Steven Pachman

Steven Pachman is the Managing Partner and co-chair of Montgomery McCracken, chair of the Catastrophic Sports Injury and Defense Practice Group, the firm’s Hiring Partner, and a member of the firm’s Management Committee. He routinely handles business and personal injury litigation and has extensive experience working in a wide variety of industries including higher education, pharmaceutical and life sciences, and sports medicine. For over 30 years, Steve has handled high-exposure matters across the United States.

His practice concentrates on the defense of traumatic brain injury (TBI) cases and catastrophic sports injury matters, and representing individuals and school systems in matters arising out of alleged premature return-to-play decisions and other negligence theories in the sports’ context. His representations include a number of high-profile, nationally-publicized concussion, TBI, heat stroke, and general negligence cases against NCAA member colleges and universities, high schools, and school personnel, including athletic trainers, coaches, physicians, and nurse practitioners. These include cases involving catastrophically-injured football players and other athletes who allegedly sustained prior concussions and Second Impact Syndrome as well as players diagnosed with chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) following a post-mortem autopsy of the brain. Steve also regularly advises school officials and attorneys, risk managers, athletic departments and their staff, and health care professionals on institutional liability issues concerning sport-related concussions, CTE, Second Impact Syndrome, heat stroke, and other sport-related injuries.

Steve is a frequent speaker on the defense of TBI cases and legal matters concerning the proper management of sport-related concussions and other sport-related injuries. In addition, he has authored a number of articles on the topics of how to minimize the risk of legal liability for sport-related injuries and defend against lawsuits arising out of catastrophic sport-related events. Steve is regularly quoted by national media, including ESPN, The New York Times, The Washington Post, ABC News, and CBS Sports, and has guest lectured at colleges and law schools, including the University of Michigan, the University of Oklahoma, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the University of Maryland, Villanova University, and Virginia Tech. Additionally, he has presented before the NCAA, the Big 10, the Big 12, the Ivy League, the National Athletic Trainers’ Association, the College Athletic Trainers’ Society, and the American Academy of Neurology.

Steve also represents corporations in mass tort actions, insurance coverage matters, business disputes, and product liability cases. His product liability experience includes representing a multi-national computer equipment manufacturer in repetitive stress injury cases and one of the world’s leading chemical companies in an action involving alleged injuries from chemicals and pharmaceuticals. His litigation experience further includes successfully defending a leading music recording and publishing company in a business tort matter and a national university in a defamation action.

Besides representing individuals and entities in federal and state court, Steve has handled enforcement actions against broker-dealers brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, and the Securities Investor Protection Corporation.

Steve received his J.D. degree, cum laude, from Temple University School of Law, where he was an editor of the Temple Law Review. He is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of Maryland, College Park, where he was a Dean’s Scholar and graduated summa cum laude, with a B.A. degree.