Kila Baldwin

En Español

Kila Baldwin discusses power line
 failures on WTAE-TV

Kila B. Baldwin has a wide range of legal experience, having worked with a worldwide law firm, the Philadelphia Office of the District Attorney and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Baldwin was selected in 2011, 2012 and 2013 as a Pennsylvania Super Lawyer — Rising Star, designating her as among the top 2.5 percent of attorneys in the state who are 40 or younger.

Prior to joining Kline & Specter, she worked at the Philadelphia office of Reed Smith, an international law firm with more than 1,300 lawyers in 21 cities, where she handled pharmaceutical litigation on behalf of a major corporate client.

At Kline & Specter her practice is focused on personal injury cases, including medical malpractice, product liability and premises liability.

Most recently, Baldwin was co-counsel in a case that produced the largest-ever personal injury verdict in Pennsylvania. In December 2012, a jury in Allegheny County awarded $109 million to the family of a woman who was killed when a West Penn Power electric line fell on her in her own yard. (See The Goretzka Case)

Baldwin was co-counsel with Shanin Specter in the wrongful death case of Joseph Blumer, 43, a tow truck driver who was killed when the parking brake on his Ford F-350 tow truck spontaneously disengaged and he was crushed beneath the vehicle. An Allegheny County jury awarded his family $8.75 million. (See Blumer.) That case and Baldwin's critical role is chronicled in the book Bad Brake.

She previously was co-counsel with Specter in the Bridgeport fire case, which concluded in a preliminarily approved settlement of $35 million in April 2008. The settlement benefited more than 100 businesses and individuals which suffered losses in the fire that destroyed the Continental Business Center in Bridgeport, Pa. in 2001. (See Bridgeport)

At the SEC, where Baldwin was assigned to the Division of Enforcement as part of a summer honors program while studying law, she worked with government agency enforcement attorneys investigating, among other things, the role of investment advisers in fraudulent schemes.

During law school she also worked with the Philadelphia district attorney’s office, where she handled preliminary felony hearings and misdemeanor trials in municipal court.

Baldwin earned a dual J.D./M.B.A. from the Temple University Beasley School of Law, where she was awarded the Beasley Scholarship and two awards for Outstanding Oral Advocacy. While at Temple she studied international law in Rome and was a member of the International Law Society and the Woman’s Law Caucus. Later, while a practicing attorney, she again attended Temple and graduated in 2010 from the LL.M. Program in Trial Advocacy, where she subsequently was appointed as an adjunct lecturer.

Baldwin earned her bachelor’s degree in economics from Pennsylvania State University, where she graduated Phi Beta Kappa and was a member of the Schreyer Honors College.

She is past president of the board of directors of The Women’s Therapy Center, a Philadelphia non-profit organization that helps provide mental health care to low-income patients. Baldwin, who speaks Italian and Spanish, previously worked as a volunteer in Philadelphia tutoring English as a second language through the Mayor’s Commission on Literacy.

 Baldwin is licensed to practice law in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. She is a board member of the Senior Law Center, which provides services to help protect the legal rights and interests of Pennsylvania's elderly, and she is also an elected member of the Pennsylvania Association for Justice Board of Governors and the Attorneys Information Exchange Group, a national litigation group for attorneys handling vehicle defect and transportation-related accident cases. Baldwin is a member of the Pennsylvania Bar Association and the Philadelphia Trial Lawyers Association.

To contact Kila Baldwin, email her at