Philadelphia plaintiffs lawyers David Senoff and Hillary Weinstein have launched a new law firm, aiming to fill a niche better served by a smaller, low-overhead operation.

The two lawyers most recently practiced at Anapol Weiss, where Senoff was a shareholder and Weinstein was an associate. Also joining them is paralegal Christina McNally. The new firm officially opened June 2, Senoff said.

The firm, First Law Strategy Group, will focus on class actions, appellate advocacy, insurance bad faith and high-stakes litigation.

Senoff said public policy cases have become a growing focus of his practice over the past decade, and opening his own firm would lend itself to doing that work. One of the most high-profile matters he has worked on was class action litigation related to the Luzerne County “kids-for-cash” scandal. He is currently bringing a lawsuit on behalf of Montgomery County over the defendants' alleged proliferation of lead-based paint in the community.

“It's hard with a larger firm, where there are much different obligations to others who may not share the same interests that I do in those public policy type cases, to take as many on as you might like,” he said.

Additionally, he said, Senoff hopes to provide appellate services to the trial bar “in a way that firms can afford.”

While defense firms can usually bill clients by the hour for appeals, most plaintiffs-side work is handled on a contingency basis.

“Appellate work is sort of a luxury in a plaintiffs firm,” Senoff said. “The smaller firms and even some of the larger firms are just not equipped to do that.”

He said his firm may do appeals on a flat-fee or hybrid arrangement.

“When I look around now and I see the landscape for appellate work, it's pretty expensive. But for people who are solely engaged in that kind of practice, they have to do that to cover the overhead,” Senoff said. A smaller firm supplemented by other kinds of work offers an alternative to that model, he said.

Senoff said he also hopes to expand his campaign and election practice. That work doesn't lend itself to a contingency fee model, and the clients are often constrained by a budget. But that work is also cyclical, he noted, so a small firm can take it on when the need arises, at rates that work for the client.

Reached for comment Friday, Thomas Anapol of Anapol Weiss said the firm wishes Senoff well, and hopes to continue working with him on certain matters.

The new firm will likely not hire any more lawyers in the immediate future, but may do so in a year or so if the appellate practice expands, Senoff said.

He is not a rookie to running a small firm, he noted, as he had his own shop before. But since then, he practiced at Pittsburgh-based Caroselli, Beachler, McTiernan & Coleman, where he was the head of the firm's Philadelphia office, before he moved to Anapol Weiss in 2015.

Senoff said he wanted to get back to running his own firm.

“I think plaintiffs attorneys are almost by definition entrepreneurial at heart,” he said.

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