Bill Burgy received a degree in Environmental Science and Resource Management in 1972 from Lehigh University and then attended law school at Catholic University in Washington, D.C. where he received his Juris Doctor (J.D.) in 1975. He spent several years in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia clerking for the Honorable DeWitt S. Hyde in his Civil I Assignment and then working with the Civil Motions Commissioner’s Office.
He joined a large plaintiffs' personal injury firm in 1978 as a litigation attorney in their Washington D.C. office, trying dozens of civil cases involving wrongful death, medical malpractice, plastic surgery, wrongful birth, defective product design, construction accidents, automobile and bus accidents, and asbestos property damage. He obtained verdicts against such diverse defendants such as the George Washington University Hospital, WMATA (Washington Metropolitan Transit Authority), Greater Southeast Community Hospital, the George Hyman Construction Company, and the District of Columbia. He also worked as co-counsel on hundreds of West Virginia tort cases with local counsel in Charleston, W. Va., ranging from asbestos exposure to medical malpractice.
In 1987, Bill moved to Baltimore to work with Pete Nicholl on the firm’s Maryland cases, primarily involving steel mill and shipyard workers exposed to asbestos during the course of their employment. He and Pete tried many of these cases to verdict in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland.
In 1995, Pete and Bill left their former firm and The Law Offices of Peter T. Nicholl in Baltimore was established. The firm opened another office in Portsmouth, Va. in 1999, in order to serve the many workers in the tidewater area who were exposed to asbestos while working in the Newport News Shipbuilding and Drydock and the Norfolk Naval Shipyard.
Over the years, the firm has tried many asbestos injury lawsuits in the Circuit Court for Baltimore City and participated in the Asbestos Consolidated Trial, involving thousands of asbestos claims in 1993.
