Phil Federico is a partner at Baird Mandalas Brockstedt & Federico where he helps lead the Mass Tort / Class Action and Environmental Law practices, transitioning into these areas after beginning his career as a medical malpractice litigator.
Phil has led and been involved in historic and groundbreaking litigation with verdicts and settlements in excess of One Billion dollars.
In recent years, Phil and his team have focused on environmental cases involving contaminated groundwater and air pollution. In 2017, Phil became co-lead counsel in a landmark environmental case against chicken processing giant Mountaire. For close to two decades, the company had violated its permits by disposing of wastewater containing excessive nitrates, causing health problems and property damage for the community of Millsboro, Delaware. Phil led the negotiation with Mountaire and achieved a settlement valued at $205 million.
Following that landmark case, Phil has continued his work representing communities that have been harmed by polluters. He is co-lead counsel representing a putative class of hundreds of thousands of residents in North Carolina and South Carolina who are being negatively affected by harmful air and water emissions released by New-Indy Catawba paper mill. Alongside his team, he is representing hundreds of veterans who lived and served at Camp Lejeune, the United States Marine Corps Base Camp in Jacksonville, North Carolina that is now known to be the site of an environmental and public health disaster. The community of Elkton, Maryland is also benefiting from his legal acumen as he leads the litigation against W.L Gore and Associates’ Cherry Hill plant for contaminating the water supply with dangerous perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). Finally, Phil’s team is involved in litigation involving Aqueous Film Forming Foam (AFFF), a foam used for firefighting that contains PFAS and has been linked to cancer.
In addition to environmental cases, Phil also has deep experience representing governmental entities in litigation. In 2017, Phil formed a consortium of attorneys and law firms to take on the opioid industry and today represents more than 40 cities and counties. This includes more Florida public entities than any other group, and the second largest number of South Carolina public entities. He is also leading a consortium of attorneys and law firms in the JUUL litigation, which is based on JUUL’s intentional and deceptive marketing of its vaping device to teenagers and young adults. Phil represents 60 school boards from across the country in their fight for justice. Most recently, Phil is representing school boards in their litigation against social media platforms for their role in the youth mental health crisis.
Finally, Phil has extensive experience in personal injury, sexual abuse and misconduct, and healthcare. Phil is currently serving as a member of the Survivors Advisory Board dedicated to helping survivors of institutional sexual abuse find justice and healing. In 2010, he served as co-lead counsel in the litigation against pedophile pediatrician Earl Bradley, which resulted in a $123 million settlement. In 2016, he served as counsel in a $190 million class action settlement with The Johns Hopkins Hospital arising out of the conduct of Nikita Levy, M.D., an obstetrician gynecologist who surreptitiously videotaped his patients during gynecologic examinations. He is also representing plaintiffs in the StarPower lawsuit that involves the alleged surreptitious photographing and recording of a group of 400 competitive dancers, mostly minors, in various stages of undress in their changing area. Additionally, he is leading a class action involving 3,700 patients who were allegedly wrongfully exposed to HIV and hepatitis at a surgical center in New Jersey as a result of the doctors and staff failing to follow appropriate sterilization protocols and infection protection guidelines.
Phil is active in his community and sits on the boards of many local charities and foundations. He lives in Baltimore with his wife of 40 years, Diane, and has a son, Torin; daughter-in-law, Stephanie; and granddaughter, Isabelle. When he is not practicing law or spending time with his family, he enjoys golf, fishing, hunting, surfing, and traveling.
