Emily Marks
Emily B. Marks, a partner at the firm, concentrates her practice on helping those who have been catastrophically injured through medical malpractice, motor vehicle accidents, personal injury and sexual abuse. She has more than a decade of experience pursuing justice for children who have suffered sexual abuse and other injuries while in foster care, institutional and educational settings.
Marks has obtained millions of dollars in injury cases and to help minors move forward from lives of abuse. In addition to the many monetary legal victories, she is an impassioned advocate for child welfare reform and greater rights to protect children.
In her most recent case, decided in February 2024, Marks won an arbitration award of $24.5 million against a North American Motor Inns for two victims of human trafficking. The teenage girls were forced into prostitution at the Philadelphia hotel on City Avenue. (Read article)
In 2023, Marks won a $37.5 million arbitration award also against The North American Motor Inns, its owner and then-president for three women who were the victims of sex trafficking while minors at a West Philadelphia hotel. (Read article)
Earlier in the same year, she obtained a $24 million settlement with Days Inn for eight victims of human trafficking that occurred at its Philadelphia establishment on Roosevelt Boulevard, where the owner and management permitted criminal activity to continue unabated. Marks noted that it had even hired a convicted felon as a security guard who was precluded by law from working in security. Marks added that while the traffickers were punished, the hotel needed to be held accountable as well. (News coverage)
In December 2021, Marks achieved a $5.05 million settlement with a child welfare agency for a girl who was sexually assaulted by her foster father. The agency failed to ensure the young girl’s safety and neglected to follow up on its own recommendation that a mental health provider investigate suspicions of abuse. (Read article)
In an earlier case, Marks as co-counsel won a $4.5 million jury verdict against the Defender Association of Philadelphia, the Bethanna a foster care agency and the foster parents of small Philadelphia twins who were abused after being placed in a Lancaster, Pa., home. (Read article)
In November 2017, she was co-counsel in a case that concluded in an $11 million verdict -- $10 million in compensatory and $1 million in punitive damages -- against a child placement agency and the adoptive parents of a young girl who was physically and sexually abused in their home over several years. (Read article)
Earlier in the same year, Marks was co-counsel in filing suit against a Philadelphia motel owner/operator and its management company on behalf of a teenage girl who was held over the course of two years and forced to perform sexual acts. The lawsuit was the first under Pennsylvania’s 2014 human trafficking statute. (See coverage)
Prior to that, Marks in October 2016 was co-counsel in a case that resulted in a $5.35 million verdict against Presbyterian Children’s Village for twice placing a young girl in the home of a temporary foster family where she was sexually molested. (Read article)
Among other notable cases, Marks helped win major resolutions for infants who suffered head injuries, including $8.1 million for a baby hurt while in a residential drug treatment facility and $2.5 million for an infant injured while at a private foster care agency. She also helped win a seven-figure settlement against a private foster care agency for two brothers who were sexually abused in a foster care home; the abuse was not disclosed until 10 years after the children had been removed from the foster home.
Marks also won a notable victory for a nine-year-old client whose eyelid was lacerated by a hidden display hook in the children’s section of a national discount retailer. As a result of the lawsuit, the court issued an opinion which should serve to put additional pressure on department stores to be more diligent in keeping their stores safe for children.
Marks has won a number of six-figure settlements, including one for a woman who was sexually assaulted while in the hospital and another for an elderly man who developed a stage IV pressure ulcer due to complications arising from knee replacement surgery.
Marks for several years, including 2020 and 2021, has been named a Pennsylvania Rising Star by the independent attorney review group Super Lawyers, designating her as among the top 2.5 percent of attorneys in the state who are 40 or younger.
She is actively involved with organizations outside the firm and has held prominent leadership positions within the legal community. Marks is a founding board member of Children First Action Fund, an organization dedicated to helping children by developing initiatives and advocating for quality health care, child care, public education and family stability. Children First Action Fund lobbies to increase awareness among Pennsylvania elected officials on the importance of investments and policies benefiting children.
Marks is a past member of the Board of Governors for the Philadelphia Bar Association. Prior to that she was co-chair of its Women in the Profession Committee during which she wrote and proposed a “Resolution in Support of Examining the Level of Women’s Participation on Executive Boards in Companies that Do Business with the City of Philadelphia” that was adopted by the Board of Governors.
Marks earned her bachelor's degree from Swarthmore College and her law degree from the Temple University Beasley School of Law where she was a member of the Science, Technology and Environmental Law Journal. She is licensed to practice law in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Marks is also a member of the Philadelphia Trial Lawyers Association.
Emily Marks In The News:
2 Women Get $24.5M Award In Philly Motel Trafficking Claims, The Philadelphia Inquirer, 2/112/24; Law360, 2/9/24; The Legal Intelligencer, 2/9/24
Panero bread accused of second death in Charged Lemonade suit, NBC 10 News; The Philadelphia Inquirer; Forbes; People; USA Today; Daily Mail
Phila. hotel faces $37M arbitration award over sex trafficking of minors, The Legal Intelligencer, 10/12/23; Law360, 10/11/23
Bezar, Marks reach $24M settlement in human trafficking suit, The Legal Intelligencer, 2/2/23; KYW News Radio 1060, 2/2/23 (listen);NBC 10, 2/3/23; The Philadelphia Inquirer, 2/2/23; Law360, 2/2/23
Philadelphia FIGHT accused of medical malpractice, Philadelphia Gay News, 11/23/22
Marks applauds federal court decision to keep hotel sex trafficking cases with state, The Legal Intelligencer, 11/2/21
PA Supreme Court refuses appeal of $5.35M sexual abuse verdict against foster agency, The Legal Intelligencer, 6/12/19J
ury awards $4.5 million to Philly twins for spankings in Lancaster foster home, Metro Philadelphia, 11/28/18
Phila. Public Defenders, Lancaster Co. Foster Parents Hit With $4.5M Judgment in Child Abuse Case, The Legal Intelligencer, 11/27/18
Philly public defenders liable in child abuse case, philly.com, 11/23/18
Judge Rejects Bid to Overturn $5M Sex Abuse Verdict, The Legal Intelligencer, 3/30/17
Kline-Bezar comment on lawsuit filed in human trafficking case, WPMT, 3/11/17; Fox 29 3/10/17; ABC 6 3/10/17; NBC 10 3/10/17-5PM; NBC 10 3/10/17-4PM; CBS 3 3/10/17; WNEP, 3/11/17
Motel Turned Blind Eye To Child Sex Traffickers For Profit, Suit Claims, The Huffington Post, 3/14/17
Forced to have sex with 1,000 men, a girl is now suing the motel that she says let it happen, The Washington Post, 3/14/17
Teen ‘sex slave’ sues motel where alleged abuse took place, New York Post, 3/14/17
Philadelphia Teen Claims Motel Knew She Was Being Sex Trafficked But Did Nothing, People, 3/13/17
Sex trafficking victim sues U.S. motel in landmark case, Thomson Reuters, 3/15/17
Philly motel sued in first reported human-trafficking lawsuit under Pa. statute, The Philadelphia Inquirer, 3/10/17
Foster case agency hit with $5.35M verdict over sex abuse, The Legal Intelligencer, 10/27/16
Kline & Specter snags rainmaking plaintiffs lawyer from rival firm, Philadelphia Business Journal, 6/8/16
Kline & Specter Grabs Kolsby Gordon Name Partner, The Legal Intelligencer, 6/8/16