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Buffy Martines has dedicated her legal career to protecting the rights of individuals who have suffered injuries or harm due to the actions of others. Her extensive practice spans various areas, including personal injury cases, wrongful deaths, defective products, and commercial disputes. Buffy is recognized for her comprehensive involvement in every stage of a case from start to finish and for her ability to successfully collaborate with colleagues on large-scale, high-stakes litigation. She has held prominent leadership positions, including:
Plaintiffs' Steering Committee
MDL No. 2004; In re: Mentor Corp. ObTape Transobturator Sling Products Liability Litigation
United States District Court for the Middle District of Georgia
Plaintiffs Executive Committee
MDL No. 2789; In re: Proton-Pump Inhibitor Liability Litigation
United States District Court for the District of New Jersey
Plaintiffs' Steering Committee
MDL No. 2974; In re: Paragard Products Liability Litigation
United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia
Plaintiffs' Steering Committee
MDL No. 3060; In re: Hair Relaxer Marketing, Sales and Practices and Products Liability Litigation
United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois
Before joining Breit Biniazan, Lee Floyd spent a decade defending some of the country’s largest and most influential corporations. From pharmaceutical companies to national automotive manufacturers, Lee worked in the trenches with impressive battalions of attorneys and seemingly unlimited resources. Lee was the first female partner in the products liability group of one of the nation’s leading law firms and the youngest partner in that firm’s history. In 2019, she was one of only ten lawyers selected nationwide to join the prestigious Products Liability Advisory Council’s as a Future Leader. During this time Lee was recognized consistently: by Super Lawyers® as a “Rising Star” and by Best Lawyers in America® as “Ones to Watch.” She has received national recognition by Benchmark Litigation as a partner in the Product Liability Firm of the Year and is the only attorney in Virginia to be recognized on their “40 and Under Hot List” list five years running. On paper, she displays the kind of career that many attorneys aspire to achieve.
But that wasn’t enough for Lee. She wanted more. During the pandemic, as a paralegal at her previous firm, she was grappling with something much larger: a diagnosis of stage four metastatic breast cancer. She was only given a short time to live.
There was hope, though. If the paralegal, who was also a single mom, could receive a very expensive treatment, there was a chance she would be given more time with her three year old son. That’s when Lee became an advocate. She banded together with other women, started a social media campaign, organized crowdfunding, and solicited help from powerful and connected people to get her paralegal the assistance she so desperately needed. Lee fought fiercely until, finally, the paralegal received the world class oncology care she deserved.
“That’s when I learned that the highest and best use of my time isn’t representing corporate defendants to keep money in their bank accounts,” says Lee. “The highest and best use of my time is to help others when they have nowhere else to turn.”
Representing Families in the Wake of Catastrophic Loss
In January 2022, Lee left the world of corporate defense for personal injury litigation. Now, as a Partner with Breit Biniazan, she offers a unique perspective: a peek into what corporate defense teams do and say behind closed doors. Though Lee concedes that battling a multi-billion-dollar company is like “going to war,” her experience gives Breit Biniazan clients the upper hand.
At Breit Biniazan, Lee now works tirelessly to represent innocent clients harmed by the negligence of the corporations she once represented. In November 2022, Lee was appointed to the Plaintiffs’ Steering Committee for Paragard IUD products liability litigation representing over 1,400 cases against the manufacturers. Most recently, she joined the leadership team of the Chemical Hair Straightener products liability litigation as a member of the Plaintiffs’ Steering Committee.
Lee was born and raised in Alexandria, Virginia and is a product of the Alexandria City Public Schools. She is a proud graduate of T.C. Williams High School and attended the University of Virginia for her undergraduate studies. Lee received her J.D. from West Virginia University College of Law. Lee previously interned for the Alexandria Commonwealth Attorney’s Office and the Alexandria City Circuit Court. Prior to law school, Lee worked on Capitol Hill. She resides in Richmond with her husband and two daughters. Her young daughters may not understand what it means to be a lawyer; instead, they fittingly say she is a “helper” because that’s exactly what the attorneys at Breit Biniazan do.
Genevieve presently serves as court-appointed Co-Lead Counsel for plaintiffs in MDL 2666: In re Bair Hugger Products Liability Litigation. Genevieve was trial counsel in the only MDL bellwether trial. The Bair Hugger MDL includes claims brought by patients who allege the Bair Hugger patient warming system caused deep joint infections following total hip and total knee replacement surgeries.
Genevieve is also Co-Lead Counsel for Plaintiffs in MDL 2775: In re Smith & Nephew Birmingham Hip Resurfacing Products Liability pending in the District of Maryland. The MDL includes claims brought on behalf of patients who required revision surgery as a result of defective Smith & Nephew hips. Plaintiffs successfully defeated motions to dismiss based on preemption and tried the first MDL bellwether case in July 2021. After a three-week trial, the jury agreed Smith & Nephew was negligent for its false or misleading communications to orthopedic surgeons. Since the trial, nearly all of the cases in the MDL have settled, and the remaining cases are in the process of being remanded as the MDL winds down.
In October 2019, Genevieve tried the first defamation case against a conspiracy theorist who wrote a book titled “Nobody Died at Sandy Hook”. Together with her husband Jake, she represented Lenny Pozner, who was defamed by James Fetzer’s book. By all accounts, Fetzer was the original source for the absurd contention that Sandy Hook was a “false flag” operation by the so-called Deep State aimed at taking away gun rights, and it was Fetzer’s willfully false information that Alex Jones and Infowars.com amplified nationwide. In her closing argument Genevieve told the jury “truth matters, saying false things about somebody matters.” The jury returned a verdict in favor of Mr. Pozner in the amount of $450,000.
Since 2013, Genevieve has served as a court-appointed member of the Plaintiffs’ Lead Counsel Committee for MDL 2441: In re Stryker Rejuvenate and ABGII Hip Implant Products Liability Litigation, and is also one of four attorneys appointed to the Settlement Committee for the Stryker MDL. Total settlements in the global resolution programs exceed $2 Billion.
Genevieve was appointed to the Plaintiff’s Executive Committee of the 3M Combat earplug litigation MDL (2019), the PSC in In re Taxotere (2016) and In re Biomet MDL (2014), and some of her past work includes helping heart defibrillator patients after a Guidant recall in 2006, helping patients who suffered serious injuries and death following use of the recalled prescription drugs Vioxx and Yaz, hip implants dating back to 2001 manufactured by nearly every company from Sulzer to St. Gobain to Zimmer, DePuy, Stryker, Wright, Smith & Nephew and Exactech.
During 2007-2009, Genevieve spent nearly 75% of her time providing pro bono legal services to the survivors and families who lost loved ones as a result of the I-35W Bridge Collapse. The consortium was successful in obtaining recoveries exceeding $75 million.
Genevieve serves the community through ongoing pro bono work where she has represented victims of domestic violence seeking to obtain court orders for protection, immigrants seeking to update immigration documents, and high school students seeking protection of their first amendment rights to equal access to school facilities.
Genevieve is a member of the Local Rules Committee for the District of Minnesota, Minnesota Lawyer “Attorney of the Year” in both 2019 and 2021, Past President of the Minnesota Association for Justice, and has served on the Board of Governors since 2009. MAJ named her “Member of the Year” in 2012, and “Star Award” recipient in 2021. She is a past member of the Board of Governors for the American Association for Justice. Genevieve has been rated by SuperLawyers as a Super Lawyer since 2014.
On a personal note, Genevieve volunteers and raises money for scholarship funds for her alma mater, St. Paul Central High School. A noted and enthusiastic “food gatherer”, Genevieve loves travel, skiing, recreational marathons, and discussing the finer points of music by The National and Taylor Swift with her teenaged daughter and son.
Tracy Finken is a Shareholder at the law firm of Anapol Weiss. For the past 25 years, her practice has been concentrated in the field of pharmaceutical and products liability, class actions and other complex civil litigation. She has been extensively involved in leadership roles in state and federal court in a variety of consolidated mass tort and multi-district litigations, including:
Throughout her professional career, Tracy has been recognized annually for her outstanding legal work. Beginning in 2002, she was named as one of the very first “40 on the Fast Track” by the Legal Intelligencer, a listing of the top 40 attorneys under the age of 40 in Pennsylvania. From 2005 through 2012, Tracy was named a Pennsylvania Rising Star, which recognizes the top 2.5% of attorneys 40 years of age or younger. From 2013 through 2023, she was named a Pennsylvania Super Lawyer. Tracy was also recognized as one of the Best Lawyers in America in the field of Plaintiffs’ Mass Tort Litigation/Class Actions from 2016 through 2023. This is the oldest and most respected peer reviewed publication in the legal profession. Selection is based upon a rigorous peer-review survey completed by tens of thousands of leading attorneys.
Lectures and Publications
Tracy has been interviewed by both TV and print media regarding pharmaceutical liability issues as well as other legal matters. She has also lectured about pharmaceutical liability and civil litigation matters on behalf of professional organizations nationwide. Her articles have been published relating to a wide range of legal issues.
Accomplished Legal Background
Ms. Finken is a member of the National Order of Barristers, the Philadelphia and Pennsylvania Bar Association, the Pennsylvania Association for Justice and the American Association for Justice. She also serves as an arbitrator for the Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas Arbitration Program.
She is licensed to practice law in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. She is admitted to practice in Pennsylvania and New Jersey state courts, as well as federal courts in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, the District Court of New Jersey, and the Southern and Northern Districts of Illinois.
Sara Papantonio is an associate attorney at Levin Papantonio and focuses her practice on mass torts. She graduated from the University of North Carolina with a Bachelor of Science in Political Science and Journalism. Ms. Papantonio then received her Juris Doctorate from Stetson University College of Law in 2020, graduating cum laude.
