Napoli Bern Ripka & Associates, LLP

View the profile as it appeared in New York Super Lawyers 2008 (PDF)

Napoli Bern Ripka, LLP is one of New York’s premier plaintiffs mass tort and personal injury litigation practices. The firm’s verdict record is in the hundreds of millions of dollars, and its lawyers have settled and/or recovered in excess of $2 billion for deserving clients.

Senior partners Paul J. Napoli and Marc J. Bern are well-known trial lawyers whom attorneys across the country regularly consult on mass tort, medical malpractice and complicated liability issues, and whom the national press frequently interviews. Both are longtime members of the invitation-only Million Dollar Advocates Forum and have been listed in New York Super Lawyers® magazine multiple times.

Practice Areas

The firm handles mass tort, medical malpractice, products liability, personal injury, environmental, wrongful death, other negligence actions and related appeals. It has earned successful verdicts and settlements against many major corporations and entities such as Wyeth, Pfizer, Exxon, Amtrak, American Airlines, Black & Decker and the city of New York.

Advocating for Ground Zero Volunteers

On Sept. 11, 2001, Napoli Bern was located directly across the street from the World Trade Center. “Not only did we witness the tragedy first hand,” recalls Napoli, “but our office was in the ‘hot zone’ of dust and debris created when the towers fell.” So when almost every other major personal injury firm in the city refused to represent the more than 10,000 Ground Zero workers who suffered from exposure to toxic dust, smoke and particulates, Napoli Bern stepped up to the plate.

“We took this tragedy and its aftermath very personally,” says Bern. “Our willingness to take the tough cases that we believe in is the hallmark of our practice, exemplified by our representation of the heroes of 9/11.”

The firm has recently relocated to the 74th floor of the Empire State Building, with views as broad as the firm’s perspective on litigation.

Pioneering Important Cases The firm has been a leader in dozens of cutting-edge cases, including representing municipalities whose groundwater was contaminated by the gasoline additive MTBE, consumers who used the life-threatening drug combination Fen-Phen, and the Greenpoint, Brooklyn victims of the country’s largest-ever gasoline spill. The firm is especially noted for its continuing efforts in environmental litigation.

Recently, the firm has been part of the groundbreaking representation of surgery patients who were given the drug Trasylol to control bleeding. The firm’s case was highlighted in a recent broadcast of 60 Minutes.