Life can change in a single moment. One second everything is normal, and the next, nothing is.
It happens on the drive home with your kids in the back seat. It happens at the start of a shift on the railroad. It happens in a living room, laughing with a nephew over a video game. And too often, it happens because someone with power chose speed over safety, profit over people, or convenience over care. The wrong water. The wrong product. The wrong hospital. The wrong decision.
The trial attorneys at McEldrew Purtell represent individuals and families facing the aftermath of catastrophic injury and wrongful death. Based in Philadelphia and litigating nationwide, including Texas, Illinois, California, Arkansas and Florida, the firm takes on cases involving serious harm caused by the negligence of others, including governments, major corporations, product manufacturers, hospitals and more.
For Founding Partner and Lead Trial Attorney Daniel N. Purtell, the mission is simple: deliver elite trial work, pursue maximum recovery and keep raising the bar. “We’re continuously striving to improve,” he says.
A PARTNERSHIP BUILT ON MENTORSHIP AND STANDARDS
Purtell met Jim McEldrew when Purtell was a young attorney working in the Philadelphia office of a Baltimore-based firm. McEldrew took him under his wing. What began as a mentor-mentee relationship grew into a partnership rooted in shared standards: preparation, integrity and accountability.
“The thing he instilled in me the most was to do the right thing, even when it’s hard,” Purtell says. “Jim led by example. He gave me responsibility before I was ready for it, and he demanded integrity and the highest possible work. I worked as hard as I could to live up to his standard.”
Together, they built McEldrew Purtell from a two-lawyer office into a multi-team trial firm with 20 attorneys and a deep bench of courtroom leadership. Between them, McEldrew and Purtell have tried more than 50 complex cases, and the firm now has roughly 10 lawyers prepared to lead trial teams at any given time.
“One of the things I’m most proud of is the talent we’ve gathered,” Purtell says. “It’s inspiring. They don’t need me anymore.”
In recent years, the firm has continued to expand, building a nationally recognized civil rights practice while remaining a longtime trusted referral firm and co-counsel across FELA, medical malpractice, nursing home cases, toxic torts, products liability litigation and more.
“When clients trust a firm like us with a case, it’s a huge thing,” Purtell says. “They have one shot at being taken care of. I take an incredible amount of responsibility for that.”
STARTING THE FIRM: ON THE RAILROAD
The firm’s flagship practice is its Federal Employers’ Liability Act (FELA) litigation, a practice founded by McEldrew, widely regarded as a leading advocate for railroad workers.
The group is spearheaded by Managing Attorney and FELA Team Leader Colin Haviland, who joined the firm in 2022. McEldrew credits Haviland as a significant addition to the team. After overseeing major litigation matters for the School District of Philadelphia and serving as litigation counsel for the Pennsylvania Judiciary, Haviland “picked up railroad litigation as quickly as anybody I’ve seen,” McEldrew says.
McEldrew first handled a FELA case in 1982 representing an injured railroad worker. Since then, he has represented countless railroad employees and helped advance workplace safety both inside and outside the courtroom. He served as President of the Academy of Rail Labor Attorneys (ARLA) in 1995, was appointed national counsel for the Transport Workers Union (TWU) that year and serves as designated counsel for the railroad division of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW).
“The local union people work their tails off for their workers,” McEldrew says. “They don’t get enough credit, but they’re the backbone of the entire union. I can’t tell you how grateful I am to work with them hand in hand.”
Railroad litigation is a word-of-mouth industry, and McEldrew Purtell has earned a reputation for candor and follow-through: never overpromising, always preparing and always delivering.
'When clients trust a firm like us with a case, it’s a huge thing,' Purtell says. 'They have one shot at being taken care of. I take an incredible amount of responsibility for that.'
In one notable case, McEldrew, Purtell and medical malpractice team leader Marcus Washington declined a $10M settlement offer at the client’s request. Their client, an electrician in his early 30s, had been crushed by a 5,644-pound reel of wire he was transporting. The spool had cracked, pinning him against the door of a shipping container and rolling down his body, perforating his bowel, damaging his nerves, and leading to complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS), torn intestines, incontinence issues, headaches and nerve damage. He will likely never walk again. The jury ultimately returned a $15.56M verdict, among the top verdicts in the state that year.