Sara Papantonio is an associate attorney at Levin Papantonio and focuses her practice on mass torts. She graduated from the University of North Carolina with a Bachelor of Science in Political Science and Journalism. Ms. Papantonio then received her Juris Doctorate from Stetson University College of Law in 2020, graduating cum laude.
Ms. Papantonio also served as a Senior Associate of Stetson’s Law Review. While serving on Law Review, Ms. Papantonio composed an article discussing the complexities of the litigation against opioid manufacturers and distributors and each party’s role in the opioid epidemic.
During law school Ms. Papantonio received the highest grade possible in both Torts and evidence. Upon graduation, Ms. Papantonio was honored by the faculty and staff of the law school nominating her to be inducted into the Order of Barristers, a national organization that provides recognition for individuals who have excelled in advocacy and service at their respective schools. Additionally, Ms. Papantonio received the Richard Harris Ferrell Competition award which is awarded to “the student advocate who has best demonstrated excellence through his or her performance in intercollegiate competitions.”
In her free time, Ms. Papantonio loves to travel, boat, and spend time with family and friends.
Sean K. Burke is vice chair of the Products Liability and Toxic Torts division of Duane Morris' Trial Practice Group. Mr. Burke is a trial attorney representing clients nationally in complex products liability and commercial litigation matters. He has tried cases before juries in both state and federal courts while also handling numerous mediations. He regularly represents manufacturers of medical implant devices in product liability cases, including in consolidated multi-plaintiff matters in both federal court (MDL) and state courts in California, Illinois, and Tennessee.
He also represents clients in matters involving trade secret litigation, the breach of non-competition and other restrictive covenants, and commercial contract disputes. Mr. Burke also represents and counsels clients in the gaming industry, with a focus on the horse racing industry, in a broad range of matters involving state regulatory compliance, contract negotiations, and litigation.
He is admitted to practice in the District of Columbia, Pennsylvania and New Jersey as well as six different United States District Courts. Prior to rejoining Duane Morris, Mr. Burke served as law clerk for the Honorable Joel H. Slomsky of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. He is a 2007 magna cum laude graduate of Villanova University School of Law, where he was managing editor of special projects for the Villanova Law Review and elected to the Order of the Coif, and a cum laude graduate of Catholic University of America.
Erin N. Empting is a partner at Jamison Empting Cronin, LLP, where she focuses on civil litigation, specifically in the areas of employment, products liability, premises liability, complex torts, real estate, and business matters. Ms. Empting has been involved in all facets of civil litigation, including creative discovery strategy, taking and defending percipient and expert depositions, pre-trial motion work, and trial preparation. Ms. Empting advises and represents clients in the construction, maritime and automotive industries from the inception of the filing of the complaint to verdict.
Ms. Empting has trial experience, where she has second chaired several cases to verdict in state and federal court involving employment matters. In addition, Ms. Empting has successfully prevailed on summary judgment in state court in a number of matters. Ms. Empting has also represented clients in mediation, settlement negotiations and unemployment hearings.
Prior to joining Jamison Empting Cronin, LLP, Ms. Empting was an associate at Pond North LLP in Los Angeles where she focused on premise liability, product liability, and other general liability issues confronting Fortune 500 companies, national insurance companies, product manufacturers, contractors and suppliers within the distribution chain. Ms. Empting also served as a managing associate at Levine & Blit LLP in Beverly Hills, concentrating on business disputes, and labor and employment matters.
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Daniel Garrie is the co-founder of Law & Forensics LLC and leads the Cyber Security and Forensics Practice teams. He has been a dominant voice in blockchain, cryptocurrency, computer forensics, and e-discovery for over 20 years. He is also an Arbitrator, Forensic Neutral, and E-Discovery Special Master at JAMS (https://www.jamsadr.com/garrie/). Daniel has successfully built and sold several technology start-ups companies. Since co-founding Law & Forensics LLC in 2008, Daniel has made it into a leading boutique cybersecurity, cryptocurrency, blockchain, and forensic engineering firm.
In addition to his Law Degree, Daniel holds a Bachelor’s and Master’s in Computer Science, allowing him to speak as comfortably with engineers and developers as he does with lawyers and judges, distinguishing him from other practitioners. Daniel combines his technical prowess and legal expertise to resolve cybersecurity and forensic disputes and testify as an expert witness on cybersecurity, forensics, e-discovery, and other areas in state and federal court.
Daniel regularly testifies as an e-discovery, cybersecurity, and computer forensic expert witness, authoring forensic expert reports on multi-million-dollar disputes. His ability to perform complex investigations and effectively communicate the results to a jury has made him one of the most sought-after experts in the country. His testimony has been pivotal in several cases involving complex cybersecurity and forensics, including most recently testifying as a cybersecurity expert witness regarding cybersecurity issues specific to vehicles in Federal Court in Massachusett before Judge Woolock earlier this year.
Separately, Daniel also enjoys teaching in both an academic and courtroom setting. He has presented over 300 seminars to thousands of lawyers, judges, and students across the globe. In addition to his classroom experience at Rutgers, Daniel has also lectured at Harvard Law School, UCLA, Columbia University, Cardozo Law School, Brandeis, and more than 300 federal and state court judges on cybersecurity issues.
Michael A. London is one of the founding partners of the law firm Douglas & London, P.C., located in downtown New York City. Mr. London obtained his Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Miami in Coral Gables, Florida, and his Juris Doctor degree from Brooklyn Law School in Brooklyn, New York. Mr. London is admitted and licensed to practice law in the States of New York and New Jersey, as well as in the United States District Courts for the Eastern District, Southern District, and Western District of New York, as well as the District of New Jersey.
Since obtaining his law degree, he has devoted his entire career to representing consumers and injury victims, primarily in mass tort settings. His practice area in the law has always focused on and continues to focus on, products liability and complex litigation with an emphasis on pharmaceutical and medical device litigation.
Mr. London has been privileged and honored to have been appointed to, and have served, as lead or liaison counsel in some of the largest national mass tort and complex litigations in recent years. His formal lead and liaison counsel roles have been in the following matters with the following results:
It is important to highlight, that in the eight litigations in which Mr. London served as co-lead or liaison counsel, each was resolved efficiently through settlements. And in these eight national mass tort or class litigations where Mr. London held these leadership appointments, the resolutions were accomplished in an impressive span of 18 to 47 months from when MDL centralization occurred until an announcement of settlement parameters. Also, Mr. London served as the primary negotiator for plaintiffs in six of the nine cases above and his efforts have yielded over $18 billion worth of settlements since 2005.
Mr. London’s current leadership positions in complex litigation include the following:
Not only has he held the court-appointed positions identified above but he has also been involved in other complex litigations in various committee roles, including serving on discovery committees, expert committees, law and briefing committees, and class action committees. Mr. London has represented hundreds of women exposed in utero to the drug Diethylstibestrol (“DES”) in litigation formerly pending before the Honorable Jack B. Weinstein. He also represented and continues to represent people and families who were victims of other toxic and mass torts for which formal Plaintiffs’ Steering Committees were not established, including representing hundreds of individuals who were injured as a result of the September 11, 2001 bombings of the World Trade Center in the World Trade Center Disaster Site Litigation, representing individuals who suffered from glenohumeral chondrolysis in In re: Ambulatory Pain Pump-Chondrolysis Products Liability Litigation where he firm colleague Rebecca Newman secured some of the earliest and largest settlements in the country, representing children and families who were victims of the Chorionic Villi Sampling (‘CVS’) device/procedure, and others.
Mr. London served as trial counsel in multiple tobacco trials, including the first successful verdict against the tobacco industry in the state of New York, where he and law firm partner, Gary Douglas, secured a $20 million-plus verdict for the widow of a former smoker. And before that, Mr. London served as co-trial counsel in the first two tobacco cases to be tried in the State of New York, both in the year 2000. Mr. London was co-trial counsel in the very first Norplant products liability trial in the State of New York. Mr. London has assisted in non-court room activity and with jury selection in various other trial teams over the years.
Mr. London is an active member in the following legal associations: Board of Directors and Executive Committee Member of New York State Trial Lawyers Association (NYSTLA); Board of Governors and Sustaining Member American Association of Justice (AAJ); Member of Public Justice (America’s Public Interest law firm); and Member the Tobacco Trial Lawyers Association (TTLA). He serves on the President’s Advisory Council at Brooklyn Law School. He has been asked and invited to lecture to attorneys on many types of cases that he has handled, as well as on specific topics such as preemption, virtually all aspects of mass tort litigations and specific mass tort cases, medical malpractice and jury selection in various types of cases. He has appeared on CNN, MSNBC, NBC, ABC, in the New York Times, in New York Magazine, Forbes, as well as in many other local New York and regional papers and other publications across the country. Additionally, he has written numerous articles for publication in legal journals on such topics of vaccine use, the Learned Intermediary Doctrine, jury selection in products liability cases, mercury exposure, youth smoking, and light cigarettes litigation, generally and has been asked to lecture and speak over 50 times throughout the country on various aspect of mass torts and complex litigation. In addition, Mr. London is the attorney in charge of Douglas & London’s New Jersey Practice. Further, Mr. London also serves as the firm’s general counsel.
