Joseph Messa, Jr.

Joseph L. Messa, Jr. is the founding partner of Messa & Associates, P.C. He is an AV-rated attorney (highest rating available), listed in the Bar Register of Preeminent Lawyers. Mr. Messa handles cases involving medical malpractice, drug products liability and defective products, transportation accidents including railroad, trucking, and motorcycle, construction and workplace injuries, fire and burn injuries, class actions, and other fields of complex personal injury litigation. He has represented clients from around the country and received seven and eight-figure verdicts and settlements in medical malpractice, products liability, fire, and construction/work injury matters. Mr. Messa also serves the legal community by presenting lectures on medical malpractice, products liability, managed care liability, drugs and medical devices, and transportation accidents.

About Mr. Messa

Mr. Messa was born and raised in the Germantown section of the city and got an early lesson in the virtues of hard work by working with his father on weekends with different construction projects. He grew up in a union household, where his father at different times was a member of the Transport Workers Union of America (TWU), Railroad Trains Workers Union, and AFSCME, while employed for 30 years by Penn Dot. He attended Chestnut Hill Academy and worked his way through college and law school with a house painting business he founded. He began his legal education as an honors graduate of Tulane University in 1984, and went on to graduate cum laude from Temple University School of Law in 1988, where he was honored with the Horace Stern Award for Excellence in Products Liability and the American Jurisprudence Award for Products Liability.

Professional Organizations and Achievements

Mr. Messa is an active member of the American Association for Justice; American Bar Association; a Fellow of the American Bar Foundation; Pennsylvania Association for Justice – Board of Governors; Philadelphia Bar Association; New Jersey Association for Justice; Camden and Burlington County, NJ Bar Associations; and the Justinian Society. He is also an elected Advocate of the American Board of Trial Advocates (ABOTA). In addition, Mr. Messa has served on the Board of Directors for the Philadelphia Trial Lawyers Association since 2006, as Assistant Secretary from 2009-2011, as Secretary from 2011-2013, as Vice President 2013-2014, as President Elect from 2014-2015, and as President from 2015-2016.

Mr. Messa is a Fellow of the International Society of Barristers, a prestigious collection of exceptional trial attorneys with less than 700 members world-wide. Additionally, he is a Diplomat of the American Board of Professional Liability Attorneys and was board certified by the organization as a medical malpractice attorney. He is a member of the Million Dollar Advocates Forum, Multi-Million Dollar Advocates Forum, an invited member of the Verdict Club, Premier Trial Lawyers, and named a Top 100 Trial Lawyer by The National Trial Lawyers. In 2017, Mr. Messa was invited for membership in America's Top 100 Attorneys, an invitation that is extended to only one-half of one percent of attorneys in the nation. In 2018, Mr. Messa accepted a Fellowship with the International Society of Barristers, an exclusive group of less than 700 elite attorneys around the globe. He has been selected to the Pennsylvania Super Lawyers list every year since 2009 – an honor awarded to only the top five percent of attorneys in the state. He was also selected to the Top 100 Pennsylvania and Top 100 Philadelphia lists for 2012, 2013, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2019. He was selected to the New Jersey Super Lawyers list in 2017, 2018, and 2019, and by New Jersey’s Top Rated Lawyers as a Top Lawyer in the areas of personal injury and medical malpractice from 2012-2018. In 2018 and 2019, Joe Messa was designated a Legal Eagle by Philly Style magazine. Finally, Joseph Messa was voted as an ‘Awesome Attorney’ in Pennsylvania by Suburban Life Magazine and a Top Rated Lawyer in PA from 2010-2018.

Notable Victories

• $120 Million total in orthopaedic bone screw litigation.
• $35 Million in a single vehicle commercial truck product liability case for a man who was paralyzed.
• $20 Million total in diet drug litigation.
• $18.5 Million settlement for negligence in a hospital emergency department. Plaintiff's physicians failed to diagnose and timely treat a rapidly spreading infection, resulting in quadruple amputation. 
• $12.9 Million settlement for a young girl after her pediatrician failed to diagnose and treat the H1N1 flu virus (swine flu), causing her to require emergency hospital treatment. During her hospitalization, hospital staff failed to properly diagnose her respiratory failure and intubate her, resulting in significant oxygen deprivation which caused permanent brain damage.
• $12.26 Million in a spinal infection case.
• $11 Million settlement against a leading smoke detector manufacturer and major mobile home company where a family of seven perished in a fire.
• $11 Million settlement for a pediatric medical malpractice case that caused permanent and extensive brain damage in a young girl.
• $10 Million in a spine surgery malpractice case.
• $8.5 Million for the negligent treatment of a postpartum hemorrhage resulting in death.
• $8.265 Million settlement for a husband and father of two who suffered permanent paralysis (paraplegia) as the result of a two-story fall on a construction site. 
• $8 Million products liability settlement for the family of a young girl who was killed in a fire caused by defective products.
• $6.9 Million for a motorcycle crash.
• $6.5 Million settlement for a 46-year-old woman after her doctor negligently performed an unnecessary procedure which resulted in a massive subarachnoid hemorrhage and irreversible brain damage.
• $6.1 Million for negligence at a daycare, resulting in the loss of a child's eye.
• $5.75 Million for negligence at a daycare that led to the death of a two year-old child.
•  $5.25 Million settlement against a leading smoke detector manufacturer and retailer after defective ionization smoke detectors failed to warn of a growing fire which led to the deaths of two family members who became trapped inside the home. 
• $2.75 Million settlement for the 64-year-old victim of a motorcycle accident involving a Lex Electric work vehicle. 
• $2.25 Million medical malpractice settlement for the family of a man who died after the ER failed to timely diagnose and treat a cerebellar stroke

Beyond the Courtroom

Besides the law practice, which takes up a significant amount of his time, Mr. Messa enjoys boating, waterskiing, scuba diving, working out, and cheering on all of our Philadelphia sports teams.