By Cantor, Grana, Buckner, Bucci, P.C. Published November 5, 2026 | Last updated November 5, 2026
RICHMOND, VA: Cantor, Grana, Buckner, Bucci, P.C. has been named a Tier 1 firm in Richmond for Medical Malpractice Law – Plaintiffs, Personal Injury Litigation – Plaintiffs, and Product Liability Litigation – Plaintiffs in the 2027 edition of Best Law Firms®, released November 5, 2026 by Best Lawyers®. All three are regional rankings in the Richmond market.
The firm ranking follows the August release of the 2027 edition of The Best Lawyers in America®, in which six CGBB attorneys were recognized, and partner Elliott M. Buckner was named the 2027 Best Lawyers® “Lawyer of the Year” for Product Liability Litigation – Plaintiffs in Richmond. It also comes a few months after two partners, Stephanie E. Grana and Elliott Buckner, were named to the 2026 Top 5: Personal Injury Plaintiff Virginia Super Lawyers® list.
What is Best Law Firms, and how does a firm get ranked?
Best Law Firms is the firm-level ranking published each year by Best Lawyers. A firm cannot nominate itself into it, and according to Best Lawyers a ranking cannot be purchased. To be eligible in a given practice area and market, the firm must first have at least one lawyer recognized in the current edition of The Best Lawyers in America in that same practice area and market. From there, the research is survey-driven rather than application-driven.
For the 2027 edition, according to Best Lawyers’ November 5, 2026 announcement, 30,024 lawyers cast more than 3.8 million votes evaluating firms, and the process incorporated 109,963 client references and 1,053 interviews with law firm and practice group leaders. Rankings are awarded in Tier 1, Tier 2, and Tier 3 across 188 metropolitan markets and, for a smaller group of firms, nationally. The 2027 edition recognizes 15,671 firms, which Best Lawyers calculates as the top 3.41 percent of U.S. law firms. This is the 17th edition of the U.S. rankings.
Why does the method matter? Because the legal directory world is full of listings that are purchased rather than earned. Best Law Firms and Best Lawyers are peer-review products with a published methodology. That is the reason the firm reports them, and it is also why the firm’s standard disclaimer appears at the bottom of this post: listings reflect peer assessment for the year indicated, nothing more.
Which practice areas was CGBB ranked in for 2027?
| Practice area | 2027 ranking | Market | CGBB attorneys holding the underlying Best Lawyers recognition |
|---|---|---|---|
| Medical Malpractice Law – Plaintiffs | Tier 1 (regional) | Richmond | Irvin V. Cantor, Stephanie E. Grana |
| Personal Injury Litigation – Plaintiffs | Tier 1 (regional) | Richmond | Irvin V. Cantor, Stephanie E. Grana, Elliott M. Buckner, M. Scott Bucci; Joseph L. Cantor (Ones to Watch) |
| Product Liability Litigation – Plaintiffs | Tier 1 (regional) | Richmond | Stephanie E. Grana, Elliott M. Buckner, M. Scott Bucci; Joseph L. Cantor (Ones to Watch) |
Each of the three areas reflects a specific kind of work. The firm’s medical malpractice practice involves claims against hospitals, physicians, and practice groups under Virginia’s medical malpractice statutes, which include a certification-of-expert requirement under Va. Code § 8.01-20.1 and a cap on total recovery under Va. Code § 8.01-581.15 of $2.80 million for acts of malpractice occurring on or after July 1, 2026. [VERIFY CURRENT CAP FIGURE] The product liability practice involves defective vehicle components, consumer products, and industrial equipment, the same work that produced Elliott Buckner’s 2027 “Lawyer of the Year” designation in that category. The personal injury practice centers on catastrophic injury cases: tractor-trailer collisions, traumatic brain injuries, spinal cord injuries, and wrongful death. A large share of those cases arrive as referrals from other Virginia trial lawyers.
Which CGBB attorneys were recognized in the 2027 Best Lawyers editions?
Six of the firm’s attorneys appear in the 2027 Best Lawyers publications. Five are listed in The Best Lawyers in America; one is listed in Best Lawyers: Ones to Watch® in America, the companion list for lawyers earlier in their careers.
