Baird Mandalas lands new Md. partners

The new partnership team of Baird Mandalas Brockstedt Federico & Cardea includes (clockwise, top left) James Cardea, Heidi Gilmore, John Paradee, Philip Federico, Chase Brockstedt, Kevin Baird and Glenn Mandalas. | PHOTO COURTESY OF BMBFC

DOVER – Well-known mass tort law firm Baird Mandalas Brockstedt LLC recently added two new named partners after adding big-name Maryland attorneys, while subsequently expanding out of Delaware for the first time.

The firm will now be known as Baird Mandalas Brockstedt Federico & Cardea, or BMBFC, after adding partners Philip Federico and James Cardea, who for the last three decades have achieved some of the largest and most consequential medical malpractice verdicts and settlements in Maryland. They have left well-known Maryland medical malpractice law firm Schochor, Federico and Staton, P.A., to make the move.

Federico is well-acquainted with Dover-based Baird Mandalas after serving on legal teams that landed a $123 million settlement for sexual abuse victims of Delaware pediatrician Earl Bradley in 2009 and a landmark environmental case against chicken processing giant Mountaire that was resolved last year for $205 million.

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They first served together after the varied firms representing Bradley’s victims appointed Federico and Baird Mandalas partner Chase Brockstedt to the steering committee for the plaintiffs, leading the local case.

“They worked very closely together and developed a really good relationship that’s since carried forward,” Kevin Baird, the firm’s co-founder, told the Delaware Business Times.

The firm, which has four offices in Wilmington, Dover, Georgetown and Lewes, has entertained other merger and acquisition opportunities over the years, but never felt they were the right fit, Baird said. The move into Maryland for the first time – they will be opening a Baltimore-area office – comes only due to this particular opportunity.

“All of our growth has always been very intentional; we’re not growing for the sake of growing. We’ve been very opportunistic. When we see people that are at the top of their game, where they would be complementary to our services, and frankly, just good people to work with, that’s when we say yes,” Baird added. “This expanded practice and Baltimore group is really exciting for us because we can continue to work with lawyers who we have a great relationship with and have a tremendous amount of respect for and bring our brand and services over the state line.”

Federico and Cardea, a veteran medical malpractice-focused attorney who has worked with Federico since 2000, will be joined at Baird Mandalas with new partners Brent Ceryes, A. Wray Fitch IV, and Tara Clary, and associate Matthew P. Legg.

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“We have experienced enormous success together over the past decade, and our team could not pass up the opportunity to further grow our practice with this group of attorneys for which we have a great deal of respect,” Federico said in a statement. “We are very much looking forward to this new chapter and the continuation of that success.”

The firm will continue its established practices in personal injury, employment law, business and corporate law, real estate law, and estates and trusts, with significant expansions to its medical malpractice, environmental law, mass torts, and class action practices. 

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