Lieff Cabraser partner Sarah London is a true leader in the plaintiffs’ bar and a determined, skilled, and experienced advocate for the injured, employees, and consumers. Sarah has risen to national prominence as a result of appointments to and success in leadership roles in multiple pivotal lawsuits, including as Co-Lead & Liaison Counsel for plaintiffs in the aggregate litigation against Uber in federal court in San Francisco arising from sexual harassment, physical attack, sexual assault, and battery committed by Uber drivers, as well as Co-Lead & Liaison Counsel for plaintiffs in the Juul injury/predatory marketing MDL, where her work led to four historic settlements announced in late 2022 with defendant Juul as well as a comprehensive and historic $235 million settlement that was reached between additional defendant Altria and plaintiffs in the midst of a subsequent JUUL bellwether trial. In 2020, Sarah was appointed to the Plaintiffs’ Executive Committee in the Gilead HIV Drug Kidney & Bone Injuries Litigation, and in 2019, Sarah was named Subclass Settlement Counsel in In re Flint Water Cases. Sarah also serves in lead roles in multiple women’s health cases, including as Liaison Counsel in the state court coordinated proceedings involving the destruction of hundreds of frozen eggs and embryos at San Francisco’s Pacific Fertility Center.
A founding partner of Seeger Weiss, Chris is widely recognized as a highly innovative and accomplished plaintiff attorney. Chiefly known for multidistrict mass torts and class actions involving drug injury, toxic injury and personal injury, Chris’s versatile practice also includes product liability, property damage, antitrust, third-party payer litigation, as well as consumer, insurance, and securities fraud.
Chris has led some of the most complex, groundbreaking, and high-profile litigations in the U.S. representing plaintiffs and achieving landmark settlements in cases including the 3M Combat Arms Earplug Litigation, National Prescription Opiate Litigation, NFL Players’ Concussion Litigation, Volkswagen “Clean Diesel” Litigation, Vioxx Litigation, and Syngenta AG MIR 162 Corn Litigation. His unique experience makes him a knowledgeable and capable litigator and negotiator, highly regarded among both his peers and opponents.
Currently, Chris serves as co-lead counsel in the 3M Combat Arms Earplug Litigation, Philips Recalled CPAP, Bi-Level Pap, and Mechanical Ventilator Litigation, Social Media Adolescent Addiction/Personal Injury Litigation, and Proton-Pump Inhibitor Litigation. He is also appointed to the plaintiffs’ executive committees in the National Prescription Opiate Litigation and East Palestine Train Derailment Litigation. Often chosen by the courts to serve as lead counsel, co-lead Counsel, liaison counsel, or member of the plaintiffs’ executive and/or steering committee, Chris received the most multidistrict litigation (MDL) appointments of any lawyer between 2016 and 2019 according to a 2020 ALM study.
Chris is regularly quoted by the press regarding his work on nationally and internationally prominent cases, including in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, USA Today, Associated Press, Bloomberg, Reuters, ABC, CBS, NBC, NPR, and ESPN. Chris started his career as a corporate defense lawyer representing the interests of big business. Struck by the imbalance of power between corporations and the individuals harmed by them, he left to become a plaintiff attorney. The son of a union carpenter who worked his way through school, Chris is a former amateur boxer and a current Brazilian Jiu Jitsu black belt. Now, whether working on a class action involving thousands of people against a multinational conglomerate or an individual case protecting one client’s rights, he fights with the same passion and conviction.
Jonathan D. Selbin is a senior partner in the New York office of Lieff, Cabraser, Heimann & Bernstein, LLP, where he has practiced for 28 years, and a long-time member of the firm’s Executive Committee. He has led complex consumer protection, defective products, and sex abuse class action lawsuits in courts around the country against many of the world’s largest corporations and institutions. Together, cases in which Jonathan played a lead role have resulted in court-approved class action settlements with a combined total cash payout to class members in excess of $3.5 billion, plus other relief such as extended and enhanced warranties and implementation of best-practices institutional reforms. He has extensive appellate experience, having argued in the 1st, 5th, 6th, 7th, 9th, and 11th Circuits, as well as before state supreme and appellate courts.
Jonathan served on the Board of Directors of Equal Justice Works, where he and his family also founded the Selbin Voting Rights Fellowship which funds a rolling two-year fellow working to ensure fair access to voting. He also serves on the Board of the Beyond #MeToo Working Group on Corporate Governance, Compliance, and Risk.
Jonathan was a Finalist for The American Lawyer’s 2021 Litigator of the Year, a National Law Journal 2021 “Plaintiffs’ Lawyer Trailblazer,” a Law360 2020 “Titan of the Plaintiffs Bar,” and a New York Law Journal “2020 Litigation Trailblazer.” In February 2020, Modern Counsel profiled Jonathan, highlighting his lifelong legacy of fighting for consumer and civil rights in “Jonathan Selbin Levels the Playing Field.”
Jonathan is a 1993 magna cum laude graduate of Harvard Law School and a 1989 summa cum laude graduate of the University of Michigan. He clerked for the Honorable Marilyn Hall Patel of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California from 1993-1995 prior to joining Lieff Cabraser.
Viola Trebicka is a partner in the firm’s Los Angeles and New York offices and the co-chair of the firm's Data Privacy and Security Practice. Viola maintains a diverse complex commercial litigation and trial practice, with particular emphasis on data privacy and security matters, antitrust litigation, intellectual property disputes, and class actions.
On the data privacy front, Viola is lead counsel for technology companies in state and federal courts across the country, defending high-profile data privacy class actions regarding cutting edge technologies. She has delivered major wins for clients, including a summary judgment win for Google in the Calhoun v. Google data privacy class action, which the Daily Journal featured as one of the Top Verdicts in 2022.
Viola also regularly represents clients in data breach litigation, and has secured motion to dismiss victories for her clients in this space. Viola is equally experienced in addressing data breach incidents, including by leading the incident response, liaising with law enforcement, and addressing regulator and government concerns.
In recognition of her experience and victories, Ms. Trebicka was ranked by Legal 500 USA in the Data Privacy and Data Protection field (Media, Technology, and Telecoms).
Adam Wolfson is a partner in Quinn Emanuel’s San Francisco and Los Angeles offices whose practice focuses on both plaintiff and defense-side representations in high-stakes complex commercial and intellectual property disputes. Adam has extensive experience in all types of complex litigation, with a particular focus in cases involving antitrust law, products liability, class actions, unfair competition, trade secret misappropriation, and patent and copyright infringement. To date, he has helped our clients obtain more than $14 billion in recoveries, stemming from both trial verdicts and settlements. On the defense side, he has helped our clients avoid liability for multiples of that number.
Adam currently serves on the Board of Visitors for UCLA’s Political Science Department and regularly publishes on issues related to trial practice and the areas of law in which he practices. He has been named both a Rising Star and MVP in class actions by national legal journal Law360, a Future Star by Benchmark Litigation, one of the top 500 plaintiffs’ attorneys in the nation by Lawdragon 500, was named by Legal 500 USA as a Recommended Lawyer in the Antitrust Litigation category, and the Daily Journal - Top Antitrust Lawyers.
Sacchet specializes in complex civil litigation, including multi-district litigation. Involved in all aspects of the case, Sacchet excels at briefing, oral argument, and cross-examining expert witnesses at deposition and trial. Recognizing his litigation experience and leadership skills, the Court recently appointed Sacchet as Co-Lead Counsel in MDL 3081: In re Bard Implanted Port Catheter Products Liability Litigation.
Sacchet has co-tried numerous cases to verdict, including five bellwether trials in the 3M Earplugs MDL—the largest MDL in American history. Obtaining more than $200 million in verdicts in less than a year, Sacchet never lost a 3M Earplugs trial and helped secure the largest multi-plaintiff verdict ($110 million) and the largest single-plaintiff verdict ($77.5 million) in the MDL.
Sacchet has also briefed and argued discovery, dispositive, pre-trial, and post-trial motions in federal and state district courts across the country. He has drafted appellate briefs and/or argued before the United States Supreme Court, United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth and Eleventh Circuits, Minnesota Supreme Court, and Minnesota Court of Appeals. Notably, Sacchet was appointed to the Plaintiffs’ Steering Committee and named Chair of the Law, Briefing, and Legal Drafting Committee in MDL 2885: In re 3M Combat Arms Earplug Products Liability Litigation. A four-member panel appointed Sacchet to both positions after reviewing nearly 200 applications from attorneys across the country and listening to 64 presentations over a 2-day period. As Chair of Law & Briefing, Sacchet briefed and argued cross-motions for summary judgment on 3M’s global preemption defense. The MDL judge hailed Sacchet’s oral argument as “outstanding” and “as good as any” she’d seen in her 18 years on the bench. The MDL court granted plaintiffs’ motion for summary judgment and denied 3M’s cross motion on the government contractor defense, allowing over 200,000 cases to proceed to trial. In addition, Sacchet defeated numerous Daubert and other dispositive motions in MDL 2666: In re Bair Hugger Forced Air Warming Devices Products Liability Litigation. As a result of the arguments that Sacchet briefed and argued in the Eighth Circuit, nearly 6,000 cases against 3M were reinstated after the district court erroneously excluded plaintiffs’ general-causation experts and dismissed the MDL. In addition to his role as Co-Lead Counsel of the In re Bard Implanted Port Catheter MDL, Sacchet was selected to serve on numerous Subcommittees (Trial, Settlement, Law & Briefing, and Common Benefit).
Finally, as a certified mindfulness meditation teacher, Sacchet frequently presents CLEs on mindful lawyering. He also leads meditation practice groups for lawyers and the public. Please contact Sacchet to learn more about those opportunities.
Prior to joining Ciresi Conlin, Sacchet served as a law clerk to Judge Diana E. Murphy of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit and to Judge Philip S. Gutierrez of the United States District Court for the Central District of California. Before law school, Sacchet served as a Teach for America Corps Member in East Palo Alto, California.