Irvin V. Cantor
Irv Cantor, a founding partner of the firm, has been recognized by Best Lawyers since 2007. For 2027 he is listed in Medical Malpractice Law – Plaintiffs and Personal Injury Litigation – Plaintiffs. He is a member of the Virginia Lawyers Hall of Fame and has been Best Lawyers’ Richmond “Lawyer of the Year” for Personal Injury Litigation – Plaintiffs twice, in 2014 and 2016. [VERIFY LOTY YEARS]
Stephanie E. Grana
Stephanie Grana has been recognized by Best Lawyers since 2009 and is listed for 2027 in three practice areas: Medical Malpractice Law – Plaintiffs, Personal Injury Litigation – Plaintiffs, and Product Liability Litigation – Plaintiffs. She was the firm’s 2026 Richmond “Lawyer of the Year” honoree in two practice areas, a past President of the Virginia State Bar, and was included in Virginia Business magazine’s Virginia 500: The 2026-27 Power List in the Law category.
Elliott M. Buckner
Elliott Buckner has been recognized by Best Lawyers since 2011 in Personal Injury Litigation – Plaintiffs and Product Liability Litigation – Plaintiffs. His 2027 “Lawyer of the Year” designation for Product Liability Litigation – Plaintiffs in Richmond is his fourth; he previously received it for Product Liability in 2023 and for Personal Injury Litigation in 2021 and 2023. Only one lawyer in each practice area and metropolitan area receives the designation in a given year. Elliott served as President of the Virginia Trial Lawyers Association in 2020 to 2021 and is President of the Board of Directors of Community Brain Injury Services.
M. Scott Bucci
Scott Bucci has been recognized by Best Lawyers since 2015, and is listed for 2027 in Personal Injury Litigation – Plaintiffs and Product Liability Litigation – Plaintiffs. He was also named to the 2026 Virginia Super Lawyers list and, with Stephanie Grana, represented the firm at the American Board of Trial Advocates national board meeting in October.
Jeffrey N. Stedman
Jeff Stedman is recognized in the 2027 edition of The Best Lawyers in America [VERIFY PRACTICE AREA AND FIRST YEAR OF RECOGNITION]. He joined the firm in 2013 and works on its trial teams in complex injury and wrongful death matters, including cases handled with co-counsel.
Joseph L. Cantor
Joseph Cantor is listed in the 2027 edition of Best Lawyers: Ones to Watch in America for Personal Injury Litigation – Plaintiffs and Product Liability Litigation – Plaintiffs. He has received Ones to Watch recognition every year since 2021 and was named a 2026 Virginia Rising Stars® honoree by Super Lawyers.
Why does peer-reviewed recognition matter to an injured Virginian choosing a lawyer?
Because Virginia is a harder place to bring an injury claim than most states, and the margin for error is small. Virginia is one of only a handful of jurisdictions that still applies pure contributory negligence: if a jury finds the injured person even slightly at fault, the recovery is zero. Insurance adjusters in Richmond, Henrico, and Chesterfield know this rule well, and it shapes how they take recorded statements and how they value claims. The deadline to file most personal injury suits is two years from the date of injury under Va. Code § 8.01-243(A), and two years from the date of death for a wrongful death action under Va. Code § 8.01-244(B). Medical malpractice cases add the expert-certification and damages-cap rules described above.
Rankings do not change any of that. What a peer-reviewed ranking does tell a prospective client is how other lawyers, including opposing counsel, evaluate a firm’s work in a specific practice area. It is one data point among several. The firm’s view is that the better questions for anyone choosing a lawyer are narrower: How many cases like mine has this firm tried to verdict? Who will actually handle the file? What happens if the case does not settle? Those questions are answered in a conversation, not in a directory.
What results sit behind the recognition?
The firm has obtained more than 100 verdicts and settlements of $1 million or more since 1979. Representative matters handled by the attorneys recognized this year include:
- $16 million recovery in a motorcycle collision case involving a fatality and serious injuries (Elliott M. Buckner) [VERIFY RESOLUTION YEAR]
- $9,077,500 in a medical malpractice case for a child injured during delivery, consisting of a $5.5 million jury verdict plus interest (Stephanie E. Grana and Elliott M. Buckner)
- $8,650,000 aggregate settlement on behalf of ten women whose mammograms were misread over a period of years, resolved together after the available coverage limits were tendered (Stephanie E. Grana, with co-counsel Dascher Pasco)
- $3.5 million recovery for a woman who sustained a traumatic brain injury after being struck by a vehicle outside an Arlington grocery store (Stephanie E. Grana) [VERIFY DESCRIPTION AGAINST MASTER LIST]
Past results do not guarantee similar outcomes. The outcome of any case depends on facts specific to that matter.
