Paul J. Napoli

Of Counsel, Napoli Shkolnik PLLC

Paul J. Napoli is a founding partner of the Napoli law firms headquartered in the Empire State Building in New York City, with offices in nine states across the United States. On 9/11, the Napoli firm had its NYC offices across the street from the World Trade Center, and its employees were eyewitnesses to the terrorist attack on lower Manhattan. Napoli was appointed by the United States District Court as co-liaison counsel representing more than 11,000 first responders and other rescue and recovery workers who became ill or were injured during the rescue, recovery, and debris-removal activities at the World Trade Center site in the months following 9/11, and was instrumental in obtaining settlements that are today valued at more than $812 million for his clients. Napoli also lobbied New York State and the U.S. Congress for, and was instrumental in obtaining two important pieces of legislation to assist injured workers. These are an amendment to New York’s General Municipal Law §50-I (“Jimmy Nolan's Law”) that provided a one-year savings statute for otherwise time-barred first responder claims and the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act of 2010, which provides for medical monitoring and cash awards for injured first responders and other survivors, local office workers, and community members injured by the post-9/11 fallout. Napoli has been a generous contributor to the 9/11 Memorial, the 9/11 Memorial Museum, and other organizations working to support first responders and other injured workers.

Napoli is a 1992 graduate of St. John's University School of Law and holds a BS from Fordham University (1989). He has achieved hundreds of verdicts and settlements valued over $1 million for his clients. He is admitted to practice in New York and Illinois, and holds “pro hac vice” admissions in several other states. Napoli has received many awards from his peers, including Legal Leaders, Martindale-Hubbell Top Rated Lawyers 2014; Legal 500 United States, Top Tier 2014; America's Elite Trial Lawyers, 2014; New York Super Lawyers, 2007–2014; Top 100 Attorneys in the New York Metro Area, 2007, 2010, 2012, 2013, and 2014; American Trial Lawyers Association: Top 100 Trial Lawyers, 2008; Top 100 Trial Lawyers: New York (American Trial Lawyers Association); and Top 50 Elite Trial lawyer from the National Law Journal.

He served on the Board of Directors of the New York Trial Lawyers Association; is active in numerous bar associations; has been interviewed on numerous television shows and in newspaper and magazine articles; and is frequently consulted by attorneys around the country on a variety of mass tort, professional malpractice, and general liability issues. Napoli was profiled in the recently published book, City of Dust, a journalistic account of the rescue, recovery, and debris-removal activities at the site of the World Trade Center after 9/11, authored by former New York Times columnist Anthony DePalma.

Napoli has written on physician liability for diet drug injuries and on “The Cost of Contamination” for the American Water Works Association journal (November 2012). He has extensively litigated on behalf of municipal clients for contamination to land and water supplies resulting from petroleum and related chemical spills. Napoli is on the St. John’s Law Dean’s Advisory Council, St. John's Loughlin Society (Benefactors' Council), and the St. John's University School of Law Alumni Association. In addition to his appointment by the United States District Court for the 9/11 litigations, Napoli was appointed by the Supreme Court of the State of New York as the liaison counsel for the Consolidated Diet Drug litigations and for the New York State Rezulin litigations.

Napoli resides on Long Island with his wife, Marie Kaiser Napoli, and their three children, Amanda, Michael, and Kaitlyn.