Gregory B. Heller

Greg Heller is a highly respected trial attorney who has consistently achieved seven- and eight-figure recoveries for catastrophically injured clients over more than three decades. He maintains a diverse practice portfolio that includes medical malpractice, trucking and highway accidents, highway design, premises liability, dram shop cases, product liability, construction cases, insurance bad faith, and managed care liability cases. He represents a number of Pennsylvania local governments in their cases against the drug companies, distributors, and pharmacies that stacked the wood and lit the match on the opioid epidemic that continues to burn across the Commonwealth and the nation. These cases have already resulted in settlements that will bring over $1.7 billion in opioid abatement funds to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and hundreds of millions of dollars to Philadelphia—and that figure is hopefully just the beginning, because much work in those cases remains to be done. Greg also represents a government plaintiff in a case against the drug companies that unlawfully manipulated the price of insulin, and represents a group of Pennsylvania public school teachers who suffered $100 million in losses because of unfair and excessive fees that their pension fund paid to Wall Street insiders. 

At every step, Greg’s career has been fueled by the conviction that individuals and families who have suffered at the hands of others need and deserve the same level of skill, attention, resources, and commitment to their cause that the lawyers hired by the nation’s largest corporations, insurers, trucking companies, and health systems bring to bear. In other words, it needs to be a fair fight.  

Greg has been a pioneer in managed care litigation, doing what he can over the span of three decades to make sure that every patient and every family has access to safe medical care, without any unreasonable barriers. He has a long record of success in holding managed care companies, hospitals, and health systems accountable in court when they choose profits over patients. Much of Greg’s managed care work has involved expanding access to mental health care and addiction treatment, areas where corporate abuses are prevalent, and where the public health consequences of improper barriers to care are particularly significant.  

Greg’s commitment to patient safety has included work as a consultant for the National Alliance for Model State Drug Laws, and work funded by grants from the National Alliance and the U.S. Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Assistance. His clients in this area have included the District Attorneys Association of Pennsylvania, the County Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania, and other organizations concerned with public safety and public health. As counsel for patient advocacy groups, Greg also was directly involved in the negotiations that led up to the passage of the Paul Wellstone and Pete Domenici Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act of 2008 and in the efforts surrounding the implementation of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 and the shaping of the regulations necessary to give effect to much of that Act. Greg has testified on litigation and managed care issues before various committees of the Pennsylvania General Assembly. He is regularly called upon to participate in policy discussions around managed care and patient safety, in Harrisburg and in Washington, D.C. 

Greg is a recipient of the Brian H. Early Award from the Richard J. Caron Foundation, in recognition of his work improving access to addiction treatment. He is a fellow of the American Bar Foundation, an honorary designation for those “whose public and private careers have demonstrated outstanding dedication to the welfare of their communities and to the highest principles of the legal profession.” He is a former board member of the Legal Clinic for the Disabled, where he was honored with its White Hat Award, and for years served on the board of the Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill. 

Greg has been recognized as one of America’s Top 100 High-Stakes Litigators and is a member of the Million Dollar Advocates’ Forum. The Martindale-Hubbell Legal Directory has given Greg its highest rating, and he has been named a Pennsylvania Super Lawyer every year since 2018. 

Greg serves as a Judge Pro Tem in the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas. He is the current chair of the Amicus Curiae Committee of the Pennsylvania Association for Justice and is a recipient of the association’s George F. Douglas Award for Appellate Advocacy. He serves on the editorial board of the Philadelphia Trial Lawyers’ publication The Verdict. He is a graduate of the Keenan Trial Institute, a Master in the Temple American Inn of Court, and a Fellow of The Academy of Advocacy of Temple University’s James E. Beasley School of Law. He has been a prolific writer and lecturer for various legal publications and seminars over many years. 

Greg earned his B.A. in Physics from Williams College. He earned his J.D. cum laude from University of Michigan where he served as Managing Editor of the Michigan Law Review and earned multiple academic awards. After graduating from law school, he served as a law clerk for the Hon. Anthony J. Scirica, of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.  

Greg is admitted to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court, in Pennsylvania and New Jersey State courts, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, the United States District Courts for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania and the District of Columbia, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and, on a pro hac vice basis (long story), Wyoming.  

Greg spends as much time as he can rowing on the Schuylkill. He has been at it since the 1980’s, and the older he gets, the faster he was. 

Education

University of Michigan Law School, J.D., 1990

Williams College, B.A., 1986

Admissions

Pennsylvania

New Jersey

Affiliations

Temple American Inn of Court
Master

Philadelphia Bar Association Language Access Task Force
Co-Chair, 2009 – 2012

Legal Clinic for the Disabled
Board Member, 2006 – 2013

Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas
Judge Pro Tem

American Bar Association

Pennsylvania Bar Association

Philadelphia Bar Association

American Association for Justice

Pennsylvania Association for Justice
Amicus Curiae Committee

Philadelphia Trial Lawyers’ Association

Million Dollar Advocates’ Forum

The Academy of Advocacy of Temple University James E. Beasley School of Law
Fellow

The Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill
Session, 2007 – 2013

Awards

Super Lawyers
Thomson Reuters, 2018 – Present

George F. Douglas Award for Appellate Advocacy
Pennsylvania Association for Justice, 2015

Brian H. Early Award
Richard J. Caron Foundation, 2010

White Hat Award
Legal Clinic for the Disabled, 1997

Publications

The Affordable Care Act and False Claims Act Litigation: Peril and Opportunity for Malpractice Lawyers
Medical Malpractice Law and Strategy, June, 2011 (Part I) and July, 2011 (Part II)

Addiction Treatment Under The Mental Health Parity And Addiction Equity Act of 2008 – Expanded Behavioral Health Benefits Bring Risks Of Increased Cost Shifting To Public Funding Sources
BEPRESS, 2010

The Cost-Shifting Consequences of Failed Managed Care Regulation: Some Lessons from Pennsylvania’s Experience with Addiction Treatment
BEPRESS, 2009 (project supported by Grant No. 2005-DD-BX–K139 awarded by the United States Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Assistance)

The Rights of Patients Who Don’t Speak English
The Legal Intelligencer, May 30, 2006

Managed Care Liability and ERISA Preemption
Pennsylvania Bar Quarterly, Vol. LXIX, No. 3, 93 (July, 1998)

Staying Out of Federal Court in an ERISA Managed Care Case
The Barrister, Vol. 29, No. 1, 19, 1998

Speaking Engagements

Pennsylvania Association for Justice
Lectures, Managed Care Liability and Insurance Bad Faith, 1998 – present

Philadelphia Trial Lawyers Association
Lectures, Managed Care Liability and Insurance Bad Faith, 1998 – present

Pennsylvania Bar Institute
Lectures, Managed Care Liability and Insurance Bad Faith, 1998 – present

Pennsylvania House of Representatives
Invited Testimony on Managed Care Issues Before Barious Committees

The Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania’s Abramson Cancer Center
Invited Consumer Health Insurance Expert at Patient Events, 2008 – 2013