Paul David Brandes

I am a partner and senior trial attorney at Villari, Brandes & Giannone.  For more than 20 years, I have dedicated my career to representing clients who are the victims of permanent injury caused by medical malpractice, defective products and catastrophic tractor-trailer and motor vehicle collisions. Among my clients in medical negligence cases are the parents of infants and children who were the victims of birth trauma or who were the victims of medical or nursing negligence during their newborn, toddler or adolescent years.

I was instrumental in establishing national legal precedent on behalf of the injured victims of tractor-trailer wrecks. In that regard, I was counsel for the Estates of two people killed in a motor vehicle wreck caused by a negligent tractor-trailer driver and trucking company in the land mark New Jersey Supreme Court ruling in Puckrein vs. ATI Transport, Inc. (establishing that a shipper of goods can be held liable for hiring an incompetent independent contractor trucking company/motor carrier which is involved in a subsequent motor vehicle collision).

My litigation successes include many multi-million dollar recoveries for clients in medical malpractice cases and tractor-trailer/motor vehicle collision cases throughout Pennsylvania and New Jersey, including in each state’s most highly conservative counties.

My practice also includes representing victims of environmental disasters and toxic torts. From 2009-2014, I prosecuted a mass toxic tort/environmental pollution lawsuit against the Tennessee Valley Authority regarding the devastating December 22, 2008, coal fly ash spill disaster at TVA’s coal-fired electricity generation plant in Kingston, Tennessee.  It was the largest environmental disaster ever on U.S. soil (even larger than the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico).  I was one of the lead attorneys in the case. In the liability phase of the trial, I and the other members of the trial team secured a verdict in favor of the victims of the disaster. Subsequently, after an extensive, year-long mediation, we secured from TVA a $27.8 million settlement for over 800 property owners.

I have also designed and taught courses on behalf of the Pennsylvania Bar Institute regarding tractor-trailer and motor vehicle collision cases, and medical malpractice/birth trauma.

I am a member of:

• The Board of Directors of the Pennsylvania Innocence Project, which works to secure the exoneration, release from imprisonment, and restoration to society of people who are innocent and have been wrongly convicted, and to prevent innocent people from being convicted.
• The Board of Directors of the Philadelphia Trial Lawyers Association, the oldest trial lawyer organization in Pennsylvania.

I am also an Investigator in the Investigative Division of the Philadelphia Bar Association’s Commission on Judicial Selection and Retention, and am a member of the Philadelphia County Bar Association, and the nationally recognized American Association for Justice, including its Birth Trauma Litigation Group and its Interstate Trucking Group.

My firm has represented thousands of injured clients and their families throughout Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Washington, D.C. and other areas of the country.