Peter Hatfield was raised in Columbia, Maryland. He is a graduate of Mount Saint Joseph High School in Baltimore, Maryland. Upon graduation from the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, Mr. Hatfield sat for the Maryland bar examination and joined McGowan and Cecil, LLC.
Peter recently made a recovery for $1,100,000.00 for a client who was catastrophically injured in a McDonald’s restaurant due to dangerous shortcuts being taken on common sense safety rules. Peter has advocated for well over a thousand personal injury victims, handling a wide range of automobile, motorcycle, dog bite, and slip and fall claims. Peter has successfully recovered compensation for his clients from numerous large corporations and their commercial insurance companies including Dominos, Target, Sears, 7-Eleven, Shoppers Food, Walmart, several apartment complexes along with most consumer and commercial auto insurance companies.
Today, insurance companies are more aggressive than they ever have been. Many of the insurance companies are powerful billion-dollar publicly traded companies, and like any other business, the natural and primary goal is to increase profit. The problem with this dynamic in the insurance world is that without balance, it can become dangerous. An experienced insurance agent who is compensated with bonuses based on performance often has a very different view of “fair” than an injured person. Insurance companies are looking for a reason or opportunity to minimize, delay, or victim blame to justify a favorable outcome. The injury claims departments of an insurance company maintain a much different personality than the friendly and comedic marketing departments that we see in advertising.
The system of laws in a civil society requires that when someone causes harm and losses to your property, the right thing to do is to fix it or compensate a person for their loss. This mantra is no different when considering that our health and well-being are the most prized of possessions. We rely on the insurance company we pay over the years to live up to their promises and holding insurance companies accountable to injured clients is what drives Peter.
Peter lives in West Friendship, Maryland with his wife and three young children. He enjoys time with his family, competitive off-road motorcycling, cycling, football, and soccer. Peter played soccer through the club level at Towson University and is an assistant coach of his son’s youth soccer team.
Areas of Practice
Bar Admissions
- Maryland, 2012
- District of Columbia, 2015
- U.S. District Court District of Maryland, 2014
- Virginia, 2021