Sacchet graduated with honors from Harvard Law School, where he was an editor of the Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review, argued and wrote award-winning briefs in the Ames Moot Court Competition, and received numerous dean’s scholar prizes for outstanding academic work. He graduated first in his class from Northwestern University, where he was honored with the Top Grade Point Average Award as well as the Best Legal Studies Undergraduate Thesis Award.
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William is an attorney in Butler Snow LLP’s Pharmaceutical, Medical Device & Healthcare Litigation Group. He previously served as Chair of the firm’s Litigation Department. He is a trial attorney with more than 30 years of experience in drug and medical device, product liability, personal injury and mass torts litigation.
Profiled as one of Law360’s 2016 Trial Pros, William has extensive trial experience. He is a Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers and International Academy of Trial Lawyers, and he is a graduate of the International Association of Defense Counsel’s Trial Academy. William is recognized by many prestigious industry publications, including Chambers USA (nationwide Product Liability & Mass Torts), The Legal 500 US (recognized in the editorial for nationwide Product Liability, Mass Tort and Class Action: Pharmaceuticals and Medical Devices – Defense), Who’s Who Legal: Product Liability Defence, Benchmark Litigation, The Best Lawyers in America, and Mid-South Super Lawyers. Additionally, Best Lawyers in America named William as the 2023 Lawyer of the Year for Product Liability Litigation – Defendants for the Jackson, MS area.
A senior partner at Seeger Weiss, Dave represents individual and corporate plaintiffs in state and federal courts throughout the country. His practice focuses on litigating and trying complex commercial and product liability matters. Dave’s docket involves a wide variety of cases, including pharmaceutical injury, product liability claims, trade secrets, commercial disputes, pension challenges, securities and investment fraud, and consumer claims. Though the scope of his cases is broad, they are usually large, national, high-stakes cases, generally destined for trial. By their nature, they are often centered in federal multi-district proceedings or analogous state coordinated proceedings, where Dave is often selected by his co-counsel or appointed by the courts to lead them as liaison counsel, lead counsel, or a member of plaintiffs’ executive/steering committee.
Having majored in chemistry and biology in undergrad, Dave’s scientific background is a ready asset featured in the technical and pharmaceutical cases in which he often focuses. He is likewise known for his extensive experience in the discovery and preservation of electronic information, and has served as a consultant in this capacity for many other law firms. He is frequently invited to speak to an array of audiences and conferences—directed to practicing plaintiffs’ and defense attorneys, judges, students, and professional organizations—on issues concerning trial practice, discovery, and complex and products liability litigation.
Ashley Keller is one of the founding Partners of Keller Postman LLC. An experienced trial and appellate lawyer, Ashley helps set strategic direction across virtually all of the firm’s cases. He represents clients in a wide variety of practice areas and types of claims, including product-liability, antitrust, class action, and arbitration matters.
Ashley is one of the leaders of Keller Postman’s national product-liability practice. He leverages his ability to detangle complex concepts and develop novel legal theories to support individual client matters and as counsel on numerous product-liability multidistrict litigation matters. Notably, he holds the court-appointed co-lead counsel position in the Acetaminophen MDL in the Southern District of New York.
Ashley also litigates complex antitrust and class action matters. Among his notable cases, Ashley represents numerous States in antitrust litigation against Google for monopolizing products and services used by advertisers and publishers in online-display advertising.
Ashley also has played a central role in developing the firm’s pioneering arbitration practice, which includes pursuing individual arbitrations for clients whose claims are subject to arbitration clauses with class-action waivers. In part through managing the complexity of pursuing these individual claims simultaneously, the firm has secured millions in settlements for more than 500,000 employees and consumers.
Before launching Keller Postman, Ashley co-founded the litigation finance firm Gerchen Keller Capital, which grew to more than $1.3 billion in assets under management and was the world’s largest private investment manager focused on legal and regulatory risk prior to being acquired by Burford Capital in 2016.
Previously, Ashley was a partner at Bartlit Beck Herman Palenchar & Scott LLP, The American Lawyer’s litigation boutique of the year. While there, he handled various trial and appellate matters involving multi-billion-dollar securities and patent cases, contract disputes, mass torts, and class actions.
Ashley also worked as an analyst at Alyeska Investment Group, a Chicago-based market-neutral hedge fund, where he focused on investments in companies facing litigation and other complicated regulatory matters.
Ashley was named a 2021 Plaintiffs’ Lawyers Trailblazer by the National Law Journal. He is also listed on Lawdragon’s 500 Leading Lawyers in America, Lawdragon’s 500 Leading Plaintiff Consumer Lawyers, Lawdragon’s Leading Plaintiff Financial Lawyers, National Trial Lawyers’ Top 100, and Illinois Super Lawyers.
Ashley was a law clerk for Justice Anthony M. Kennedy at the Supreme Court of the United States and Judge Richard Posner at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. He graduated magna cum laude from Harvard College, received his M.B.A. from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and received his J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School, where he graduated first in his class.
Mark Lanier is consistently recognized as one of the top civil trial lawyers in America. For almost 40 years, Mark has taken on some of the biggest challenges in the legal field. In doing so, he has achieved some of the largest verdicts in history; accomplishments that have changed business practices to protect the public and have gained justice for the victims of dangerous drugs, medical devices, and other consumer products.
Best known as a zealous advocate for individuals in personal injury and product liability claims against major corporations, Mark brings passion, creativity, and an unparalleled ability to connect with juries in courtrooms across the nation. In addition, he has successfully represented clients in claims involving fraud, breach of contract and other forms of business litigation.
These results cumulatively have put Mark close to $20 billion in verdicts during his highly acclaimed career.
Mark’s success in the courtroom and perspectives on litigation have been featured in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe, Bloomberg News, and the Houston Chronicle, among many other publications. He is also a frequent guest on news and business programs for a wide range of broadcast and cable networks.
Holding three honorary doctorates, he was bestowed the Ambassador of Peace award by the Guatemalan government. Mark is published in both legal and theological arenas and has four books, numerous published articles and two movies among his works.
Zoe Littlepage is a named partner in the law firm of Littlepage Booth. She has a unique practice focusing on complex - and generally lengthy - trials in federal and state court, all across the country.
Zoe Littlepage’s jury verdicts have been listed on the Top Ten Verdicts of the Year multiple times. She has also successfully won appeals in defense of her multiple punitive damage awards: forcing defendants to pay those verdicts – in full.
Zoe Littlepage is one of only seven women trial lawyers invited into the Inner Circle of Advocates, an elite legal group of the top 100 plaintiff’s lawyers in the country. Zoe Littlepage has been named a “Super Lawyer” every year since 2011 as well as one of America’s top lawyers by American Trial Lawyers Association, Fortune Magazine and The American Lawyer. In 2009, she received the Clarence Darrow Award for outstanding advocacy. In 2015, the American Bar Association awarded Zoe Littlepage the prestigious Pursuit of Justice award in recognition of her decades of work on behalf of victims.
Zoe Littlepage has spent much of her career battling the pharmaceutical industry over defective drugs. She took some of the most powerful drug manufactures to trial in the Silicone Breast Implant, Fen/Phen and Rezulin litigations. For twelve years, Zoe Littlepage was lead counsel of the In re Hormone Therapy Litigation MDL and she tried more than a dozen HRT cases to verdict. She is currently on the Plaintiff’s Executive Committee for the In re Acetaminophen Litigation.
Judge R. David Proctor was nominated to the United States District Court for the Northern District of Alabama and received his commission on September 22, 2003.
Judge Proctor received his undergraduate degree from Carson-Newman College in 1983. He earned his law degree with honors from the University of Tennessee College of Law in 1986. After graduating from law school, Judge Proctor served as a law clerk to United States Circuit Judge H. Emory Widener, Jr. of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. In 1987, he moved to Birmingham to take a position as an associate with Sirote & Permutt P.C. In 1993, he became a founding shareholder of the labor and employment boutique firm of Lehr, Middlebrooks & Proctor P.C.
Judge Proctor served on the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation from 2014-2020. He currently serves on the Civil Rules Advisory Committee and chairs the MDL Rules Subcommittee. He has taught Complex Civil Litigation at Cumberland School of Law and the University of Alabama School of Law, and Multidistrict Litigation at the University of Georgia School of Law, the University of Tennessee School of Law, and the Miami School of Law. He also regularly teaches and serves as a panelist for various programs. Judge Proctor is a member of the American Law Institute, the Alabama Law Foundation, and the Birmingham Bar Foundation.
The Honorable Winifred Y. Smith (Ret.) comes to ADR Services, Inc. with 21 years of experience as a Judge of the Alameda County Superior Court and 26 years as Deputy Attorney General in the California Attorney General’s Office. During her tenure on the bench, Judge Smith presided over civil law and motion, civil direct, and complex litigation matters. She was also an integral member of court leadership, having served as a member of the Judicial Council, Supervising Judge of multiple courthouses, Supervising Judge of the court’s Civil Division, and later as Presiding Judge.
Judge Smith has extensive experience in a variety of civil cases, including coordinated cases, class actions, employment, construction defect, and Proposition 65 matters, and has presided over many cases presenting questions of first impression. In her 13 years serving in civil assignments, Judge Smith presided over nearly 100 cases to verdict, including a Product Liability/Complex Litigation case which resulted in the largest civil award in California’s history. She has been affirmed in 95% of her cases on appeal. In addition, Judge Smith served as a Justice Pro Tem for the California Court of Appeal, First Appellate District, Division Four.
Prior to her appointment to the bench, Judge Smith worked as a Deputy Attorney General with the California Department of Justice’s Office of the Attorney General. During her tenure there, her assignments included working in the OAG’s Health, Education, and Welfare Section representing state agencies.
