A Legal Trailblazer
Rainer has formed one of the biggest and most innovative law firms on the North Shore
By Cary Shuman, The Revere Journal, July 18, 2001

Attorney Robert K. Rainer has deep roots in Revere. His grandfather was Morris Bell, who owned Bell Oldsmobile and for whom Bell Circle was named.

Rainer has been making a name for himself in the legal community over his sterling 14-year career. The founding partner of Rainer and Rainer, he opened his law offices on 60 VFW Parkway five years ago.

He has since expanded the offices to an additional site across the street at 500 Beach St. The firm now employs 14 attorneys and 16 support personnel, making it one of the largest law offices on the North Shore.

Rainer, a graduate of Brandeis University and Suffolk Law School, generated national publicity for launching the first Mobile Law Office in the country two years ago.

The mobile law office is fully equipped with desks, chairs, a waiting area, computers, and radio and telephone communications to the main offices where an attorney is available to answer a client's questions.

"Rather than open satellite offices in other communities, I felt it would be more economical and more convenient for the client to bring the office to their neighborhood," Rainer said. "If a client can have the office at their door and spend 20 minutes with our paralegal, it's a lot easier than a one-hour commute each way. "We save our clients a lot of time". Rainer and Rainer's specialty is personal injury law, a field that includes motor vehicle accidents, slip-and-falls, and medical malpractice.

The 38-year-old attorney received a lot of recognition for his legal work in lead paint poisoning. His ground breaking cases prompted changes in the law that affected every landlord in Massachusetts.

The trade journal, Massachusetts Lawyer Weekly, honored his work, naming him one of the 25 most influential attorneys of the past 25 years.

"I came into the area of lead paint litigation right at the beginning," Rainer said. "We cornered the niche and we had hundreds of lead poisoning cases from minor to severe lead poisoning. We created a methodology in our office to be able to handle a large volume of lead poisoning cases which was the key to making it work for us".

Rainer's successful work for his clients helped eliminate lead paint poisoning as a childhood disease. He has also written two books, one on lead paint poisoning litigation and the other a civil litigation handbook.

The 6-foot-3-inch Rainer, a former college basketball and soccer player at Brandeis, stays active in sports in Marblehead where he lives with his wife, Kathy, and their three children, Jake, Sara, and Brendan.

Rainer is a volunteer for the North Shore Association of Retarded Citizens, serving as president of the 600-employee, $35 million nonprofit organization that serves 10,000 people on the North Shore. "A lot of people don't know about it, but it is a wonderful charity", Rainer said. Rainer said her is proud of his Revere heritage and that he has enjoyed the warm reception from the community. "The community of Revere has embraced us. I thought it would be hard to move into a community as a new lawyer because thier are some well established lawyers here that are well respected and that I hold in high regard. But there was plenty of room for us. Being based in Revere has been great. I think my grandfather would have been proud. I don't think he ever dreamed that I would be back here with the largest law firm on the North Shore rightin his backyard."