‘Strive Mightily’

It’s impossible to tell the story of Laura Phillips’ career without first talking about her dad, the legendary defense-turned-plaintiff’s attorney William “Denny” Phillips.

She did, after all, start working at his Washington-based law office when she was in middle school, and they later spent years trying cases side-by-side. He died last year at age 86, the same year he stopped practicing. Phillips speaks of his legacy and example through a mix of tears and laughter.

“I learned everything I know about being a lawyer from him,” she says. “He taught me about courtroom theater. I talk loudly and quickly. He taught me about pauses and silence and lowering your voice to have the jury sit up and pay attention. When he would give a closing, he would walk right up to the jury bar and put his hands on it, and he would lean in and”—she drops her voice to a whisper—“he would talk to the jury like this. He also said he would do that because if the defense can’t hear you, they can’t object. I remember one trial when my dad was giving the closing, and the defense lawyer had to move his chair and sit beside the jury so he could hear what my dad was saying.”

On the day of his viewing last August, 250 people—many of them lawyers—waited in the 90-degree heat to pay their respects; the line spanned the block.

“What I heard over and over was: ‘I tried my first case against your dad, and he took me aside and told me what I was doing well and what I could do better.’”

It called to mind the other, most important lesson she learned from Denny.

“There’s this quote by Shakespeare, ‘Do as adversaries do in law: strive mightily, but eat and drink as friends,’” she says. “That’s what he taught me. Civility and professionalism and friendship and collegiality above almost everything else. Of course you strive for your client, but you can do that while being a professional and not being a jerk, and I live that.”

Colleagues agree.

“Laura had a great advantage to learn at the elbow of a parent who practiced the way her dad Denny did, and I think it shows through in how she practices today,” says personal injury attorney John Gismondi, whom she also considers a mentor. His office is about 30 feet from Phillips’ in the same suite, and they regularly discuss trial strategy and debate legal issues. “She learned a lot about litigation. She also learned a lot about how to practice the right way, how to treat clients and how to treat opposing lawyers. Her dad was able to be a vigorous advocate without offending opposing counsel. Laura has those same attributes.”

Their styles are different though, Gismondi says. “Her dad was sort of like bourbon—laid back, smooth—and Laura would be spicier, something with a little more kick.”

Fierce is the word that comes to mind for mediator John Noble.

“I’ve witnessed her abilities in every aspect from openings and trial strategy to cross examinations and closings,” he says. “She’s just fierce. Even socially at conversation, she’s just so witty.

“Her dad was a true icon, but she’s really created her own legacy,” adds Noble, who tried and mediated cases with Denny for decades as both opposing counsel and as co-counsel. “He treated her like a respected equal, and she was never afraid to be vocal about her opinion. They didn’t always agree, but I worked together with them closely negotiating complex medical malpractice cases, and no one was happier about being a partner to her dad than Laura, and no one was happier than him about being a partner to Laura.”

---

After law school at Georgetown, she spent a year at a Washington, D.C., firm before moving home and starting at Phillips and Faldowski with her dad and uncle Damon Faldowski, who left for the bench in 2018 and is now a mediator. 

“She was always good at analyzing people,” Faldowski says. “Her father and I were trying a lot of cases at that time, and she had a lot of exposure, especially with her dad, because he would take her along. He gave her ample opportunities to take a witness through cross, direct, openings, closings.

“She’s also a very ethical person. Young lawyers sometimes like to cut corners, not communicate with clients, but she always has the client’s interest at heart. She can communicate and relate to the whole spectrum of client personalities and situations and circumstances.”

During an early trial, six months into her tenure there, Phillips was struck by the gravity of what it meant to be a plaintiff’s attorney.

“It was a two-week trial, a wrongful death case,” she says. “I stayed in Crawford County in a Holiday Inn Express for two weeks. We’re with the family every day, seeing the implications that negligence or malpractice can have upon people, and the ability we have as lawyers to get some form of vindication, some justice—with the understanding that if I could get you $100 billion versus getting the person back, there’s no contest. They would want their loved one back.”

Her first plaintiff’s verdict was a case she tried with her dad for a client who lost kidney function after an aortic aneurysm repair. When the verdict was read, they knew the question about negligence and causation was on the front of the slip and the amount was on the back, so if it were a loss, the judge would have no reason to look at the back.

Denny, who never had a good whisper except when he was confiding to a jury, said, “She turned it over,” in a voice loud enough for everybody in the courtroom to hear.

“I remember being so excited because I tried the case with my dad,” Phillps says. “It was my first verdict. Even the defense lawyer—with whom I’m still friendly to this day—of course he was disappointed for his client, but he knew us, and he seemed excited for us as well. It’s a real experience when you get your first plaintiff’s verdict.”

Asked how much the jury awarded, Phillips slowly replies, “I believe it was $285,000 …” Then she stops herself and laughs. “I know exactly how much it was, because the verdict slip is framed, and it’s in my office. It’s $285,000. In Washington County in 2012, that was a good verdict.”