Judge Smith is widely respected for her judicial demeanor and ability to deftly manage complex matters to resolution. She has been honored by many legal organizations for her commitment to judicial excellence, including being twice named Jurist of Distinction by the Women Lawyers of Alameda County and as Trial Judge of the Year by the American Board of Trial Advocates (ABOTA) in 2021. She has been invited to speak on numerous panels to offer her legal expertise and is currently a lecturer at Berkeley Law teaching Civil Trial Practice.
JUDICIAL EXPERIENCE
Alameda County Superior Court
California Court of Appeal, First Appellate District
HONORS AND AWARDS
Women Lawyers of Alameda County, Jurist of Distinction – 2021
American Board of Trial Advocates, Trial Judge of the Year – 2021
Women Lawyers of Alameda County, Jurist of Distinction – 2014
California Association of Black Lawyers, Judicial Excellence Award – 2013
Alameda County Bar Association, Distinguished Service Award – 2010
Charles Houston Bar Association, Judge of the Year – 2006
EDUCATION
J.D., Boston University School of Law – 1974
B.A., Stanford University – 1971
PROFESSIONAL AFFILIATIONS
TEACHING EXPERIENCE
UC Berkeley, School of Law – 2022-2023
CJER Civil Experienced Primary Assignment Orientation – 2021
CJER Complex Case Management and Trial – 2021
BOARD AFFILIATIONS
Association of Business Trial Lawyers – 2015-Present
Alameda County Bar Association, Volunteer Legal Services – 2008-2014
David P. McCullum Youth Court – 2003-2009
PROFESSIONAL MEMBERSHIPS
Erin's primary focus is on injury claims against manufacturers of dangerous products that have harmed women.
ERIN COPELAND currently serves as the court-appointed Co-Lead of the Paragard (birth control) MDL pending in the Northern District of Georgia. Her recent appointments also include the leadership committee of the Hair Relaxer MDL pending in the Northern District of Illinois.
Previously, from 2017 to 2022, Erin served on the Executive Committee for the Essure consolidated state litigation in California, where she and her team oversaw the claims of thousands of women who suffered severe and permanent injuries as a result of the Essure permanent sterilization birth control device. In August 2020, she helped to negotiate a $1.6 billion settlement with Bayer to resolve the Essure litigation. Erin also served on the Plaintiffs' Steering Committee for the various female pelvic mesh MDLs pending in the Southern District of West Virginia as well as the Pradaxa litigation pending in the Southern District. In the Pradaxa litigation, Erin served as State-Federal Liaison Counsel to the cases pending in St. Clair County, Illinois. Other appointments include the now resolved Uloric litigation in Illinois.
Erin is often invited to speak on a variety of legal issues and served as a steering committee member for the 2023 Baylor MDL Judicial College.
Erin is a native Houstonian and practices with the Houston-based law firm of Fibich Leebron Copeland & Briggs. Erin and her family split time between Houston and their home in Colorado where her son was a competitive snowboarder.
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Danae N. Benton cares about her clients and works with them in their fight to hold large corporations accountable. Her practice is focused on complex civil litigation, where she represents individuals whose lives have been egregiously affected by defective implants, harmful medical devices, and dangerous prescription drugs.
Why She Cares
Growing up on a ranch in a small central Texas town, Ms. Benton’s parents taught her the value of hard work, integrity, and humility. Today, she has fused those small-town values with her dedicated drive for justice. For Ms. Benton, the client comes first. She takes pride in her work and is devoted to ensuring that her clients receive the highest level of representation.
Accomplishments
Education
Danae earned her undergraduate degree from Baylor University in Waco, Texas, before graduating from Western Michigan University Cooley Law School in Lansing, Michigan, where she made the Dean’s Honor List multiple times.
Association:
Jennifer M. Hoekstra is a partner with Aylstock, Witkin, Kreis & Overholtz, PLLC. A native of Saint Paul, Minnesota, Ms. Hoekstra boasts an impressive academic and professional record, including graduation from two of the nation’s top schools. She earned her Bachelor of Arts in Environmental Science from Columbia College, Columbia University in the City of New York. She relocated to Louisiana to attend Tulane Law School, where she earned her J.D. while also completing a certificate in Environmental Law. During her law school career, she spent a semester studying at the University of Wisconsin School of Law and visited on their International Law Journal as a Junior Member during her Hurricane Katrina evacuation semester.
Ms. Hoekstra has been involved in complex litigation cases of all forms since 2007. Ms. Hoekstra has earned a solid reputation as a skilled writer and researcher and plays an integral role in several complex litigation cases, practicing in the areas of Pharmaceutical Mass Torts, Defective Device Mass Torts, and other complex litigation. She is currently a member of the Proton-Pump Inhibitors Plaintiff Executive Committee and the 3M Earplugs MDL Discovery and ESI Committee.
Jennifer was central to the successful outcome in bellwether trials in the Genetically Modified Rice, Actos, and DePuy Pinnacle Hip MDLs, with more than $11 Billion in trial verdicts resulting from those cases. She has actively served as trial counsel or an integral member of the trial team in several of the 3M Earplug trials securing nearly $300 Million in compensatory damages for military veterans.
She is licensed to practice before all Louisiana state and federal courts and the U.S. District Courts for the Northern District of Texas and Eastern District of Missouri as well as the 5th and 8th Circuit Courts. She is a member of the American Bar Association, the Louisiana Bar Association, the Acadiana Federal Bar Association, the Alexandria Louisiana Bar Association and the American Association for Justice. She is a member of Women En Mass, founding member of the board for the Society Women Trial Lawyers and was also a member of the inaugural 2018 Board of Directors for Emerge Louisiana.
Charles Beall is board certified in both civil trial and appellate practice by The Florida Bar Board of Legal Specialization—one of just seven attorneys in the state of Florida certified in both areas and one of just two attorneys west of Tallahassee certified in appellate practice. He is a past chair of The Florida Bar’s Appellate Practice Certification Committee and served on the committee from 2004 through 2010.
Mr. Beall has handled more than 250 appellate matters in state and federal courts and has conducted more than 75 oral arguments, resulting in more than 60 published opinions. His appeals have included virtually all types of matters, from final judgments following jury and judge trials, to summary final judgments, to appeals from non-final orders to a variety of original proceedings and extraordinary writs. In 2021 and 2022, he served as the lead legal and appellate counsel for the defendants at 12 of the 16 “bellwether” trials in the largest multi-district litigation in the history of the federal court system.
At the trial level, Mr. Beall has represented hundreds of clients ranging from individuals to multinational corporations—including several Fortune 500 companies—in a wide variety of civil litigation, including products liability suits, business and contract claims, and insurance coverage disputes. He has tried more than a dozen civil jury trials to verdict as lead counsel and has served on the trial team of several multi-week trials. Mr. Beall has considerable experience in complex civil litigation, including the defense of class actions and mass torts, and has recovered millions of dollars for insureds in hurricane claims against insurance companies.
Mr. Beall is active in both legal and civic organizations. He is currently president of the Rotary Club of Pensacola and is immediate past president of the Pensacola Symphony Orchestra. Mr. Beall has served on the board of directors of Lakeview Center, Inc., which provides mental health and substance abuse services, since 2005 and has served on the finance committee and board of trustees for First United Methodist Church. In addition to his role on the Appellate Practice Certification Committee, he also served on The Florida Bar’s Board of Legal Specialization and Education from 2014-2017. He served as president of the Escambia-Santa Rosa Bar Association in 2004-05.
Mr. Beall is a 1991 graduate of the University of Virginia School of Law and served on the editorial board of the Virginia Law Review. From 1991 through 1996, he was a trial attorney with the United States Department of Justice in Washington, D.C., where he specialized in commercial litigation and appeals. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree with distinction from the University of Virginia in 1987.
Alexandra Walsh is a nationally recognized trial attorney with extensive experience trying and winning cases in courts throughout the country. After years of defending corporate clients, Alex launched Walsh Law in 2021 to turn a page in her practice and use her expertise and experience to fight for plaintiffs seeking justice in the nation’s courts.
Since starting this new chapter, Alex has focused her work on cases that seek to protect and help children. As a member of the Plaintiffs’ Steering Committee, Leadership in In re: Social Media Adolescent Addiction/Personal Injury Products Liability Litigation (MDL No. 3047), Alex is working with other leading firms to hold tech giants Meta, TikTok, Google, and Snap Chat, for the harm their dangerous social media platforms have done to our kids. Alex is also lead counsel, along with partner Kim Channick, in some of the first cases brought under the Maryland’s 2023 Child Victims Act, seeking justice for survivors of child sexual abuse in the state’s juvenile detention facilities. Alex will also first-chair the next federal jury trial against commercial food manufacturers for the brain injuries caused by heavy metal contamination in their Happy Family and Earth’s best products.
Alex’s trial successes to date are well-recognized. She is a Fellow in the American College of Trial Lawyers and her victories have received accolades in the New York Law Journal, which included Alex’s billion-dollar jury award against media giant, Vivendi SA, to its Verdict Hall of Fame; by Law 360, which named Alex a Trial MVP of the Year for her decisive win in a major federal consumer fraud class action; and by Chambers and Partners, which recently named Alex as a Band 1 litigator for plaintiffs.
Before beginning her law practice, Alex served as law clerk to the Honorable Merrick B. Garland, then a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, and the Honorable Stephen G. Breyer, Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.
Alex attended Bowdoin College, where she graduated summa cum laude and was elected Phi Beta Kappa. After Bowdoin, Alex attended Stanford Law School, where she served on the Executive Board for the Law Review and won the school’s prize for Best Oral Advocate.
