attorney profile
Bill Myers is a founding shareholder of Myers Lafferty Law Offices, P.C. Born into a proud working class family, Bill received his bachelor’s degree at Clarion University, a small college in Western Pennsylvania, helping to pay for tuition by working construction jobs over the summer.
After graduating from Clarion summa cum laude, Bill was accepted at the University of Pennsylvania, one of America’s pre-eminent Ivy League law schools. In 1983, Bill began his legal career at one of the largest law firms in Philadelphia, where he worked with the top attorneys in the city and cut his teeth as a trial attorney. After seven years, Bill moved to a smaller litigation firm. He wanted to hone his trial skills, and he wanted to represent human beings rather than corporations.
Experience
For the past twenty-five years, Bill has devoted his career to fighting for hard-working men and women injured by the negligence of others. He has won verdicts and settlements of tens of millions of dollars on behalf people seriously injured in railroad accidents, automobile accidents and from medical malpractice and dangerous products. An accomplished railroad attorney, Bill has successfully squared off against many of the largest freight and commuter railroads in the country, including CSX, Norfolk Southern, Amtrak, New Jersey Transit, Metro-North, Canadian Pacific and SEPTA. He has also taken on some of the most powerful corporations and insurance companies, including General Motors, Goodyear, Nationwide, State Farm, GEICO and Allstate.
Bill represents clients in Pennsylvania, New York, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Delaware, West Virginia, Maryland and Florida.
In 2000—upon the recommendation of judges and fellow lawyers—Bill was Board Certified as a Civil Trial Advocate by the National Board of Trial Advocates, a distinction achieved by fewer than one percent of all lawyers in Pennsylvania.
Bill has been chosen as a Pennsylvania Super Lawyer every year since 2008.
Noteworthy Decisions
Bill has enjoyed the rare honor of arguing before the United States Supreme Court. In Consolidated Rail Corporation v Gottshall, he won the right for railroad employees to bring claims against their employers for emotional injuries.
In Smolsky v. Consolidated Rail Corporation, Bill persuaded the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania to recognize railroad employee’s claims both for sexual harassment under Title VII and for negligent infliction of emotional distress.
Publications
“The Seven Steps of a Legal Claim”
“The Five Most Important Things to do When You Have Been Injured”
“FELA — Protect Yourself and Your Family When Injured on the Job”
