Kline & Specter, P.C.
Pharmaceutical Litigation Attorneys
Celebrex Claim Lawyers
Firm Profile

In 1995, Tom Kline and Shanin Specter left a major Philadelphia law firm and started their own practice, opening an office on the top floor of a building in Center City with one associate attorney and four staffers.

Today, Kline & Specter, P.C. occupies six floors of the same building at 1525 Locust St. with an army of more than 30 top notch attorneys, a staff exceeding 100 and a reputation as not only the leading plaintiffs firm in the Philadelphia region but one of the best in the United States.

Accolades and honors have followed. As The Legal Intelligencer wrote in its June 21, 2004 edition:
“Along with partner Tom Kline, Shanin Specter left The Beasley Firm nearly a decade ago and now sits atop what many view as the most powerful plaintiffs firm ... with countless seven figure verdicts and settlements to the firm.”

Kline & Specter has attracted the best of the best lawyers. Six attorneys at the firm were selected recently as among “The Best Attorneys in Pennsylvania” by Super Lawyers 2004 magazine, with Tom Kline the No. 1 vote-getter among some 34,000 lawyers in the state. (See Super Lawyers 2004, Lawyer Profiles.) The firm has four lawyers who also previously practiced medicine (see Doctor/Lawyer Team) as well as those with expertise in various facets of complex personal injury, class action and mass tort litigation.

The firm and its lawyers have won an unsurpassed number of major settlements and record-setting jury verdicts throughout the country.

Back in the early 1980s, Tom Kline and Shanin Specter began trying pharmaceutical products liability cases. Kline won the largest compensatory jury verdict – $5.1 million – in the Dalkon Shield mass tort litigation against A.H. Robins Co. in 1983. Specter won major victories involving the arthritis drug Oraflex, manufactured by Eli Lilly. Kline followed with settlements in the Selacryn (hypertension drug) litigation against SmithKline. He then achieved multiple million-dollar verdicts in Bendectin cases, including a $19.2 million verdict in the Blum v. Merrell Dow case, exposing the company’s improper drug testing and reporting.

The firm and its lawyers have achieved large settlements and leadership positions in litigation involving asbestos, Baycol, Fen-Phen and PPA. Kline & Specter currently is leading the way in litigation involving other pharmaceuticals, including Vioxx, Bextra, Remicade, Crestor, Atypical Antipsychotic medications (Zyprexa, Risperdal, Clozaril), Lotronex, Propulsid, Ephedra, Prempro and Serzone.

The firm has won many outstanding verdicts and settlements. In a notable case tried in Reno, Nev., Specter achieved a $153 million product liability verdict against Ford Motor Company (see The White Case), among the largest such verdicts in the nation. Back home in Philadelphia, Kline won a $51 million jury award in a celebrated case (Hall v SEPTA) against SEPTA in which a young boy’s foot was torn off in a subway escalator. (see Notable Cases)

Kline & Specter has won a stream of seven- and eight-figure verdicts in medical malpractice cases. (see Major Victories) Among them was a $33.1 million Montgomery County jury verdict in a missed-diagnosis breast cancer case (Welteroth); a $49 million Philadelphia verdict in a hospital-error case (Caruso); a $19.9 million verdict in a Delaware state case in which a patient was accosted in her hospital bed (Sparber); a $25 million verdict for the family of a young doctor who died following a routine fertility procedure (Matteo); a $20.8 million verdict for a podiatrist who lost her foot because of errors in unrelated treatment (Young); a $20 million verdict for a Penn student brain injured as a result of ICU negligence (Gallagher); a $19.1 million verdict in Luzerne County for a construction worker struck by a van while she was at a roadside worksite (McManamon); and two verdicts of $15 million each involving surgical errors that injured children (Sears and Borkowski).

In a premises liability case, Specter won a $24 million verdict for an injury resulting from a drowning at an apartment complex swimming pool (Weightman), while the firm secured a $36.4 million settlement in September 2003 from the Motiva Enterprises refinery in Delaware County, where a worker was killed. In the Motiva case, Kline & Specter established a new gold standard for investigating a case, reviewing 40,000 documents and hiring 14 experts in a year-long, $750,000 probe that uncovered the real cause – not what the company had reported – of their client’s death.

Beyond the courtroom victories, the work of the firm and its highly publicized cases have also brought about change – for the better. Cases have resulted in improved training for nurses, stricter rules for officers who drive city police cars, upgrading of dilapidated mass-transit escalators in the SEPTA system and – in a case featured on ABC’s 20/20 (Mahoney) – federal government action seeking the recall of 7.4 million powerful, defective BB air rifles. Another case (Lackman), which was featured on ABC’s Nightline, helped lead to improved mammogram testing practices for women.

Kline & Specter also prosecuted a highly publicized case involving injury
to a person's reputation. In a September 2004 defamation suit, the firm obtained an unambiguous apology and retraction as well as the 30-day suspension of Philadelphia radio personality Howard Eskin. Infinity Broadcasting, his employer, also made a "substantial" payment to settle the lawsuit filed on behalf of noted attorney Richard Sprague, who claimed Eskin had defamed him on the air."