19% |
|---|---|---|
| Lower back | 105,890 | 13.6% |
| Knee | 100,464 | 12.9% |
| Finger(s) | 90,016 | 11.6% |
| Shoulder(s) | 76,239 | 9.8% |
| Hand | 76,234 | 9.8% |
| Ankle | 54,374 | 7% |
| Soft tissue | 44,240 | 5.7% |
| Foot | 42,747 | 5.5% |
| Wrist | 39,810 | 5.1% |
Who gets hurt
Injured workers by age at injury.
| Under 25 | 147,700 | 11.5% |
|---|---|---|
| 25–34 | 310,690 | 24.1% |
| 35–44 | 274,098 | 21.3% |
| 45–54 | 265,469 | 20.6% |
| 55–64 | 231,908 | 18% |
| 65+ | 59,144 | 4.6% |
Injured workers skew younger than expected, with 24% aged 25 to 34. By sex, claims run 56% male and 43% female, and the unusually high female share again reflects health care being the largest single source of injuries.
Injuries over time
Assembled claims by accident year.
| 2015 | 269,091 | 9.9% |
|---|---|---|
| 2016 | 276,464 | 10.2% |
| 2017 | 285,437 | 10.5% |
| 2018 | 298,830 | 11% |
| 2019 | 300,771 | 11% |
| 2020 | 233,186 | 8.6% |
| 2021 | 254,337 | 9.3% |
| 2022 | 269,804 | 9.9% |
| 2023 | 267,418 | 9.8% |
| 2024 | 266,949 | 9.8% |
Claim volume fell 22% in 2020, from 300,771 to 233,186, as workplaces shut down, then recovered toward 267,000 by 2024. Recent years are still maturing, so 2024 is the latest complete year.
Construction and the Scaffold Law
Construction is New York's most-lawyered industry. 41% of its 59,094 claims involve an attorney, far above the roughly 24% recent statewide rate, because construction injuries tend to be more severe and more often contested. Its single leading cause of injury is a fall from a ladder or scaffold, the precise hazard at the heart of New York's Labor Law §240, the “Scaffold Law.”
Analysis. That pairing is telling. The most common way to get badly hurt in New York construction is exactly the fall the Scaffold Law was written to deter, and the high representation rate suggests these are among the most seriously contested claims in the state.
Top construction injury causes
Construction-industry claims, 2020 to 2024.
| Cause | Claims |
|---|---|
| Fall from ladder or scaffold | 4,819 |
| Lifting strain | 4,157 |
| Fall, slip or trip | 3,552 |
| Struck by falling object | 3,234 |
| Strain (other) | 3,161 |
| Miscellaneous | 2,839 |
How this fits the bigger picture
Workers' comp claims are only one lens. Read alongside the official fatality and injury surveys, the scale of New York's workplace-injury problem comes into focus, and each figure below links to its source.
These are different universes. The 685 workers'-compensation death-benefit claims in this dataset are claims filed by survivors, which is not the same as the BLS fatality census of 217 deaths in 2024.
If you were injured at work in New York, the team at Porter Law Group can review your options for workers' compensation and any related injury claim at no cost. There is no obligation.
Methodology
“Assembled” claims are lost-time, serious, or disputed claims that reach the Board, not every minor workplace injury. Because serious claims take time to mature and to acquire representation, recent single years understate both severe-claim counts and representation, while the severity gradient shown here is cross-sectional and is robust to that lag. Death figures are workers'-compensation death-benefit claims, distinct from the BLS workplace-fatality census. County reflects county of injury, not residence. Figures cover accident dates from 2020 to 2024, the latest complete period, with data current to the June 2026 publication.
