For more than 30 years, Martin K. Brigham has devoted his legal career to representing individuals who have been profoundly injured by unsafe products or by corporate and professional negligence. He has been lead trial counsel in scores of cases that have resulted in recoveries of seven and eight figures for his clients and their families. He is nationally recognized for his representation of burn survivors and for his pioneering use of videotape settlement brochures.
Mr. Brigham has been repeatedly selected – including for this year – by his peers for inclusion in Best Lawyers in America and as a Super Lawyer in Philadelphia Magazine. He is listed in the Bar Register of Preeminent Lawyers in the areas of Product Liability, Personal Injury, and Medical Malpractice. He is the only Philadelphia plaintiffs attorney that was selected by corporate and insurance counsel for listing in the "World's Leading Product Liability Lawyers."
In 2009, Mr. Brigham was asked to head 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 north Atlantic off of Newfoundland. 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.” Click here to read more.
Other examples of clients’ cases in which Mr. Brigham was the lead attorney and trial counsel include:
- The largest pre-trial settlement in Delaware history for the families of spectators at a sporting event, two of whom suffered fatal electrical burn injuries and two of whom were severely disabled;
- A recovery that will pay more than $35 million to a young boy over his lifetime as the result of scald injuries he suffered because of a stove tipover;
- A pre-trial recovery in Lehigh County of more than $10.34 million dollars from a property owner, above an additional confidential settlement from a manufacturer, for an electrician who was burned while working on an electrical switchgear.
The American Association for Justice’s (AAJ’s) Law Reporter has repeatedly featured Mr. Brigham's cases in its national Spotlight section.
Mr. Brigham has written about product liability and the legal rights of injured workers in AAJ's Trial magazine. Click here to read more. He is the lead author and editor of the most recent edition of the workers’ rights treatise: Injured on the Job, published by the Philadelphia Area Project on Occupational Safety and Health (PhilaPOSH). Mr. Brigham has led labor union training programs on issues related to occupational safety and workplace injuries. He regularly lectures to attorneys regarding trial skills and product liability lawsuits.
Recently, PhilaPOSH honored Mr. Brigham’s – as well as his wife’s – lifetime commitment to workplace health and safety. He has been similarly honored by both the Phoenix Society for Burn Survivors and the Lehigh Valley Medical Center Burn Patient Support Group. He has received in Martindale-Hubbell the highest rating for legal ability and ethics. Mr. Brigham serves on the Executive Committee of the Board of Trustees for YouthBuild, a highly successful alternative high school for at risk, out-of-school Philadelphia youth.
Mr. Brigham began his career as a VISTA paralegal in Chicago after graduating from Brown University. Upon earning his law degree from Northeastern University, Mr. Brigham worked as a staff attorney for Legal Services of Middle Tennessee, where he helped found a new office serving farm workers. After two years, Mr. Brigham moved to Philadelphia and began his career advocating for the victims of unsafe products.
Education
- Brown University, 1975
- Northeastern University School of Law, 1979
Affiliations
- Best Lawyers in America
- Trial Lawyers for Public Justice
- The Roscoe Pound Institute
- Philadelphia Area Project on Occupational Safety and Health
- National Safety Council
- National Fire Protection Association
- American Association for Justice
- Pennsylvania Association for Justice
- Philadelphia Trial Lawyers Association
- Million Dollar Advocates Forum
- Pennsylvania Bar Association
- Philadelphia Bar Association