In other matters, McEldrew secured a $4.5M verdict for a railroad conductor injured by an electrical shock, and a $1.9M verdict for a 61-year-old car repairman who slipped and fell on snow and ice while reporting to work.
“I hope that these guys from the railroad feel like I’ve been in the trenches with them,” McEldrew says, “helping them fight for their jobs and their union rights.”
CIVIL RIGHTS CASES, BEFORE AND AFTER 2020
While FELA remains foundational, the firm has broadened its work over the last five years, increasingly tackling matters tied to some of the most urgent civil rights issues in the country, including police violence and governmental misconduct.
McEldrew Purtell represented the family of Jemel Roberson, a 26-year-old security guard in a Chicago-area nightclub who was shot and killed by police in 2018. Roberson had restrained a gunman when officers arrived, but police allegedly mistook Roberson for the shooter and shot him multiple times. The lawsuit was filed in 2019. In 2022, the village of Midlothian agreed to pay $7.5M.
That same year, the firm’s civil rights practice grew further when litigator John Coyle joined as a partner and lead trial attorney. Before joining McEldrew Purtell, Coyle served as Deputy City Solicitor for the City of Philadelphia, defending constitutional claims and advising city departments on civil rights issues.
Since joining the firm, Coyle has obtained more than $85.4M in verdicts and settlements across civil rights, trucking, railroad and medical malpractice matters in 10 states. He also taught “Strategic Considerations in Civil Rights Litigation” as adjunct faculty at Temple University Beasley School of Law.
Purtell and Coyle also partnered with their law school classmate Lee Merritt, a prominent civil rights lawyer and activist. Merritt later formed his own firm, but the firms continue working together on major cases.
In March 2020, Civil Rights Team Leader Mark V. Maguire joined the firm after more than a decade as a trial attorney for the City of Philadelphia, handling similar matters and helping shape police and prison policy.
Following the killing of George Floyd in May 2020 and the national reckoning that followed, McEldrew Purtell’s experience in police violence litigation made the team sought-after counsel in high-profile matters nationwide.
Among those matters, the firm, alongside Merritt and co-counsel, began representing the mother of Ahmaud Arbery in 2021 in a federal civil rights case stemming from his killing in Glynn County, Georgia. In February 2020, Arbery, a 25-year-old Black man, was jogging when he was shot and killed by three white men who claimed he matched the description of someone suspected of burglary in the area. The federal civil rights lawsuit that followed named not only the three men who chased Arbery down, but also Glynn County law enforcement officers and two local prosecutors, alleging a cover-up of the killing. Merritt continues to advance the case.
The firm also became involved in the case of Ronald Greene, a Black man who died following a Louisiana traffic stop. Initially, Greene’s family was told he died from crash injuries, but the case evolved amid allegations of violence and a cover-up.
When the case came to him, Coyle says he studied the tire tracks and the damage and realized what the family had been told did not add up. He recommended an independent autopsy, which he says suggested the injuries were more likely inflicted after the crash, at the hands of police. Coyle and his team then moved quickly to obtain medical records. In those records, he says, emergency room doctors questioned the officers’ account. Then came the public pressure.
By the time an Associated Press reporter obtained the story and body camera footage became public, the team had already filed suit. State and congressional inquiries followed. While federal prosecutors have deferred to local authorities, the federal civil case has since been reopened.
Currently, members of the McEldrew Purtell team, along with Merritt, are representing the estate of Atatiana Jefferson, a woman who was shot and killed by police conducting a check on an open door at her home, which Jefferson had left open to let in a breeze. According to the lawsuit, officers did not announce their presence. Body camera footage shows that when an officer saw Jefferson’s silhouette, he shouted for her to put her hands up but fired before giving her a chance to respond. Jefferson bled to death with her 8-year-old nephew in the room. In a forensic interview, the child said they had been playing video games together moments earlier.
Jefferson was killed in October 2019, and the wrongful death lawsuit was filed on the anniversary of her death in October 2020. In February of this year, more than four years after the suit was filed, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the officer’s claim of qualified immunity, allowing discovery to proceed. The case underscores how slowly these legal battles can unfold, Coyle says.
In the immediate aftermath of 2020, Coyle says municipalities were more willing to resolve these cases and acknowledge wrongdoing, driven in part by intense public scrutiny.