Service alongside the practice
The attorneys recognized this year have also held leadership roles in the organizations that shape civil practice in Virginia: the Virginia State Bar presidency, the Virginia Trial Lawyers Association presidency and Board of Governors, the American Board of Trial Advocates, and the Brain Injury Association of America, where Elliott Buckner serves as National Legal Conference Co-Chair. Closer to home, the firm’s partners spent October at the Brain Injury Association of Virginia Charity Golf Classic and the Mill House Pig Out benefiting Community Brain Injury Services. That work is not part of the Best Law Firms methodology, but it is part of why the firm exists.
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between Best Lawyers and Best Law Firms?
The Best Lawyers in America recognizes individual attorneys; Best Law Firms recognizes firms. They are produced by the same company, Best Lawyers, and they are linked: a firm cannot be considered for a Best Law Firms ranking in a practice area and market unless at least one of its lawyers is recognized in the current edition of The Best Lawyers in America in that same area and market. The individual list is released in August; the firm rankings follow in November. For 2027, six CGBB attorneys appear in the individual publications, and the firm holds regional rankings in three practice areas.
How is a firm selected for Best Law Firms, and can a firm pay to be ranked?
Firms are ranked through a research process that combines votes from peer lawyers, client references, and interviews with practice leaders. For the 2027 edition, Best Lawyers reported more than 3.8 million votes from 30,024 lawyers, 109,963 client references, and 1,053 leadership interviews. According to Best Lawyers, a ranking cannot be purchased; the company sells marketing products such as badges to firms that are already ranked, and it states that those purchases do not affect the rankings themselves. The methodology is published on bestlawfirms.com.
What does Tier 1 mean in the Best Law Firms rankings?
Best Law Firms awards rankings in three tiers within each practice area and market. Tier 1 is the highest, and a firm earns it through its combined scores from lawyer votes, client references, and other research inputs. Tiers are assigned within a metropolitan market, such as Richmond, and separately at the national level for a smaller group of firms. A Tier 1 regional ranking in Medical Malpractice Law – Plaintiffs, for example, means the firm scored in the top group among ranked Richmond firms doing that kind of plaintiff-side work in the 2027 research cycle.
What does “Lawyer of the Year” mean?
Best Lawyers designates a single “Lawyer of the Year” in each practice area in each metropolitan market, chosen from the lawyers already recognized in The Best Lawyers in America based on the highest overall peer-review feedback in that area. Because only one lawyer receives it per practice area and market each year, it is one of the narrower peer-recognition designations available. Elliott M. Buckner is the 2027 honoree for Product Liability Litigation – Plaintiffs in Richmond, his fourth such designation.
Does a Best Law Firms ranking guarantee a result in my case?
No. A ranking reflects how peers and clients evaluated the firm during a research cycle; it has no bearing on how a judge, jury, or insurance carrier will treat a particular claim. Every case turns on its own facts, on Virginia law, including the contributory negligence rule and the applicable statute of limitations, and on the evidence that can be gathered and preserved. The firm reports rankings because they are peer-reviewed and verifiable, and it pairs every reference to them with a disclaimer for the same reason.
How do I know whether Cantor Grana Buckner Bucci handles my kind of case?
The firm concentrates on serious injury and wrongful death matters across Virginia: car accidents, truck accidents, motorcycle accidents, brain and spinal cord injuries, medical malpractice, defective products, and premises liability. It does not handle routine, high-volume claims, and many of its cases come through other lawyers. The quickest way to find out is a free consultation at (804) 644-1400; the firm will tell you directly whether the matter fits its practice and, if it does not, will try to point you toward someone who can help.
About Cantor, Grana, Buckner, Bucci, P.C.
Cantor, Grana, Buckner, Bucci, P.C. is a Richmond, Virginia personal injury law firm founded in 1979 and known as The Virginia Trial Firm. Its attorneys represent individuals and families across Virginia in cases involving catastrophic injury, medical malpractice, product liability, trucking and motor vehicle collisions, and wrongful death, and frequently serve as co-counsel for other trial lawyers. The firm has recovered hundreds of millions of dollars for clients, including more than 100 verdicts and settlements of $1 million or more. A list of firm and attorney recognitions is available on the firm’s website.
If you or a family member has been seriously injured in Virginia, contact Cantor, Grana, Buckner, Bucci, P.C. at (804) 644-1400 or through the firm’s contact page for a free consultation.
Listings and awards reflect peer assessments of professional reputation, experience, and ethical standing for the year indicated. They are not certifications of specialization, are not approved by the Supreme Court of Virginia or the Virginia State Bar, and do not guarantee a particular result. Past results do not guarantee similar outcomes; the outcome of any case depends on facts specific to that matter. This post is legal information, not legal advice, and does not create an attorney-client relationship.
