Benedict P. Morelli

Benedict Morelli began his career in 1973 as a law clerk in a personal injury law firm, becoming eligible for the bar exam in 1977. After being admitted to the New York State Bar, he eventually became the senior partner of that firm. In June 1998, Mr. Morelli dissolved his firm and started Benedict P. Morelli & Associates, which later became Morelli Law Firm.

Mr. Morelli studied law at New York Law School and is admitted before the United States Supreme Court, the U.S. District Courts for the Southern, Eastern, Western, and Northern districts of New York, and the courts of the State of New York.

Mr. Morelli represents clients in various types of personal injury cases, including auto accidents, truck accidents, premises injuries, construction accidents/labor law, as well as complex products liability, employment discrimination, and drug product liability. In each of these areas, Mr. Morelli has received multi-million dollar verdicts. He has represented individual plaintiffs against many major corporations, including Wal-Mart, MGM, Live Nation Worldwide, FedEx, and PepsiCo, among many others.

For over forty-five years of trying cases, Mr. Morelli has received numerous multi-million dollar verdicts. From high-profile trucking accident verdicts, to national record-breaking sexual harassment and complex injury verdicts, he has tried every kind of civil case. In 1995, his $40 million verdict was featured in the National Law Journal as one of the “Top Ten Verdicts” in the United States.

In 2019, Mr. Morelli went up against Live Nation Worldwide in a labor law case in New York Supreme Court. The jury awarded Mr. Morelli and his client $102 million for injuries his client sustained when he was injured while working at the Jones Beach Theater.

In 2015, Mr. Morelli represented comedian and actor Tracy Morgan in his lawsuit against Wal-Mart when he sustained a serious traumatic brain injury in a tractor trailer accident that injured 5 people and killed one.

In 2011, Mr. Morelli was lead counsel in a sexual harassment trial against a Fortune 500 company in the Federal Court in the Southern District of Illinois and received a $95 million verdict, which was the largest single-plaintiff sexual harassment verdict in the history of the United States.

In 2010, Mr. Morelli received a $22.5 million verdict in a polio vaccine case which had been filed thirty years earlier. This became the largest verdict in the history of the Supreme Court in Staten Island, NY, and was also the largest vaccine verdict in U.S. history.

Mr. Morelli and his staff are often trusted as trial counsel by other lawyers and law firms who choose Morelli Law Firm because of its track record for delivering multi-million dollar verdicts. Over the years, Mr. Morelli has always been considered a lawyer’s lawyer. He not only has numerous law firms referring clients to him, but also has judges recommending clients to him. From the time he was admitted to the Bar through the present, Mr. Morelli has been first and foremost a trial lawyer.

For two seasons, Mr. Morelli was a regular on the nationally syndicated television show “Power of Attorney.” He has also appeared as a guest on “The Today Show,” “Good Morning America,” “Aaron Brown,” “Anderson Cooper 360,” “Dateline NBC,” “The View,” “The Ananda Lewis Show,” and “Court TV.” Additionally, a five page feature article entitled “Benedict Morelli Feels Your Pain” was published in a 1999 edition of New York Magazine.

He has taught and lectured for the National Institute of Trial Advocacy, Association of Trial Lawyers of the City of New York, New York State Bar Association (“Proving Damages in a Civil Trial”), and the New York State Trial Lawyers Association (“New York Superstars,” “Trial Advocacy Workshop,” “Summations,” and “Cross-Examination”). Mr. Morelli was called upon to represent the plaintiff’s bar to counsel insurance executives on how to resolve cases.

Mr. Morelli and his firm has represented claimants in mass tort litigations including Chantix, Raptiva, Levaquin, Propecia, Yaz/Yasmin, Transvaginal Mesh, Fosamax femur fracture, DePuy hip replacement cases, and in the BP Oil Spill litigation. The firm also currently represents thousands of women who were diagnosed with ovarian cancer against Johnson & Johnson in the ongoing Talc litigation.

Mr. Morelli was selected as a member of the plaintiff’s steering committee of the MDL in the Avandia drug litigation, which was venued in the Eastern District Federal Court of Philadelphia. Furthermore, he was selected as lead trial counsel on one of the first two cases to be tried in that court.

In addition to trying cases, Mr. Morelli is a Past President of the New York State Trial Lawyers Association and is a member of the American Association for Justice, emeritus on the Board of Directors of the New York State Trial Lawyers Association, advocate rank in the American Board of Trial Advocates, member of the New York State Bar Association, American Bar Association, New York County Lawyer’s Association, National Employment Lawyers Association, and past president of the Brooklyn-Manhattan Trial Lawyers Association.

Mr. Morelli has been listed in Best Lawyers in America continuously from 1997 through the present edition. He has also been selected by the New York State Trial Lawyers Association as one of New York’s “Superstars.”

Prominent Outcomes

• $102 million verdict for a worker who was severely injured when he was caused to fall from a height at Live Nation’s Jones Beach Theater

• $95 million verdict in a sexual harassment trial; the largest single-plaintiff sexual harassment verdict ever

• $62 million verdict in a construction accident involving a 20-year-old construction worker

• $22.5 million verdict for a polio vaccine case; the largest vaccine verdict in U.S. history

• $41 million verdict against the City of New York for a wrongful death case

Professional Accomplishments

• Selected by the New York State Trial Lawyers Association as one of New York’s “Superstars”

• Named a “Super Lawyer” by New York Magazine multiple years

• Selected by the National Trial Lawyers as a member of the Round Table of America’s 50 Most Influential Trial Lawyers for 2016