Phil Federico is a partner at Brockstedt Mandalas Federico where he leads 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 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, achieving a $205 million settlement.
Phil was co-lead counsel representing a class of hundreds of thousands of residents in North and South Carolina who were affected by harmful air and water emissions released by New-Indy Catawba paper mill. After nearly three years of investigation and litigation, a $103 million settlement was approved in 2024 to fix the problem and ensure clean water for the community.
Following those landmark cases, Phil has continued his work representing communities that have been harmed by polluters. He is leading a class action lawsuit against Perdue AgriBusiness’s soybean processing facility in Salisbury, Maryland, following the detection of elevated PFAS (“forever chemicals”) levels. Phil is also leading a 2023 class action lawsuit against W.L. Gore's Cherry Hill Plant in Elkton, Maryland, after their production of Gore-Tex, a popular waterproof fabric, contaminated local drinking water and soil with PFAS. Additionally, Phil’s team represents thousands 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. Finally, his 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. His team currently represents nearly 80 school boards, including two of the largest school districts in the nation, in a lawsuit against major social media companies for their dangerous algorithms resulting in a youth mental health crisis. Phil was previously on the team representing nearly 60 school boards – including Chicago, Wake, Pike, Fairfield, and Horry counties – in a $255 million settlement against Juul Labs, Inc for targeting their addictive products at youth.
Phil has extensive experience in personal injury, sexual abuse and misconduct, and healthcare. He currently represents survivors of sexual abuse in Maryland that have had the door open to file litigation under the Child Victims Act, including cases against the Archdiocese of Baltimore and Washington, and he serves 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 for the conduct of Nikita Levy, M.D., an obstetrician gynecologist who surreptitiously videotaped his patients during gynecologic examinations. Additionally, he leads 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.
