James J. McEldrew, III

Managing Partner

Attorney Jim McEldrew has been an attorney in Philadelphia for over 35 years. He has dedicated his life to advocate for victims of medical malpractice, railroad accidents, corporate greed, and nursing home abuse.

Since 1982, Jim has been actively involved, not only as a nationally renowned trial attorney, but as a community leader and a representative of several trial lawyer organizations at the national and state level.

Jim was appointed in 1995 as the national counsel for the Transport Workers Union (TWU) designated attorneys for the FELA program. He is also designated counsel for the railroad division for the International Brothers of Electrical Workers (IBEW). As a trial attorney and friend of labor, Jim has been involved in many railroad and labor arbitrations, contract disputes and negotiations, and has made safety on the railroad a major priority. He is a national renowned railroad expert and has been interviewed by Fox News about major train accidents in the Northeast Corridor.

Jim’s integrity, hard work and dedication have led his peers to elect him as President of the Academy of Rail Labor Attorneys from 1995-1996. He was also elected as President of the Pennsylvania Trial Lawyers Association in 2005-2006 and was a member of the Pennsylvania Trial Lawyers Board of Directors in 2005-2007.

Jim has also received awards from the Support Center of Child Advocates and Volunteers for the Indigent Program (VIP).

He has had numerous victories in a wide variety of areas in law. He obtained a verdict of $13.3 million for twins who were born premature at 26 weeks with chorioamnionitis. He later litigated and tried the issue of delay damages in the Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court and obtained a judgement for delay damages that allowed for collector of delay damages for two policies.

He has tried numerous FELA cases in NJ, PA, DE, and NY. Recently, Jim obtained a $1.9 million verdict for a 61-year-old injured car repair man who slipped and fell on snow and ice while reporting to work.

Another noteworthy case involved a police officer in Bucks County who lost his leg when a drunk driver trapped him against his police vehicle. During the litigation, Jim pursued cases against the plaintiffs uninsured motorists (UIM) carrier, the tortfeasor policy, and a dram shop case against the bar that served the individual who hit the police officer. In addition, he brought cases against the employers’ insurance carriers' agent for fraud for trying to change the forms on the UIM coverage. A verdict and a settlement of $1 million against the employers’ insurance agent was also obtained. When the dust settled, Jim obtained nearly $7 million from eight different entities in litigation that spanned over a course 8 years.

Jim was also recently co-counsel on a qui tam case against Valeant Pharmaceuticals alleging numerous off-label marketing violations and kickback schemes that settled for $54 million.

Last year, he brought several cases against a device manufacturer for their role in the transmission of multiple drug resistant bacteria during Endoscopic Retrograde Cholangio-Pancreatography (ERCP) procedures. He was the first attorney in the country to bring these cases to settlement.

Most recently, Jim has been appointed to the steering committee for the Essure cases filed in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania involving over one thousand plaintiffs injured as a result of a birth control device that caused injury through migration outside of the intended area in the fallopian tube.

He is AV Rated with Martindale Hubbell — the highest possible rating. Jim has a 10 out of 10 rating with AVVO. He has also been named a Super Lawyer since its inception in 2001 and has recently been named a Top 500 Trial Lawyer with Lawdragon 500.

Jim has been married for 33 years and has four children: Caitlin, Kelly, Jim, and Michael. Caitlin is a graduate of Oberlin College, and is currently a Program Manager at TuneIn Radio in San Francisco, CA. Kelly is a graduate of Georgetown University and is a Senior Recruiter at Howard Fischer Associates in Philadelphia, PA. Jim is a fourth-year student at the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine, and a graduate of Notre Dame University. Michael is a fourth-year chemical engineering PHD student at MIT, and a graduate of Penn State University. Jim's hobbies include fishing, scuba diving, karate, jiu jitsu, and boxing.