Bob Nicholas is a trial attorney and senior litigator in the Firm’s Global Commercial Disputes Group, resident in Philadelphia. Bob’s practice is focused on managing complex national litigation, representing and counselling clients through all phases of litigation, across the country and in many different sectors, including the financial services and pharmaceuticals industries.
Bob has extensive first-chair trial experience, first as a former prosecutor in the Manhattan District Attorney’s office where he tried 22 major felonies, including homicides, to top-count verdicts, and then with Reed Smith on behalf of a number of the Firm’s largest clients. Bob has served as lead trial counsel in a series of bellwether jury trials, representing a major pharmaceutical company in the diet drug litigation. He obtained defense verdicts in all cases.
More recently, Bob has led teams in a number of jury trials of commercial cases to verdict, with great success for his clients. In 2016 and 2017, he served as lead trial counsel on behalf of a manufacturer of safety products in a significant lawsuit filed against the manufacturer’s insurance company seeking breach-of-contract damages and a determination that the defendant had violated Pennsylvania’s bad faith statute. Following successive jury and bench trials in the matter, the client was awarded $58 million in damages, including $30 million in punitive damages, which is believed to be the largest bad faith verdict in Pennsylvania history.
Bob also has extensive experience in complex matters that involve multiple parties and multiple cases. For instance, he has served as coordinating counsel in multi-state product liability litigation for a large chemical company. Most recently, he has represented the lead bank as well as a number of additional banks in a large lender-liability lawsuit with related proceedings in several jurisdictions.
Bob also regularly represents financial institutions in class actions alleging violations of the Fair Credit Reporting Act, the Truth In Lending Act, the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act, and state consumer protection laws, and in other complex matters, including cases brought under both federal and state civil RICO statutes.
Over his career at Reed Smith, Bob has been an active member of the Firm's management team, including in former roles as a member of the Firm’s Senior Management Team and Executive Committee, and as the Managing Partner of the New York and Philadelphia offices.
