Margaret H. “Meg” Donahue
Biography
Margaret H. “Meg” Donahue is Of Counsel with our office in Charleston, South Carolina. She specializes in workers’ compensation, medical malpractice, asbestos and talc litigation, and is also involved in general liability and aging services matters.
Meg earned her Juris Doctor from the University of South Carolina and a Bachelor of Arts in Business Administration with a specialty in equine business management from St. Andrews Presbyterian College in Laurinburg, North Carolina.
Meg began her career in Columbia, South Carolina with a large regional firm specializing in workers’ compensation, subrogation, and coverage with a particular focus on representing employers dealing with claims related to exposure to asbestos and other potentially harmful materials in the workplace. The medical-legal issues of causation, disability, and liability for past and future medical treatment led to an expansion of her practice into medical malpractice and aging services. Meg’s familiarity with asbestos-related disease and large format discovery in industrial asbestos defense segued into her role with Hall Booth Smith’s Asbestos & Talc Litigation team, defending exposure cases in the civil arena. Meg assists clients with defensive strategy, claim valuation, and mitigation of risk and loss.
Meg is a lifelong Equestrian and an accredited equine appraiser with the American Society of Equine Appraisers. Due to her experience in both personal and professional capacity with horses, Meg has also worked on cases involving liability for injury or loss of horses.
Experience
Meg has almost 20 years of experience representing employers and insurance carriers in a wide variety of workers’ compensation claims. She counsels clients through coverage disagreements, compensability, causation, valuation of exposure, and medically complex issues.
Meg applies her vast experience assessing medical conditions, records review, causation, and future care to assisting a wide variety of health care providers in defending claims for negligence and breech in standard of care. As the daughter of a dentist, she understands the pressured faced by medical professionals to provide excellent care to their patients, manage their business, and oversee their staff. Meg uses her knowledge and experience in this area to assist various specialty groups within the firm’s medical malpractice team.
Throughout her carrier, Meg has represented clients in toxic and asbestos exposure cases. First in the context of industrial exposures, and more recently in mass tort actions involving negligence and products liability. She assesses the medical diagnostics specific to mesothelioma, asbestos-related lung disease, and other exposure-related cancers, as well as analyzing alternative sources of exposure, and the tenants creating liability including knowledge and remediation.
Credentials
Admitted
State Courts:
- South Carolina
Education
- J.D., University of South Carolina
- B.A., cum laude, Business Administration, St. Andrews Presbyterian College
Memberships
- American Society of Equine Appraisers: Accredited Appraiser, 2002-Present
- Georgia Hunter Jumper Associate: Board of Directors, 2018-Present
- South Carolina Workers’ Compensation Education Association: Member
Publications
- South Carolina Workers’ Compensation Case Law Update Series
HBS Workers’ Compensation Blog - Concurrent Jurisdiction in Workers’ Compensation Claims
HBS Workers’ Compensation Blog; December 4; 2023 - South Carolina WCC Electronic Forms Submissions
HBS Workers’ Compensation Blog; July 28, 2021 - TPD & Concurrent Illnesses: Not Just a COVID Question – a South Carolina Perspective
HBS Workers’ Compensation Blog; March 19, 2021