Practice Areas: Products Liability, Personal Injury; view more
Licensed in Pennsylvania since: 1981
Education: Northeastern University School of Law
Selected to Super Lawyers: 2005 - 2025 Details
Martin Brigham has devoted his forty year legal career to representing victims of unsafe products and of corporate negligence, with a particular interest in promoting workplace safety. His talent in the area of products liability has every year been recognized by Best Lawyers in America, the Bar Register of Preeminent Lawyers, and SuperLawyers. He is the only Philadelphia plaintiff’s attorney selected by corporate and insurance counsel for listing in the “World’s Leading Product Liability Lawyers.”
As lead trial counsel in over one hundred cases, he’s recovered millions to tens of millions of dollars for his clients and their families. Mr. Brigham led the international team of attorneys representing the passengers aboard a Sikorsky S-92 helicopter that crashed into the North Atlantic off of Newfoundland. Fifteen of those passengers were killed and one survived. Less than a year after the accident, every client’s case was resolved for an amount-made confidential to protect the clients-that ensured their financial security and honored those they had lost.
Mr. Brigham is regularly asked to become lead attorney in cases focused on a large corporation’s systemic failure to follow its own safety rules that results in devastating injuries or death. He regularly speaks and publishes on product safety. He was the lead author of Injured on the Job, published by the Philadelphia Area Project of Occupational Safety and Health (PhilaPOSH), which has honored Mr. Brigham for his lifetime commitment to promoting workplace safety.
Mr. Brigham is nationally recognized for his pioneering work in the production of video settlement brochures and has prepared more than a hundred video presentations of his client’s cases. He directs the firm’s in-house video production facility and has lectured on visual demonstrative evidence.
Mr. Brigham serves as Vice-Chair of the Board of Trustees for YouthBuild Philadelphia, an alternative high school for opportunity youth who had dropped out of school and want to transform their lives.
*AV Preeminent and BV Distinguished are certification marks of Reed Elsevier Properties Inc., used in accordance with the Martindale-Hubbell certification procedures, standards and policies. Martindale-Hubbell is the facilitator of a peer review rating process. Ratings reflect the confidential opinions of members of the bar and the judiciary. Martindale-Hubbell ratings fall into two categories: legal ability and general ethical standards.
**The Best Lawyers in America® 2010. Copyright 2009 by Woodward/White, Inc., Aiken, SC
Practice areas
Personal Injury - Products: Plaintiff, Personal Injury - General: PlaintiffFocus areas
Construction Accident, Personal Injury - Plaintiff
First Admitted: 1979, Tennessee
Professional Webpage: http://rayneslaw.com/attorneys/martin-k-brigham/
- Philadelphia Bar Association
- American Association for Justice
- Philadelphia Trial Lawyers Association
- Pennsylvania Association for Justice
- Pennsylvania Bar Association
- National Safety Council
- Largest Pre-Trial Recovery in Delaware HistoryAuto racing fans were directed by the race track owner to set up their RV’s directly under an unlit, unmarked, uninsulated 69,000 volt high power line. Following the track’s suggestion to fly the flag of their favorite race team, a family put up a tall flagpole. When the wind shifted, the pole contacted the power line, causing an electrical arc that killed two and catastrophically injured three others. Martin Brigham was lead trial counsel for all of the families and conducted over fifty depositions and interviewed over one hundred witnesses. After Mr. Brigham prepared a compelling settlement video, the case resolved at mediation for what was described by defense counsel as the largest pre-trial personal injury recovery in the state’s history.
- $24,000,000 Confidential Settlement for Construction Site AccidentAs the operator of a large piece of construction equipment sat down in the cab, he unintentionally moved the joystick control, causing the boom to swing uncontrollably and knock a piece of equipment onto a young man standing nearby. The worker became a quadriplegic. Because of his decades of experience in products liability, Mr. Brigham was responsible for preparing the case against the manufacturer. He established that the excavator manufacturer’s design violated international safety standards, ignored safety alerts from its own country’s OSHA, and failed to include an alternate design of the control handle that was in use on other equipment and would have prevented the injury. After jury selection had been completed, the defendants settled for $24,000,000.
- Sixteen Confidential Settlements for Sikorsky S-92 Crash Off the Coast of NewfoundlandIn 2009, Mr. Brigham was asked to lead the international team of attorneys representing the passengers – fifteen of whom were killed and one who survived – in the crash of a Sikorsky S-92 helicopter in the frigid north Atlantic off of the coast of Newfoundland. In order to document each family’s loss, Mr. Brigham, working with Canadian co-counsel and partner Stephen Raynes, videotaped hundreds of hours of interviews that he then edited into sixteen settlement presentations, one for each client. In less than a year after the accident, every client’s case was resolved for amounts – made confidential to protect the clients – that ensured their financial security and honored those that they had lost. The Premiere of Newfoundland and Labrador commended Mr. Brigham “for his exceptional leadership on this case.”
- $35,000,000 in Lifetime Benefits in Stove Tipover AccidentAn apartment stove tipped over when a five-year-old boy stood on its open door while trying to reach a pot. The pot of scalding water toppled off the stove, spilled onto the boy, and severely burned his groin and upper thighs. The landlord had ignored Philadelphia’s building code which requires every apartment stove to be anchored to the floor at the back of the stove. The stove manufacturer violated the standards for the home appliance industry when it failed to provide essential safety information. Martin K. Brigham’s role as lead trial counsel for the boy in his claim against the landlord and the stove manufacturer was featured as a Spotlight case in ATLA’s Law Reporter.
- Board of Trustees, YouthBuild Philadelphia, an alternative high school for at-risk youth who had dropped out of school
- Best Lawyers in America 2006-2019, 2019
- Selected by corporate and insurance counsel for listing in the "World's Leading Product Liability Lawyers"
- Philadelphia Area Project on Occupational Safety and Health, recipient of the Karen Silkwood Award and the Award for Lifetime Commitment to Workplace Safety
- Avvo Rating 10.0 Top Attorney
- AV Preeminent Peer Review Rating , Martindale-Hubbell, 2018
- Northeastern University School of Law, 1979
- Brown University, 1975
- Manufacturers of workplace producs often hide behind weak U.S. safety standards to avoid liability for injuries. More stringent international safety standards can show what the manufacturer should have done to prevent your client’s injury., Go Global for Stronger Safety Claims, Trial Magazine
- Mark’s life hasn’t been the same since his accident. A year ago, he was overcome by carboncmonoxide produced as a by-product of a machine at his workplace. He lay unconscious for several minutes before he was discovered by a coworker. Though Mark survived the accident, he sustained permanent brain damage., Trumping Pollution Exclusions, Trial Magazine
- Because of the Workers’ Compensation Act, injured workers cannot sue their employers, no matter how severe the injuries or how unsafe the working conditions. Injured workers can, however, potentially sue any other company which may have contributed to causing their accident. These lawsuits can not only provide desperately needed financial resources to injured workers and their families, but also promote workplace safety, through re-design of unsafe products, changes in work practices and improved training , Third Party Lawsuits Promote Workplace Safety, Safer Times
- ADA, FMLA, SSA … Lawyers representing injured workers sit down to an alphabet soup of possible legal remedies. Here’s how to spoon up the letters that will best protect your client., How Do You Spell Relief?, Trial Magazine
Office location for Martin K. Brigham
2400 Market St
Suite 317
Philadelphia, PA 19103
Phone: 215-568-6190
Selections
- Super Lawyers: 2005 - 2025