Judge James David Cain was nominated to the United States District Court for the Western District of Louisiana in 2018 and confirmed by the United States Senate on July 1, 2019, by a vote of 77-21. During the three-year period of 2020-2023, Judge Cain handled more first party insurance cases than any other judge in the Nation: 6,877 cases.
Judge Cain attended McNeese State University on a basketball scholarship where he graduated with a degree in Finance and Economics. He received his Juris Doctorate from Southern University Law Center in 1993, graduating cum laude. Upon graduating from law school, Judge Cain clerked for the Hon. Henry Yelverton of the Louisiana Third Circuit Court of Appeals. Prior to entering law school, Judge Cain served three years as a Congressional aide to U.S. Representative Jimmy Hayes who served Louisiana’s 7th Congressional District.
Prior to his service on the Federal Bench, Judge Cain was a founding member and partner of the Lake Charles based firm Loftin, Cain & LeBlanc, LLC. Judge Cain practiced law in Southwest Louisiana for 26 years focusing on civil trial Litigation.
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The chair of Lieff Cabraser’s Economic Injury Product Defect Practice Group, partner Jason L. Lichtman has extensive experience leading multidistrict and large class action litigation on behalf of consumer plaintiffs. With a practice focused on consumer protection, data privacy, and damages, Jason recently recovered more than $122 million in economic value for coffee farmers in the Kona region who sued nearly two dozen companies for selling “Kona coffee” that was not coffee from Kona. The Court described Jason as conducting one “of the most impressive class action cases I have dealt with in my time on the federal bench,” adding that his results in the litigation were “great for justice” because this was a case with “a real result that makes people whole again.”
Numerous other courts have also appointed Jason to leadership positions in large consumer protection cases, in which he has recovered more than $500 million for his clients, including the exploding Samsung Top-Loading Washing Machines case (Co-Lead Counsel); the Whirlpool Corp. Front-Loading Washer products liability litigation (Co-Lead Counsel); and the Dover v. British Airways airline overcharging case (Class Counsel). In the Whirlpool Defective Washers Products Liability litigation, Jason served as Co-Chair of the Law and Motion Committee, one of the trial counsel, and Lead Settlement Counsel, achieving a nationwide settlement strongly favorable to plaintiffs following a bellwether trial, multiple appeals to the Sixth and Seventh Circuits (all won by plaintiffs), and multiple petitions for certiorari (all defeated by plaintiffs). Jason has also secured major victories as counsel of record before numerous federal appellate courts.
Jason’s practice also includes a focus on complex damages issues, including in the Anthem Data Breach Litigation and Marriott Data Breach litigation, leading plaintiffs’ work with damages experts, including the development of highly technical, comprehensive experts reports, defending depositions of plaintiffs’ experts, and taking defendants’ experts’ depositions. The Marriott case remains pending, but Jason’s work contributed heavily to the groundbreaking settlement for plaintiffs of $115 million in Anthem, as well as significant injunctive relief targeting deficient Anthem’s cybersecurity practices. Jason also serves on the board of directors for Public Justice Foundation and is past Chair of the Public Justice Class Action Committee. Public Justice is devoted to standing up for consumers against unscrupulous payday lenders, reckless polluters, dangerous food producers, and other bad corporate actors. A multiple-year “Super Lawyer” for the New York area, he also served on the Law360 Privacy and Consumer Protection Editorial Advisory Board, providing feedback on Law360’s news coverage, including case updates, policy developments, and trends in various industries.
Dan Schwartz works for individuals, small businesses, and public clients in complex multidistrict, commercial, public client, and class action litigations and arbitrations. An experienced litigator with deep knowledge of a wide range of matters, Dan has successfully represented clients in high stakes disputes involving, among other things, affirmative and defensive antitrust claims, fraud, the False Claims Act, consumer privacy, FLSA class and collective actions, trade secret misappropriation, the Anti-Kickback Statute, defamation, securities fraud, toxic tort, bankruptcy, the Affordable Care Act, and patent matters.
Dan has also represented clients on appeal in a number of significant cases in state and federal courts, including arguing a First Amendment matter of first impression in the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. He previously worked for several major international law firms and clerked for the Honorable Carlos T. Bea of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
Dan graduated magna cum laude from New York University School of Law and was elected to the Order of the Coif. Prior to his legal career, Dan graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Vassar College and earned a Master of Arts from Brandeis University. He is a proficient Russian speaker.
Dena Sharp is dedicated to finding common-sense solutions in even the most complex litigation. Most recently, she served as co-lead counsel in the In re Juul Labs Inc. multidistrict litigation, which resulted in recoveries of nearly $2 billion for individual consumers, school districts, municipalities, and Native American tribes. The last of the Juul settlements—for $235 million with Altria (formerly Philip Morris)—was reached after Dena and her co-lead trial counsel rested the plaintiff’s case in a bellwether jury trial against the tobacco giant.
Dena currently serves as co-lead counsel in In re Xyrem Antitrust Litigation and In re California Gasoline Spot Market Antitrust Litigation. She also serves as a member of the End-Payer Steering Committee in the massive In re Generic Pharmaceuticals Pricing Antitrust Litigation, and as co-lead counsel in In re Google Digital Advertising Antitrust Litigation and in various life sciences and statutory damage matters. Dena previously led a team to a $104.75 million recovery on the eve of trial in a certified “pay-for-delay” antitrust class action concerning the drug Lidoderm, which delivered the largest recovery for a class of end-payers in similar federal litigation in more than decade.
Dena tries cutting-edge cases. In a first-of-its-kind jury trial in 2021, Dena and team represented clients whose eggs and embryos were in a freezer tank at a fertility clinic that failed. After a three-week trial, the jury returned a $15 million verdict for the plaintiffs, leading to a global resolution with the tank manufacturer for the dozens of households represented by Girard Sharp. Outside the courtroom, Dena chairs the board of directors of the Impact Fund, a public interest nonprofit. She is an elected member of the American Law Institute, sits on the board of advisors for the Center for Litigation and the Courts at the UC College of the Law, San Francisco, and serves on the executive committee of the local chapter of the Federal Bar Association. Dena co- wrote a chapter in the ABA’s “Class Action Strategy and Practice Guide,” and the widely-cited Sedona Principles: Best Practices and Principles for Electronic Document Production (Third Edition). She is the immediate past co-chair for the Northern District of California’s Lawyer Representatives to the Ninth Circuit Judicial Council.
Dena was recognized as the 2023 “Lawyer of the Year” in San Francisco for Plaintiffs’ Mass Tort / Class Action Litigation by Best Lawyers in America, and selected as a “Titan of the Plaintiffs’ Bar” by Law360 in April 2023. Dena has three times been named to the National Law Journal’s “Elite Women of the Plaintiffs’ Bar,” honoring her as one of only a handful of lawyers nationwide who has “consistently excelled in high-stakes matters on behalf of plaintiffs.” The Daily Journal has also recognized her as one of the “Top Antitrust Lawyers in California” and “Top Women Lawyers” in California. In 2023, Dena was selected as one of the Top 100 Super Lawyers in Northern California, and since 2020 she has been recognized by San Francisco magazine as one of the “Top 50 Women Attorneys in Northern California.”
Dena is a graduate, cum laude, of the University of California College of the Law, San Francisco, and earned her undergraduate degree from Brown University, where she graduated magna cum laude. A first-generation American, Dena is fluent in Spanish and German.
Sheila L. Birnbaum, a partner in Dechert’s product liability and mass torts practice, focuses on complex product liability, mass torts and insurance litigation. She is one of the country’s preeminent product liability defense lawyers, having served as national counsel or lead defense counsel for numerous Fortune 500 companies in some of the largest and most complex tort cases in the United States. She has also argued many influential appeals in appellate courts across the United States, including the U.S. Supreme Court.
Ms. Birnbaum is national co-counsel for Purdue Pharma in over 1,000 federal and state lawsuits brought by state attorneys general, cities, municipalities, hospitals, third-party payers and others arising out of the marketing of opioid medications. She was co-lead counsel for Pfizer in over 600 birth defects cases in a multidistrict litigation (MDL) pending in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, alleging that the use of Zoloft during pregnancy caused birth defects. The team won a key Daubert ruling striking Plaintiffs’ experts and dismissing the cases on summary judgment, which was affirmed by the Third Circuit. She also served as co-national counsel for Pfizer in defending claims by thousands of Plaintiffs alleging Pfizer’s statin medication, Lipitor, caused them to develop type 2 diabetes. Thousands of cases were dismissed on summary judgment after the MDL judge in South Carolina struck Plaintiffs’ experts in a Daubert ruling that was affirmed by the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. Ms. Birnbaum is also representing Saint Gobain Performance Plastics in medical monitoring class actions and personal injury cases arising out of ground water containing perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA). She was a lead national counsel for Wyeth in their hormone therapy litigation in both federal and state court and led the company’s strategy in negotiating thousands of settlements to end the litigation.
Ms. Birnbaum has won three cases in the U.S. Supreme Court, including State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company v. Campbell where the Supreme Court reversed a US$145 million punitive damages award against the company as unconstitutionally excessive. She won a unanimous victory in the U.S. Supreme Court in Warger v. Shauers. The case resolved a long- standing circuit split regarding the application of Federal Rules of Evidence 606(b), which generally prohibits testimony of jurors about statements made during deliberations when the testimony is offered in an inquiry into the validity of a verdict. She also successfully argued Buckley v. Metro North, a landmark case involving medical monitoring and risk of injury.
As the court-appointed mediator in federal court, Ms. Birnbaum mediated a US$500 million settlement for 92 families of victims of the 2001 World Trade Center terrorist attack. In 2011, Attorney General Eric Holder appointed her to serve as special master of the reactivated September 11th Victim Compensation Fund. She distributed nearly US$2 billion to claimants over the five years she oversaw the fund.
