
Joseph Cammarata
About Joseph Cammarata
Joseph Cammarata is a dual board-certified civil trial attorney, certified in both Civil Trial Advocacy and Civil Pretrial Practice Advocacy by the National Board of Trial Advocacy, an achievement held by a small percentage of practicing attorneys nationwide. With more than four decades of experience, his practice covers serious personal injury, brain injury, wrongful death, sexual assault, medical malpractice, car accidents, truck accidents, bus accidents, motorcycle accidents, and bicycle accidents. He has litigated against insurance companies, governmental entities, and the President of the United States, securing tens of millions of dollars in settlements and verdicts for his clients. He won a unanimous decision from the United States Supreme Court in Clinton v. Jones, 520 U.S. 681 (1997), establishing that sitting presidents are not immune from civil lawsuits for conduct unrelated to their official duties. A graduate of Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service, he earned his J.D. from St. John's University School of Law and an LL.M. in Taxation from Georgetown University Law Center. He is also a certified public accountant. Mr. Cammarata is licensed in Virginia, the District of Columbia, Maryland, and New York. He served as President of the Trial Lawyers' Association of Metropolitan Washington, D.C., and was named 2025 Trial Lawyer of the Year by that organization. He co-founded the Brain Injury Association of D.C., authored Virginia's Athletic Concussion Protection Act of 2011, and serves on the Board of Directors of Fairfax Water.
Notable case results
A 59-year-old woman went in for elective lumbar surgery to relieve chronic back pain and came out severely brain-damaged after her iliac artery was severed; an Arlington County jury awarded $35,620,902, the second-highest Virginia medical malpractice verdict that year, before the state cap cut the judgment to $2.2 million.
Chaikin, Sherman, Cammarata & Siegel filed the original class action and served as co-counsel alongside lead counsel Sanford Heisler in a $14.25 million settlement for women secretly recorded by a Washington, DC rabbi at a Jewish ritual bath over nearly a decade.
Joseph Cammarata secured a $4.5 million jury verdict for Sherry Galloway, a pedestrian dragged under a DASH bus in August 2014 by a driver Alexandria Transit Company kept behind the wheel despite four prior preventable accidents.
Joseph Cammarata co-represented Paula Jones before the US Supreme Court and secured a unanimous ruling that a sitting president holds no immunity from civil suit for conduct predating his time in office.
Joseph Cammarata secured a confidential settlement for seven women who sued Bill Cosby for defamation after he publicly branded their sexual-assault allegations as lies.
Medical malpractice verdict, second largest in Virginia (2019)
Motor vehicle collision verdict, catastrophic injury (2024)
Pedestrian accident verdict, third largest in Virginia (2015)
Unanimous U.S. Supreme Court decision on presidential immunity from civil suits
Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Each case is unique and depends on its own facts.




