Philip Sieff

Trial lawyer Phil Sieff battles for justice when wrongdoers cause serious injury or death. Intense and relentless, he helps clients find the courage they need to face those who have hurt them. He has significant experience representing families coping with the wrongful death of a loved one, particularly a child, having handled hundreds of wrongful death cases. He has particular experience in complex and high profile cases, including: the I-35W Bridge Collapse (lead co-counsel of I-35W Consortium, a group of 17 law firms that provided legal services to over 100 collapse victims); the Red Lake High School Shooting; and the Holidazzle Parade Disaster.

Mr. Sieff has spent nearly three decades in front of judges and juries obtaining justice from wrongdoers and their insurance companies. He has tried and won injury and wrongful death cases and has obtained numerous million dollar verdicts and settlements for his clients. He has handled cases involving serious car accidents, passenger injuries, defective products, medical malpractice, violence in schools, drunk drivers, compressed gas dusting abuse, boating accidents, train derailments, construction site accidents, truck accidents, and airplane crashes. Mr. Sieff also has significant experience helping crime victims and people dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder.

His dedication to justice includes tackling underreported significant issues, like the abuse of aerosol dust removers. In 2024, Mr. Sieff was co-lead counsel in a trial that secured a groundbreaking $7.75 million verdict against CRC Industries. The company was held accountable for failing to prevent the improper use of its aerosol dust remover products. This case originated from the tragic death of a Minnesota woman who was struck by a driver impaired by dust remover - highlighting the misuse of these products and the duty of manufacturers to prevent foreseeable harm.

Phil Sieff represents victims in wide variety of serious, complex, and high profile injury and wrongful death matters. Examples of some of those cases include:

*I-35W Bridge Collapse
Mr. Sieff served as lead co-counsel of the I-35W Consortium, a group of 17 law firms that provided legal services to the over 100 victims of the August 1, 2007 I-35W Bridge Collapse in Minneapolis. Robins Kaplan LLP provided free legal services to our clients. Mr. Sieff contributed over 3,500 hours of free legal services to the victims. He was instrumental in helping secure a legislatively created $37 million compensation fund for the Bridge Collapse victims, was in charge of managing the needs of the Consortium's 100+ Bridge Collapse clients, coordinating the work of the Consortium law firms, and was the point person for the engineering experts hired to determine the cause of the collapse. In 2009, PCI Corporation paid its insurance policy limits to the victims in a settlement and three years after the collapse, URS Corporation paid more than $40 million to settle the Consortium clients' claims. An additional $1.5 million was recovered from URS which was donated for the construction of the memorial built in Minneapolis to honor the victims of the collapse. In total, more than $77 million was recovered for the Consortium clients and Robins Kaplan LLP attorneys and staff devoted more than 20,000 hours of free legal services to the case. Due to the contributions from Mr. Sieff and other dedicated individuals, the firm received *The National Law Journal's* 2011 Pro Bono Award for its work in representing victims of Minnesota's 2007 I-35W bridge collapse.

*Aerosol Dust Remover Abuse
Serving as co-lead counsel, Mr. Sieff secured a landmark $7.75 million verdict against CRC Industries for its failure to prevent the foreseeable misuse of its aerosol dust remover products. The verdict follows the 2019 death of Cynthia McDougall, who was killed in a vehicle crash after an individual who huffed CRC Duster struck her car head-on. This is the first dust remover case of its kind to go to trial.

*Fire and Explosion Accident.* Continuing their work in fire and explosion cases, Mr. Sieff and Business Litigation Chair Jason Pfeiffer recently reached a partial settlement of $3.4 million for a man who was burned in a dust explosion at a Midwest manufacturing facility. The case continues against other non-settling parties.

*Spinal Cord Injury Accident
Mr. Sieff, working with outside co-counsel, reached a $14.5 million settlement at early mediation on behalf of a 43-year-old man who sustained a severe spinal cord injury in a fall. The settlement was reached less than one year from when Phil was retained.

*Industrial Accident. *Mr. Sieff completed a settlement for a 32-year-old male who suffered an industrial accident that left him with third-degree burns over 70 percent of his body. The injured man settled with defendants for $15.4 million.

Hamline University Law School
J.D., 1985