As a partner with Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, firm Gross & Kenny, LLP Jeffrey S. Gross has represented injured workers in the Philadelphia area since 1991. He focuses exclusively on Workers’ Compensation litigation, including full and partial disability claims, lump-sum settlements, occupational diseases, workplace fatalities, and subrogation matters, and he has a long record of success aggressively pursuing the best interests of his clients.
Ranked by Philadelphia magazine among the region’s top 100 attorneys in 2006 and 2007, Mr. Gross steadfastly believes each worker is entitled to all the possible benefits available under the Pennsylvania Workers’ Compensation Act and brings his considerable experience to each case. He was honored with the Martha Hampton Award in 2003 for his compassionate approach and exemplary professionalism, and he holds a solid 10.0 rating from Avvo.
Mr. Gross earned his undergraduate degree in business administration and accounting with honors from Muhlenberg College in 1988 and his Juris Doctor from The Dickinson School of Law in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, in 1991. He has been admitted to practice before the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania and the U.S. District Courts for the Eastern and Western Districts of Pennsylvania. Mr. Gross is also a member of the prestigious Louis D. Brandeis Law Society in Philadelphia and maintains current membership in the Philadelphia Trial Lawyers Association.
Held in high esteem by his peers, Mr. Gross was elected for three consecutive years to the Philadelphia Bar Association’s Board of Governors and was once co-chair of the Philadelphia Bar Association’s Workers’ Compensation Section. He is additionally a published author with more than a dozen featured articles in local law magazines, and he has also lectured extensively on a variety of Workers’ Compensation litigation topics at seminars conducted by professional organizations such as the Pennsylvania Trial Lawyers Association and the Pennsylvania Bar Institute.
Joseph L. Messa, Jr. is the Founding Partner of Messa & Associates, P.C. He is an AV-rated attorney (highest rating available), listed in the Bar Register of Preeminent Lawyers. Mr. Messa has represented clients across the nation and has received seven- and eight-figure verdicts and settlements in catastrophic injury litigation involving medical malpractice, products liability, transportation accidents, construction and workplace injuries, fire, defective pharmaceuticals and medical devices, and other fields of complex personal injury. Mr. Messa also serves the legal community by presenting lectures on medical malpractice, products liability, managed care liability, drugs and medical devices, and transportation accidents.
Marla Joseph, an AV rated lawyer, is the principal and sole shareholder of the Law Offices of Marla Joseph, LLC. For a quarter of a century, she has been fighting for disabled workers, concentrating her practice in workers’ compensation and Social Security disability law. Ms. Joseph earned her B.A. from the Pennsylvania State University in 1991 and her J.D. from Temple University’s Beasley School of Law in 1994, where she was honored with an award for achievement in trial advocacy. The Best Lawyers of America awarded her the 2020 Philadelphia’s Workers’ Compensation Lawyer of the Year.
She is a Board Member of Kids Chance of PA, an organization that awards scholarships to the children of workers who died or suffered catastrophic injuries in a work accident. She was Chair of the Pennsylvania Bar Association (PBA)’s Workers’ Compensation Executive Council from May 2018 to May of 2019 and previously served on its cabinet in multiple positions. During her tenure as Chair, she earned PBA’s Merit of Achievement Award for instituting a silent auction which raised a significant amount of money for Kids Chance of PA. Ms. Joseph was voted by her peers and a Blue Ribbon Panel as one of Pennsylvania’s Top 50 Women Lawyers in Philadelphia Magazine’s 2009 Super Lawyers edition and was voted as a “Super Lawyer” in the field of workers’ compensation in its inaugural year and for well over a decade. She received the 2004 Lawyers on the Fast Track award from The Legal Intelligencer and Pennsylvania Law Weekly. Ms. Joseph frequently lectures on workers’ compensation issues and has planned and moderated seminars for the PBA, Pennsylvania Bar Institute, Pennsylvania Association for Justice and the Bureau of Workers’ Compensation Conference.
Ms. Joseph co-planned and moderated a seminar on civility that received an award from the American Bar Association (ABA). In 2017 and 2018, she co-chaired the PBA’s annual Workers’ Compensation Law Fall Section meeting, a premier seminar for worker’s compensation practitioners throughout the Commonwealth. She had numerous leadership roles in the Philadelphia Bar Association, including being elected to a 3 year term on its Board of Governors in 2003 and serving as its Chair of the Young Lawyers Division (YLD) in 2002, during which time the Philadelphia Bar Association’s YLD received multiple awards from the ABA, the PBA and the Conference of County Bar Leaders. In addition, Ms. Joseph served on the Philadelphia Bar Association’s Worker’s Compensation Executive Committee in 2003, the Judicial Commission in 2001 and Chaired its Women’s Rights Committee in 2001.