“With that attention, especially when cases are preparing to go to trial, it becomes even more important to get the right story out there,” Coyle says. “The public deserves to know what actions are being taken by their government. The government works for the people.”
As public attention has shifted in recent years, he says a new dynamic has emerged: greater efforts to push financial responsibility onto individual “bad actors” rather than municipalities.
“It creates a really difficult situation,” Coyle says. “You don’t want taxpayers paying for the bad acts of individuals, but if municipalities aren’t held accountable, you can remove the incentive for reform.”
SPECIALIZED, EFFICIENT AND EXPANDING
Beyond railroad and civil rights work, McEldrew Purtell continues to fight for injured individuals across multiple practice areas, including medical malpractice, nursing home negligence, workplace cases, toxic torts, products litigation, and trucking and commercial vehicle crashes.
The public deserves to know what actions are being taken by their government. The government works for the people.
The firm is built around specialized teams, with attorneys who focus deeply and consistently within their practice groups. That structure allows the firm to move quickly, deploy the right leadership and prepare cases for trial from day one.
“Everyone has their own dedicated experience set, so we’re able to route cases internally, and everybody can originate,” Purtell says. “We take cases in from all over the country, and whoever the right attorney is to lead that case gets the case.”
Purtell has particularly handled birth injury cases within the medical malpractice division, and he notes that these cases continue to rise nationwide. In his view, part of that trend is tied to structural pressures in healthcare.
“There’s been a lot of corporate and financial influence within med mal,” he says. “You see a lot of delay and ‘failure-to’ cases that I think are directly attributable to doctors and nurses being placed in unfair working conditions.”
“It’s not just the patients who are getting a raw deal,” he adds. “The doctors and nurses are at an equally weak vantage point.”
He draws parallels to other practice areas where profit pressure can lead to corner-cutting, including nursing home care and commercial transportation.
The nursing home litigation team, led by trial attorneys Ian Norris and Andrew Watto, has produced significant results for elderly victims and their families, including a $1M award in a nursing home abuse and neglect case at the end of last year and a $4M result earlier in the year. The team represents a vulnerable population that often cannot protect or advocate for itself, making accountability critical.
In trucking litigation, Purtell and Coyle recently secured a confidential eight-figure settlement following a crash in which a distracted truck driver allegedly struck a stopped family vehicle at highway speed, leaving multiple family members in the ICU and killing a three-year-old child.
In cases like these, speed and precision matter. Evidence must be preserved. Experts must be engaged. The case must be built methodically and immediately.
“We’ve built the firm to respond immediately and rapidly to any case that comes in,” Coyle says.
“In catastrophic cases, the jury wants hard, tangible evidence before they’re going to award large sums of money,” he adds.
That approach is supported by the firm’s team model. Even when one attorney is consumed by depositions or trial preparation, others are expected to step in and push the case forward.
“If somebody’s deep in depositions or prepping for trial, there’s always going to be another highly qualified attorney, not just able, but expected, to keep pushing that case forward,” Purtell says.
The firm also supports early-career development through a clerkship program run by Coyle and Director of Strategic Initiatives and People Cristin Wittwer. The program typically includes six to eight clerks.
McEldrew Purtell is also structured for strong co-counsel relationships. In these high-profile cases, the attorneys often do not litigate the cases alone. So, they’ve built a firm with incredible resources and experienced attorneys on a boutique scale, allowing them the flexibility to travel nationally to jump into major cases. And, with the team approach in the firm, they are adept at joining cases at any point, working collaboratively with colleagues while taking in new material quickly to produce the best results for their clients.
That flexibility allows the attorneys to take on the cases that matter most to them – not just as lawyers, but as people.
“These people are coming in the door having experienced the worst thing that could ever happen in their life,” Coyle says. “We can’t undo that. What we can do is take care of some of the hardships due to the tragedy and give them solid footing to move forward.”
“It also gives them a sense that there’s someone out there who’s going to fight for them,” he adds. “That even if the government or a big company has all the resources, they can fight back.”
From decades of railroad litigation to the evolving landscape of civil rights and catastrophic injury cases, McEldrew Purtell’s attorneys say they will continue looking ahead so they can stand beside the people who need them most.
