OVERVIEW
Murphy PA (the “Firm”) is a litigation boutique comprised of elite lawyers who specialize in complex civil litigation. The Firm has experience and expertise in complex commercial litigation, including commercial, personal injury, medical malpractice, employment, civil rights, criminal and class action law and has the ability to respond quickly, aggressively and creatively to actual and potential litigation. The Firm’s attorneys include a former trial judge, former prosecutors, law school professors, and judicial law clerks. In addition, the Firm’s attorneys have expertise that frequently informs business litigation. For example, one of the Firm’s attorneys is an electrical engineer expert in technology, another is skilled in mergers, acquisitions, corporate finance and other large-scale transactional work, and another is a certified public accountant and former auditor.
The Firm has represented both plaintiffs and defendants in litigation involving some of the largest corporations in the country. Its highly skilled trial lawyers have handled thousands of trials and take great pride in their commitment to winning.
As detailed below, the Firm has had extraordinary success in jury verdicts and awards and in settlements in numerous high-profile complex civil cases. The Firm’s corporate clients include Johnson & Johnson, Microsoft, Sony, Qualcomm, Coca-Cola Enterprises, Inc., H&R Block, The Baltimore Orioles, The Washington Redskins, Doracon Development Corp., The Maryland Stadium Authority, Don King Productions, Inc., Honeywell Corporation, Allied Signal, Inc., Meridian Management Group Ventures, Inc., Steele Software Systems, The University of Maryland Medical Systems, Inc., and Scottsdale Insurance Company.
An African-American-owned firm featuring an ethnically diverse group of attorneys, the Firm is arguably the most effective and unique complex litigation firm in the Mid-Atlantic region. This formidable litigation boutique, large enough to handle some of the nation’s most complicated civil litigation in-house, is small and responsive enough to provide quality client service not normally found in other factory-styled law firms. Without the bureaucracy and stratification typically encumbering larger law firms, the Firm can keep in constant communication with its clients and tailor legal services to suit its clients’ specific needs. Moreover, because of its size and structure, the Firm can provide flexible and creative solutions to litigation problems, both in recommending innovative and novel litigation strategies and in fashioning unconventional settlement solutions that factor more than dollars. Unlike most law firms both large and small, the Firm stands ready to try cases, especially in the toughest jurisdictions around the country.
The firm’s inventive approach to litigation has translated into a history of litigation success both in the courtroom and in settlement negotiations. In August 2010, the Firm won a $34,333,000 verdict on behalf of injured restaurant workers poisoned by carbon monoxide exposure. In 2009, the Firm reached a $55,000,000 class action settlement with Constellation Energy on behalf of homeowners whose groundwater had been contaminated by coal ash. In June 2006, the Firm obtained a $443,000,000 verdict in Baltimore City Circuit Court for an individual who was rendered a quadriplegic after being battered by a Baltimore City police officer. In January 2003, the Firm successfully obtained a stay of class litigation against H&R Block in the Circuit Court for Baltimore City pending approval of a national settlement involving the same claims. In March 2003, the Firm successfully defended Johnson & Johnson in the first trial of a multi-million dollar, multi district litigation case proceeding in the United States District Court in New Orleans concerning the drug, Propulsid. In March 2002, the Firm won a $276,000,000 verdict against a major national bank. This was the largest punitive damage award in Maryland history at that time. In 2001 the Firm successfully defended the Microsoft Corporation in two, $5 billion race discrimination class action cases brought separately by Willie Gary and Johnny Cochran, respectively, resulting in the dismissal of the class allegations in the first case and the refusal to certify a class in the second case. In February 2000, the Firm was involved in negotiating a $185 million settlement against Ernst & Young, the largest single-defendant settlement in Maryland history. The Firm was also engaged as defense counsel for Don King Productions, Inc. that same years.
