As a lawyer, Roberta A. Golden has represented a broad spectrum of clients in an array of practice areas — from a 4-year-old girl left legally blind by negligent doctors to Fortune 100 companies. She joined Ross Feller Casey, LLP in October 2006 and concentrates her practice on catastrophic personal injuries from product defects, toxic tort, medical malpractice, and violations of civil rights. Most recently, Golden assisted founding partner Matthew Casey in winning a $10 million verdict for a man who was misdiagnosed with having ALS, or Lou Gehrig's disease. Plaintiff Eric Davenport never had the fatal neuromuscular disease and the misdiagnosis delayed treatment for his actual condition, spinal cord compression. As a result, Davenport will spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair. The April 2011 verdict was nearly double the largest medical malpractice jury award in Philadelphia for all of 2010. At the firm, Golden has built up extensive experience in litigating product liability cases. She successfully worked with founding partner Rob Ross on two cases involving factory workers who lost limbs to defective machines. One settled for $8 million after a week of trial; the other for $4 million. She also helped Ross recover $4.1 million in New Jersey for a 4 1/2-year-old girl whose doctors made and then failed to recognize and correct a surgical mistake, leaving her with pulmonary hypertension and legally blind, and $3.5 million for the estate of a woman who died as a result of an endotracheal tube that was negligently misplaced into a damaged lung. Her work on another case assisted Casey in reaching a $6 million settlement for the family of a 31-year-old man who bled to death after a routine biopsy. Golden began her career as a commercial litigator at the firm of Cohen, Shapiro, Polisher, Shiekman & Cohen, where she handled a variety of complex business matters on behalf of Fortune 100 companies, entrepreneurs, and individuals. She next worked in the environmental insurance coverage practice of the commercial litigation department at White and Williams, LLP, After a period with an internet company, Golden took an interim position with a Fortune 500 company, and in 2002, at the request of the company, continued on its behalf at Blank Rome, LLP. There, she served as part of a trial team that obtained a defense verdict in a commercial case in which the plaintiffs sought more than $250 million in damages. From Blank Rome, Golden made a major career change in 2004, joining the plaintiff class-action practice group at Kline & Specter, P.C. There, Golden represented class members in consumer-fraud actions challenging prescription drug pricing and represented former tenants and community residents who lost businesses and property in the 2001 fire that destroyed the Continental Business Center in Bridgeport, Pa. Golden graduated magna cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania in 1985. In 1988, she received her Juris Doctor from the Columbia University Law School, where she also served as Articles Editor for the Columbia Journal of Environmental Law. Golden is a member of the American Bar Association, Pennsylvania Bar Association, New Jersey Bar Association, and the Philadelphia Trial Lawyers Association. She was admitted to the Pennsylvania Bar in 1988 and the New Jersey Bar in 1990. She is also admitted to practice in the U.S. District Courts for the District of New Jersey and the Eastern and Western Districts of Pennsylvania, and the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the First and Third Circuits.
