Similar personal injury attorneys in Philadelphia
Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Each case is unique and depends on its own facts.
About Melissa Baxter
Melissa M. Baxter is a partner at Kline & Specter focusing on medical malpractice and catastrophic personal injury litigation. She has been recognized annually from 2019-2024 by Super Lawyers as a Rising Star, a distinction reserved for the top 2.5 percent of attorneys in a state who are 40 or younger or practicing 10 years or less. As co-lead counsel, Baxter secured a $600,000 verdict in June 2024 in Middlesex County, New Jersey, representing the estate of an elderly Alzheimer's patient who died following multiple fractures and traumatic brain injury sustained at a psychiatric hospital. Prior to joining Kline & Specter, Baxter practiced at Rossetti DeVoto Medori & Baxter, PC, in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, serving as an associate from 2014 until her promotion to partner in 2021. Her practice encompassed medical malpractice and nursing home negligence cases, wrongful death claims, survival act claims, construction accident claims, and motor vehicle accidents, with numerous significant verdicts to her credit.
Baxter serves as parliamentarian for the New Jersey Association for Justice, where she has held Board of Governors membership since 2017 and successfully argued an amicus brief before the New Jersey Supreme Court. She also serves as secretary/treasurer of the Trial Attorneys of New Jersey and is positioned to become president of both organizations. Additionally, she maintains membership in the Asian Pacific American Lawyers Association of Pennsylvania. Baxter obtained her undergraduate degree from the University of Maryland, where she competed on cross country and track teams, and earned her law degree from Rutgers University School of Law.
Proven verdicts and settlements at Kline & Specter, PC
These results are credited to Kline & Specter, PC. A result appears under an attorney's own name only when a published source names them as counsel on the case.
A Philadelphia jury found that Monsanto failed to warn that Roundup could cause cancer and awarded John McKivison $2.25 billion. The trial judge later reduced the award to $400 million.
After Amtrak Train 188 derailed in Philadelphia in May 2015, killing eight and injuring more than 200, Kline & Specter's Thomas R. Kline led the plaintiffs' negotiations that produced a $265 million settlement fund for the victims.
A Philadelphia jury found the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania liable for the brain injury a newborn suffered when staff delayed a cesarean section, a $182.7 million verdict that grew to a molded judgment of about $207.6 million, the largest medical malpractice award in Pennsylvania history. Kline & Specter argued and won the appeal, where the Pennsylvania Superior Court affirmed the full $207.6 million judgment in July 2025.
A Philadelphia jury awarded Ernest Caranci $175 million after finding that decades of Roundup use caused his non-Hodgkin lymphoma and that Monsanto failed to warn of the risk. Kline & Specter tried the case, the first Roundup trial in Philadelphia, and the verdict was later upheld on appeal.
A federal jury in Nevada found Ford's pickup parking brake defective and held that the company should have warned owners, returning a verdict near $153 million after three-year-old Walter White was killed by a truck that rolled in the family driveway. Shanin Specter of Kline & Specter tried the case.
Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Each case is unique and depends on its own facts.
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Proven verdicts and settlements from other Philadelphia firms
Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Each case is unique and depends on its own facts.