In addition to her legal achievements, Ms. Birnbaum has led an active career as an academic, becoming the first tenured woman professor of law at Fordham University Law School, and was a professor of law and associate dean at New York University School of Law.
Ms. Birnbaum has been recognized by many organizations as an outstanding lawyer. She has been named by Fortune as one of the 50 most powerful women in American business, Chambers USA as a “star individual” in the area of product liability, and Crain’s New York Business as one of the 25 most influential women in New York business. She is consistently ranked as a leading lawyer by many legal publications. The National Law Journal has recognized her multiple times as one of the “100 most outstanding members of the legal profession,” in addition to being profiled as one of three most outstanding lawyers of the year. In 2010, Ms. Birnbaum was named one of the “10 Most Admired Product Liability Attorneys” of the year by Law360 and was chosen as the leading product liability lawyer in the world by Who’s Who Legal in its product liability defense lawyers category each year since its inception in 2005. Chambers USA describes her as the “queen of mass torts” and “a powerhouse and a go to lawyer.” In 2020, Ms. Birnbaum was selected as one of Law360's MVPs of the Year in the Product Liability category. Ms. Birnbaum is a member of Dechert's nationally recognized team of product liability and mass tort lawyers, ranked Band 1 for Nationwide Product Liability & Mass Torts: The Elite by Chambers USA, named in 2018 and 2019 as Practice Group of the Year for Product Liability by Law360, and Litigation Department of the Year for Product Liability by New York Law Journal in 2019 and 2020. Recently, Ms. Birnbaum was listed by BTI Consulting Group as a 2022 Client Service All-Star.
She has received numerous other honors, including the Margaret Brent Women Lawyers of Achievement Award from the American Bar Association, the John L. McCloy Memorial Award from the Fund for Modern Courts and the Law and Society Award from the New York Lawyers for the Public Interest. She is also the recipient of the New York University Law Alumni Award for outstanding achievement in the legal profession, the George A. Katz Torch of Learning Award and the Milton S. Gould Award for Outstanding Appellate Advocacy. Ms. Birnbaum was honored with the Louis D. Brandeis Award by the American Jewish Congress and an award from Touro Law School for achieving the highest standards of professional excellence. She is a member of the Hunter College Hall of Fame and a recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Benchmark Litigation Annual Awards and the New York Law Journal.
Laney Whitcanack is the CEO of Coro Northern California, a leadership development organization headquartered in San Francisco. Under Laney’s leadership, Coro has designed innovative leadership development experiences, programs, and strategies, for thousands of cross- sector clients at organizations like the University of California at San Francisco, Lieff Cabraser Heiman and Bernstein, Meta, Zynga, the University of California Office of the President, and the Federal Executive Bureau of the San Francisco Bay Area.
Prior to her role at Coro, Laney was a technology entrepreneur and executive, focused on building software solutions for communities to connect and organize. She served as Chief Community Officer and Executive Vice President at Federated Media Publishing, Inc. (FMP), following the acquisition of her software company, BigTent. As the founder and COO of BigTent, Laney and her team revolutionized online group organizing for parents, benefiting millions of parents and thousands of local parenting groups.
Laney holds a B.A. from UCLA, an MBA from the Simmons School of Management, and an Ed.M, focusing on Adult Leadership Development, from Harvard University. She is also a graduate of the Coro Fellows Program in Public Affairs. Laney is a board member of Project Glimmer and the Lafayette Library Foundation. A distinguished author and speaker on entrepreneurship, leadership, and community organizing, Laney was awarded the Jefferson Award for Public Service.
John A. Yanchunis leads the Class Action Department of Morgan & Morgan. Mr. Yanchunis’ practice— which began after completing a two-year clerkship with United States District Judge Carl O. Bue, Jr., Southern District of Texas—has concentrated on complex litigation and spans over 40 years, including class actions for over two-thirds of that time. Mr. Yanchunis has served as lead, co lead or in other leadership positions in numerous MDLs , most recently in the successful conclusion of a class case against Capital One and Amazon where he and his co leads obtained a settlement of $190 million for the class. He has been honored with the prestigious “AV” rating by Martindale-Hubbell. He has also been continuously recognized as a Florida Super Lawyer. In 2020 he was recognized as Florida Lawyer of the Year, he has been recognized on three occasions by Law360 as an MVP in the cybersecurity practice area, most recently in 2023, and twice as a Trailblazer in the area of cybersecurity .
Paul served as the 43rd Solicitor General of the United States from June 2005 until June 2008. Before his confirmation as Solicitor General, he served as Acting Solicitor General for nearly a year and as Principal Deputy Solicitor General for over three years.
Paul has argued over 100 cases before the United States Supreme Court, including McConnell v. FEC, Tennessee v. Lane, United States v. Booker, MGM v. Grokster, Hobby Lobby v. Burwell, Epic Systems Corp. v. Lewis, Rucho v. Common Cause, Facebook v. Duguid, and TransUnion v. Ramirez. Paul has argued more Supreme Court cases since 2000 than any lawyer in or out of government. He has also argued many important cases in the lower courts, including Walker v. Cheney, United States v. Moussaoui and NFL v. Brady.
Paul’s practice focuses on appellate matters, constitutional litigation and strategic counseling. He represents a broad array of clients in the Supreme Court and in federal and state appellate courts. Last year, for example, he successfully argued Supreme Court cases involving significant issues of energy regulation, statutory interpretation, state sovereign immunity and Article III standing, and successfully argued a trademark appeal in the Fourth Circuit, and a constitutional appeal before the en banc Eleventh Circuit.
Paul focuses on high-stakes appeals. In recent years, he successfully defended a $1.2 billion jury verdict for clients in a Tenth Circuit case, while securing the reversal of an over $2 billion jury verdict for another client in the Seventh Circuit and the approval of a nearly $1 billion dollar class action settlement in the Third Circuit. He has initiated major administrative law challenges and constitutional litigation against the federal government, such as the successful challenge to the HHS drug-pricing rule and threatened challenges that led to the withdrawal of the Treasury Department’s proposed cryptocurrency regulations. He also counsels clients on a variety of strategic legal questions, whether arising from pending legislation, government inquiries or ongoing litigation.
Paul has undertaken substantial pro bono engagements in the Supreme Court, such as twice successfully representing the defendant in Bond v. United States and successfully representing the Omaha Tribe in Nebraska v. Parker, the guardian ad litem in Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl, the defendant in Sekhar v. United States, a high school football coach in Kennedy v. Bremerton, and the Little Sisters of the Poor. Paul’s pro bono representation also precipitated the federal government’s confession of error in United States v. Rojas.
Following law school, Paul clerked for Judge Laurence H. Silberman of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and for Associate Justice Antonin Scalia of the U.S. Supreme Court. After his clerkships, he went on to serve as Chief Counsel of the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on the Constitution, Federalism and Property Rights.
Paul is a Distinguished Lecturer in Law at the Georgetown University Law Center, where he has taught in various capacities since 1998. He also serves as a Senior Fellow of the Law Center’s Supreme Court Institute. He is the Justice Joseph Story Distinguished Practitioner in Residence at the Gray Center at Scalia Law School.
Born in Chicago, IL, Mr. Freese is a graduate of Auburn University (B.A. 1982). Mr. Freese graduated from Cumberland School of Law (J.D. 1985), where he served as the Articles Editor of the Cumberland Law Review (1984-1985). Mr. Freese is licensed to practice in Alabama (1985) and Mississippi (2000). He is admitted to the following courts: Alabama Supreme Court; Mississippi Supreme Court; United States Courts of Appeals for the Fifth, Seventh, Ninth and Eleventh Circuits; United States District Courts for the Northern, Middle and Southern Districts of Alabama and the Northern and Southern Districts of Mississippi.
Experience
Mr. Freese has 34 years of courtroom experience as a trial lawyer. Mr. Freese represents clients in a number of cases each year that result in multi-million-dollar jury verdicts and settlements. His practice takes him throughout the United States. Mr. Freese regularly practices in multiple state and federal courts. Mr. Freese has always focused his practice on catastrophic injury, wrongful death, and mass tort litigation. Mr. Freese has for two decades handled complex medical device and pharmaceutical litigation.
He currently focuses on product liability, mass torts, pharmaceutical litigation, environmental litigation, consumer and commercial fraud, and class actions. In the past, Mr. Freese has obtained many multi-million-dollar verdicts and settlements in medical, commercial, environmental, and personal injury cases.
Legal Awards & Distinctions
Mr. Freese enjoys the 21st anniversary of his AV® rating from Martindale-Hubbell®, which signifies the highest rating in legal ability and ethical standards. This rating is achieved based on reviews submitted by his peers in the legal community.
Mr. Freese is a frequent speaker at CLE conferences. He has been an invited panelist at the Practicing Law Institute to lecture on predatory lending practices and consumer fraud. He has also lectured to the Alabama State Bar regarding environmental litigation and the Mississippi State Bar on medical malpractice and tort reform.
Amy has built a reputation in the plaintiffs’ bar for delivering results and justice to consumers and sexual assault survivors in class action and mass tort litigation. She secured a $73 million settlement in 2021 from UCLA on behalf of sexual assault survivors who brought claims against gynecologist Dr. James Heaps and achieved a historic $14.975 million dollar jury verdict as co-lead trial counsel on behalf of Pacific Fertility Center patients whose genetic material was destroyed in a catastrophic cryo-preservation tank failure. Media throughout the country have hailed the verdict as groundbreaking, and the Washington Post noted it as “a historic verdict that could have far-reaching consequences for the loosely regulated U.S. fertility industry.”