In fact, she adds, it was the first plaintiff’s verdict in a medical malpractice case in Washington County in something like 10 years.

There’s a framed Teddy Roosevelt quote on her wall: “The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood.” She keeps it there to remind herself that losses are inevitable.

“If you’re losing, it’s because you went and you tried,” Phillips says. “If you get a defense verdict, you went in there and you did it and you showed the other side that you’re willing to do it, and you will take that case as far as it needs to go.”

Some of her biggest successes have been seven-figure settlements. “If you have a strong case and you work it up well, you put it in a good position to settle,” she says. “I’ve learned what I’m good at outside of the courtroom [too].”

One of those things is taking doctors’ depositions. In a recent case in which a doctor had negligently prescribed a medication for too long, and it caused kidney failure, the doctor started crying an hour into Phillips’ deposition. He admitted he was wrong and apologized.

“I felt badly for him because he was really upset,” she says. “I’ve taken hundreds of depositions. That may be the most memorable one. The case settled shortly thereafter.”

Even without a full admission, she often finds that video clips from her depositions are effective in demand packets and mediation statements or arbitration memos.

In one of her first birth injury cases, Phillips represented a healthy woman in her late 20s to whom insufficient attention was paid during a 48-hour labor, even though she was exhibiting signs of a serious problem. Her baby was born healthy, but she hemorrhaged and lost her uterus. She and her husband had planned to have several more children, and had even built a house for their future family.

“We filed it and almost immediately the defense asked to mediate because the liability was clear. Their depositions hadn’t been taken, and I had this idea,” she says.

Phillips hired a videographer to go to the house and film the couple and the woman’s parents and sisters talking about how they always wanted a large family, how she became a teacher because she loved kids so much, and the trauma of the experience: How she couldn’t hold her baby for a month because she was so weak.

“I wanted the other side to see them before the mediation and to know the impact this had on them in their own words. I can write it on a piece of paper, but that’s not the same as them saying it,” Phillips says. “I also wanted the defense to be worried that a jury in a courtroom would have a lot of sympathy for these people and anger at what had happened to them. Sympathy and anger can result in very large verdicts. I remember the mediator and the insurance representative said the video made the case. They were prepared to offer a good settlement, but when they saw how much this affected them, that increased the value.”

These are the kinds of cases Phillips goes after: ones in which someone was showing symptoms, care wasn’t provided, and the result was permanent injuries.

“We get calls daily where there was some error but then it was promptly recognized and fixed,” she says. “‘They perforated my colon during a colonoscopy and they immediately realized it and took me into surgery!’ That’s not a case; that’s a known complication. … But when you’re telling your providers three and four and five times a day that you’re in the worst pain you’ve ever felt in your life, and they’re not doing any imaging to find out what’s going on—that’s a different kind of case.”

And it’s the type that can lead to a large settlement. “When you can get people life-changing money, where it’s meaningful, where they can actually do things to change their life—they can move into a better situation, they can go into skilled nursing, they can have people come into their home to help them, they can make modifications to their house,” she says. “Any time you’re able to actively assist in changing someone’s life, it’s really gratifying and makes some of the harder moments in our job worth it.” 

A recent client was left in a wheelchair due to negligence, and the settlement Phillips achieved allowed her and her daughter to purchase a wheelchair van for transportation. “She doesn’t have to call a transport service or an ambulance, which is what she had to do before just to get her mom out,” she says. “That’s life-changing.” 

Another settlement, her largest, was the first big success for Phillips Froetschel, which Phillips founded in Pittsburgh in 2022 with partner Joseph Froetschel, a longtime friend and colleague.

Froetschel remembers Gismondi alleviating their fears, assuring them they’d get cases and do fine. And besides, who else they would want to work with if not each other?

“We filed the paperwork that day,” Froestchel says, “and it’s just been great. I think one of the reasons Laura and I connected is we both worked for very well-respected trial lawyers for a long time, seeing how they did things, and then obviously developing our own styles.”

Denny was of counsel to their firm; Gismondi still is.

---

As you’d expect, Phillips is passionate about mentoring. 

“Everyone didn’t get to work with their dad and uncle who also happened to be really good, really well-respected lawyers,” she says. “Whenever I meet younger lawyers, I say, ‘Let’s go have lunch. Let’s have a drink and talk about your practice and the best way to maximize your settlement at mediation, and let me give you the name of my videographer.’ I really think that’s something all lawyers who are comfortable with what they’re doing professionally should do.”

Another thing Phillips is comfortable with? Singing in front of a crowd. She asked Noble to perform with her at the music competition of the annual meeting of the Washington County Bar Association in 2023.

“She and I sang ‘Unforgettable’ to the entire bar,” Noble says. “Her dad was there and he’s unforgettable, and she is clearly paving her way. She’s already there. She’s going to be an unforgettable force in Western Pennsylvania for decades to come.”