Frank Natale is a Senior Associate and member of the Employment Law Group of Smithey Law. Frank has extensive trial experience in a variety of practice areas. Frank is focusing his practice on the litigation of employment matters, including, sexual discrimination, sexual harassment, disability discrimination, severance reviews and non-compete issues.
Practice Areas, Bar Admissions, & Education:
Practice Areas
- Employment Law
Bar Admissions
- Pennsylvania 1994
- Maryland 2014
- Washington, D. C. 2017
- United States District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania
- United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania
- United States District Court for the District of Maryland
Education and Background
Frank grew up in the blue-collar city of New Castle, PA the son of two US Navy enlistees. He was driven to become the first college educated member of his family and chose to attend the University of Pittsburgh where he received his Bachelor of Arts Degree. Thereafter, Frank attended the University of Dayton School of Law in Dayton, Ohio where he earned his Juris Doctor Degree. These life experiences shaped Frank and led him to practicing law in areas that provide the most opportunity to serve individual clients in need of legal representation.
Frank has a high level of experience in both private practice and public service that displays his passion for fighting to achieve justice for the underserved and marginalized. Frank was a partner in the Law firm of Cusick, Leymarie, Natale & Long for five years in Pennsylvania where he concentrated his practice in the areas of employment law, personal injury and civil litigation. Subsequently, he started his own boutique civil litigation practice which focused on plaintiffs medical malpractice, employment law and criminal defense. Frank also served as an Assistant District Attorney in Lawrence County, PA for two years, where he was asked to handle arson, vehicular homicide, and felony assault cases. These experiences helped Frank acquire and hone a keen ability to communicate his client’s cases to juries. While many cases don’t end up in trial, Frank intentionally worked on cases that required a jury trial.
Upon making a transition from private practice to the legal services practice in 2012, Frank served as the Director of Advocacy for Income Security at the Maryland Legal Aid Bureau. In this capacity, Frank directly supervised the statewide migrant farmworker project and the strategic aspects of the firm’s employment and public benefits practices. He directed and oversaw much of the firm’s litigation in all practice areas. He provided regular trainings on basic and advanced litigation techniques. Frank advised the Language Access Task Force, Workers Rights Task Force, Public Benefits Task Force, as well as the Veterans Work Group and Human Rights Work Group.
During his tenure at Legal Aid, he litigated an important language access case in Federal Court which required the City of Salisbury, MD to adopt language access policies and procedures and to train its personnel and police officers on the use of language line when interacting with limited English proficient individuals. Frank also led non-litigation advocacy strategies that remedied long standing problems with LEP individuals accessing public benefits and government services through the Department of Human Resources. Additionally, he served as the project director for the Lawyer in the Library project that embedded lawyers at the Enoch Pratt Free Library in west Baltimore. He was regularly requested to testify on pending legislation involving worker’s rights and public benefits in the state of Maryland.
Frank became the first Litigation and Advocacy Director of Neighborhood Legal Services Program Of Washington, D.C. on January 4, 2016. In that capacity he provided a strategic vision for the firm’s litigation practice in each of its practice groups.
Awards and Achievements
Frank has achieved large awards and settlements on behalf of clients in complicated cases. Some of the more notable verdicts, settlements and notable cases are:
- Negotiated 1.85-million-dollar settlement on a complex cancer misdiagnosis case.
- Won a jury verdict in Cecil County Maryland of $556,000, with $500,000 designated for pain and suffering.
- Secured $300,000 for a victim of an automatic door injury.
- Awarded $240,000 in a jury trial for a knee infection following an ACL surgery.
- Negotiated a six figure settlement for a complex medication error case for a client who suffered from a fatal congenital condition.
- Secured a six figure jury verdict on for a pedestrian walking on a roadway at night who was struck by a driver.
- Successful trial of one of the first Americans with Disabilities Act cases Holmes V. DCI.
- Successfully argued Pennsylvania Supreme Court Case Lykins v. W.C.A.B.
- Successfully litigated a precedent setting case against the City of Salisbury which resulted in policy changes that benefitted city residents.
- Secured millions of dollars in settlements and awards on behalf of clients in State and Federal Courts.
Frank is called upon by his peers and legal industry leaders to instruct on trial advocacy, managing multiple generations in the workplace, and to teach Continuing Legal Education courses.