Tobi L. Millrood
Pennsylvania
Kline & Specter, PC
1525 Locust St.
Philadelphia, PA 19102
United States
Tel: (215) 772-1358
Email:
tobi.millrood@klinespecter.com
Web:
www.klinespecter.com
Tobi L. Millrood is a Partner and Chair of the Mass Tort Department of Kline & Specter, a Philadelphia-based law firm handling wrongful injury lawsuits, including product liability, medical malpractice, premises liability, civil rights and auto accident litigation.
Millrood is a national leader in the trial bar and has 25 years of complex litigation experience, including in court-appointed leadership positions, and has won a number of major jury verdicts in complex litigation. His focus is on product liability, pharmaceutical, medical device and complex personal injury litigation.
Most recently, in October 2023, Millrood was co-counsel in a case that resulted in a $175 million verdict against Monsanto Co. for an elderly Philadelphia man who was diagnosed with cancer after years of using the company’s herbicide Roundup. The verdict in Philadelphia Common Pleas Court was the bellwether case among hundreds awaiting trial in the Philadelphia mass tort program over Roundup. The verdict included $150 million in punitive damages.
Millrood is past president of the world’s largest trial bar, the American Association for Justice (AAJ), where he completed his term in July 2021 and currently serves as Immediate Past President. As a result of his leadership within AAJ, Millrood has received numerous awards including Distinguished Service, Heavy Lifting and the prestigious President’s Award in 2015.
Among his numerous highlights in the field of prescription drug and medical device litigation is his perseverance and success against Wyeth, Pfizer and numerous other Fortune 100 companies in the landmark Hormone Therapy litigation. In 2002, Millrood was the first in the nation to file a Hormone Therapy lawsuit and he dedicated the next twelve years to the litigation, serving as Plaintiffs’ Lead Liaison Counsel for the matter in Philadelphia Common Pleas Court, presiding over thousands of cases.
He also served on the plaintiffs’ executive committee In Re Prempro Products Liability, and was chair of the AAJ Hormone Therapy Litigation Group. Millrood tried four hormone therapy cases, winning jury verdicts in all four, including those of $72.6 million and $34.3 million.
Millrood earned his bachelor’s degree from Tulane University and his law degree from the University of Tulsa College of Law.
Faulty and defective products result in injuries to thousands of people every year. Kline & Specter attorneys have handled complex, investigative-based litigation and lawsuits involving everything from defective BB guns to a popular model pick-up truck to vaginal mesh products and pharmaceuticals such as Risperdal and transvaginal mesh. Overall, our law firm has the most large verdicts in the United States, having obtained four of the top 100 nationally in 2019.
Nine vaginal mesh cases have so far produced verdicts totaling more than $347 million against Johnson & Johnson. And, most recently, the firm won an $8 billion punitive damages verdict against J&J in a case involving Risperdal, an anti-psychotic drug linked to the growth of female breast tissue in boys. That verdict was the largest in Pennsylvania history.
In the Ford case, Specter won a $153 million verdict, including compensatory and punitive damages in a lawsuit against Ford Motor Co. The verdict was the second-largest product liability verdict in U.S. history at the time. A later trial in the case yielded a $52 million verdict.
Kline & Specter was named the No. 1 Product Liability Law Firm in the United States for 2011-2012 by Best Lawyers, a designation which was announced in U.S. News & World Report. Kline & Specter previously had been named in the “Tier 1” group – the top classification – for Product Liability, one of only 35 firms across the nation selected for that distinction.
In 1995, Tom Kline and Shanin Specter started their own practice, opening an office on the top floor of a building in Philadelphia with one associate attorney and four staffers.
Today, Kline & Specter, PC occupies 12 floors of the same building at 1525 Locust St. with more than 50 attorneys, five of whom are also medical doctors, the most of any firm in the United States. Victories have followed, including hundreds of multi-million-dollar verdicts and settlements, some of them record-setting, and even one in the billions — the $8 billion verdict against Johnson & Johnson in 2019 involving the anti-psychotic drug Risperdal.
Accolades and honors abound. The firm has been cited as “one of the country’s leading personal injury firms” by The Philadelphia Inquirer, referred to as “a powerhouse law firm” by The New York Times and called “the most powerful plaintiffs firm in the city” by the Philadelphia Business Journal.
Kline & Specter has attracted outstanding lawyers. Twenty of its attorneys have been selected as among “The Best Attorneys in Pennsylvania” or “Rising Stars” by the independent survey group Super Lawyers, with Tom Kline in 2019 selected as the No. 1 attorney in Pennsylvania a record (for any state) 16 straight years. Both Kline and Specter have been recipients of the Michael A. Musmanno Award, the highest honor conferred by the Philadelphia Trial Lawyers Association.