Michael J. Quirk

Michael Quirk specializes in consumer protection, employment, civil rights, and products liability law, class action and complex litigation, and appellate practice. Within these areas, he has extensive experience fighting against enforcement of mandatory arbitration clauses, expansive uses of federal preemption doctrine, and other barriers to justice for consumers, workers, and other persons harmed by corporate or government wrongdoing.

Mr. Quirk also has considerable experience in litigating federal and state-court appeals, having successfully represented consumers and workers against some of the nation’s most powerful corporations in the U.S. Supreme Court and numerous federal circuit courts of appeals, state supreme courts, and state courts of appeals.

Mr. Quirk launched his legal career in Washington, D.C., serving as an Equal Justice Works Fellow and staff attorney with Public Justice, P.C., after he was Supreme Court Assistance Project Fellow with the Public Citizen Litigation Group. He also served as advisor to the Civil Justice Fellow for the Drum Major Institute for Public Policy, a civil rights organization based in New York. He was designated a Pennsylvania SuperLawyer “Rising Star” in 2010.

He is a member of the National Association of Consumer Advocates (“NACA”), and co-chair of its Issues Committee, which reviews requests for NACA to file and join amicus curiae briefs in consumer rights cases in the federal and state appeals courts. He also serves on NACA’s Federal Rules Committee, which submits proposals and comments on federal court rules amendments.

Mr. Quirk is co-author of Consumer Arbitration Agreements: Enforceability and Other Topics, part of the National Consumer Law Center’s Consumer Credit and Sales Legal Practice series and the leading authority on its subject area. He also co-wrote the third edition of the NACA Standards and Guidelines for Litigating and Settling Consumer Class Actions, which outlines client-centered values and “best practices” for representing consumers in class action litigation.

Mr. Quirk is a semi-practicing Quaker and regularly attends meeting for worship with his daughter, Sarah, at Chestnut Hill Friends Meeting in Philadelphia.