The Daily Journal recognized Amy among the Top Women Lawyers in California for 2021 and the Top Plaintiff Lawyers in California for 2021, and Northern California Super Lawyers named her a 2021 Super Lawyer. In 2020, Amy was elected co-chair of the American Association for Justice’s Class Action Litigation Group.
Amy currently represents clients in a variety of mass injury matters, including additional families in the Pacific Fertility Center matter, individuals harmed by the chemotherapy drug Taxotere (docetaxel), and individuals affected by the Porter Ranch/Aliso Canyon gas leak. She serves in a court-appointed leadership role in a mass action coordinating claims on behalf of 18,000 boys who suffered irreversible male breast growth after being prescribed the antipsychotic medication Risperdal. Amy has previously represented clients injured by transvaginal mesh, the birth control medications Yaz and Yasmin, and the diabetes drug Actos.
Amy is also a member of our California whistleblower attorney practice group, representing qui tam whistleblowers alleging false claims against the government in the medical industry. Amy currently represents a relator who was the first to file particular whistleblower allegations in 2013 that Kaiser Permanente was overcharging Medicare through improper diagnostic coding; the case was unsealed upon intervention by the federal government in 2021.
Prior to attending law school, Amy pursued a career in the financial sector, acting as the Accounting and Compliance Manager for the Marin County Federal Credit Union for almost seven years. Amy was a spring 2010 extern for the Honorable Marilyn Hall Patel of the United States District Court, Northern District of California. She received her J.D. magna cum laude from the University of California at Hastings and her two B.A. degrees summa cum laude from the University of Missouri.
Litigation Highlights
Pacific Fertility Center LitigationAmy served as co-lead trial counsel in a three-week trial on behalf of several patients who tragically lost eggs and embryos in a catastrophic cryo-preservation tank failure at San Francisco’s Pacific Fertility Center in 2018. The jury found the cryogenic tank manufacturer, Chart Inc., liable on all claims, and awarded $14.975 million in aggregate damages to the five plaintiffs. Amy leads the Gibbs Law Group team, which first filed the lawsuit in March 2018 with co-counsel, and represents dozens of PFC patients whose frozen eggs and embryos were harmed or destroyed as a result of the tank failure. This was the first trial in the consolidated litigation, and five additional trials against Chart are scheduled for 2022 and 2023.
A.B. v. The Regents of the University of California
Amy served as plaintiffs’ counsel representing patients of former UCLA OB-GYN Dr. James Heaps in a class action lawsuit alleging assault, abuse, and sexual harassment against both Dr. Heaps and UCLA. The litigation resulted in a $73 million dollar settlement to compensate over 5,500 women who received treatment from Dr. Heaps, as well as mandatory reforms to UCLA’s patient safety measures. The settlement received final approval in July 2021.
Kaiser Medicare Qui Tam Litigation
Amy and Gibbs Law Group filed a qui tam lawsuit on behalf of a relator stating whistleblower allegations that Kaiser Permanente overcharged Medicare through improper diagnostic coding. On July 31, 2021, the Attorney General’s office and the Department of Justice elected to intervene in this litigation, and it was brought out from under seal into the public record. The litigation is ongoing.
Sanborn v. Nissan North America
Amy represented car owners in Florida in a class action lawsuit alleging that 2008 and 2009 Nissan Altima vehicles had defective dashboards that would melt into a dangerous shiny and gooey surface in hot climates. The case was just two weeks from trial when the parties reached a settlement that provided dashboard replacements and reimbursements. The Court granted final approval of the settlement in January 2017.
Chase Bank U.S.A., N.A. “Check Loan” Contract Litigation
Key member of the litigation team in this multidistrict case alleging that Chase Bank wronged consumers by offering long-term fixed-rate loans, only to later more-than-double the required loan payments. The litigation resulted in a $100 million settlement with Chase eight weeks prior to trial.
Sugarman v. Ducati North America, Inc.
Represented Ducati motorcycle owners whose fuel tanks on their motorcycles degraded and deformed due to incompatibility with the motorcycles’ fuel. In January 2012, the Court approved a settlement that provided an extended warranty and repairs, writing, “The Court recognizes that class counsel assumed substantial risks and burdens in this litigation. Representation was professional and competent; in the Court’s opinion, counsel obtained an excellent result for the class.”
Douglas C. Monsour, or Doug Monsour, is a trial lawyer who handles important and significant injury cases in Texas and across the nation. He is one of a handful of trial lawyers who have successfully tried multiple pharmaceutical, medical device, and mass tort product liability cases as the lead lawyer. He also vigorously represents injured oil field workers, victims of 18-wheeler wrecks, industrial accident victims, and those that have been severely burned.
Doug is known for his abilities in the courtroom. Recently, Doug secured two major trial victories in the 3M Combat Arms version 2 earplug litigation. On December 10, 2021, a Tallahassee, Florida Federal Court jury awarded U.S. Army veteran T.J. Finley $22.5 million for hearing loss suffered due to his defective Combat Arms version 2 earplugs. A few months later, on April 29, 2022, a Federal Court jury in Gainesville, Florida awarded $2.2 million to U.S. Army veteran Jonathan Vaughn for his hearing loss suffered from wearing the defective Combat Arms version 2 earplugs. The Finley v. 3M verdict was listed by The National Law Journal as one of the Top 100 verdicts of 2021. In fact, this verdict was the very first verdict in the entire 3M litigation to ever make the Top 100 list. Both trials were defended by international law firm Kirkland & Ellis
Previously, in November 2014, Doug served as the lead lawyer in a transvaginal mesh case involving four women implanted with the Obtryx sling system to treat stress urinary incontinence. After an almost month-long trial, the jury returned a verdict for the plaintiffs in the amount of $18.5 million. This was the first verdict against Boston Scientific in the Federal Multi- District Litigation (MDL) for any of its incontinence sling products.(Wilson et al v. Boston Scientific Corp., WV, MDL 2326).
In 2004, Doug's trial skills were tested by pharmaceutical giant Wyeth. He served as lead lawyer in two very significant Fen-Phen cases. In the first case, Wyeth hired world famous defense lawyer Dan Webb of Chicago's legal Goliath, Winston & Strawn, to defend them. In the third week of the trial, Wyeth relented and settled for a confidential sum. In the second case, Wyeth retained Houston mega-firm Vinson & Elkins to defend them. Wyeth again relented, and just before closing arguments settled for a confidential sum
In addition to these trials, Doug has tried over thirty cases of various types including oil field injuries, defective drugs, defective medical devices, medical malpractice, trucking (18-wheeler) wrecks, industrial accidents, car wrecks, civil rights and malicious prosecution.
AWARDS
Doug is triple board certified. He is Board Certified in Personal Injury Trail Law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization. In addition, he is a Board Certified as a Civil Trial Advocate by the National Board of Trial Advocacy. Furthermore, he is Board Certified in Civil Pretrial Practice Advocacy by the National Board of Civil Pretrial Practice Advocacy.
In 2000, Doug became a member of the Million Dollar Advocates Forum an organization reserved for lawyers who have secured more than $1,000,000 in a single case. In 2004, 2007, 2008, and 2009, Doug was selected in Texas Monthly magazine as one of the "Rising Star" Lawyers in Texas. From 2009 through 2022 he has been selected as a Super Lawyer in Texas Monthly magazine every year. He has also been voted the Best Lawyer in Longview, Texas by the Longview New-Journal.
LEADERSHIP ROLES AND APPOINTMENTS
Doug's abilities as lawyer have repeatedly been recognized by judges across the country as he has been appointed to help lead many significant litigations.
Doug is currently serving on the Executive Committee for the 3M Combat Arms version 2 earplug litigation. In addition, Doug is the Chair of Science & Experts Subcommittee. Doug was appointed to both positions by U.S. District Judge M. Casey Rodgers. Doug's work in the 3M litigation has included numerous corporate depositions, expert depositions, and development of the entire plaintiffs' slate of expert. In fact, the depositions taken by Doug have been used in every trial against 3M involving the CAEv2 earplug.
Prior to his current role in the 3M earplug litigation, Doug has held the following appointed positions (in chronological order):
In 2001, he was appointed to the Plaintiff's Liaison Committee for Fen-Phen Region 1. In this capacity, he served as the lead lawyer for all Fen-Phen cases in Northeast Texas. Doug tried the only two Round 2 cases to go to trial in Region 1.
In April 2008, United States Federal District Judge Don Middlebrooks of Southern District of Florida appointed Doug to serve on the Plaintiff's Steering Committee of In re Trasylol Litigation. In this capacity, Doug traveled across America, and to Europe, to investigate the conduct of Bayer concerning its drug, Trasylol. He took the depositions of many of the most important Bayer executives in the litigation.
In 2011, Judge Rebecca Pallmeyer appointed Doug as a member of the Plaintiff's steering committee for MDL 2172: In re: Zimmer NexGen Knee Products Liability Litigation, United States District Court, Northern District of Illinois. In this litigation, Doug has deposed many significant witnesses for the plaintiffs.
In 2012, Doug was appointed to the Plaintiffs' Steering Committee for the Transvaginal Mesh Litigation by Federal Judge Joseph R. Goodwin. In that capacity, Doug has taken the lead in many critical depositions against Boston Scientific Corp. and Ethicon (a Johnson and Johnson company). He has also tried two mesh cases as the lead lawyer.
EDUCATION
Rice University, 1991. B.A. in Economics and Political Science.
Texas Tech School of Law, 1994. Magna Cum Laude. Executive Board of Editors, Texas Tech Law Review.
FAMILY
Since 1994, Doug has been married to the former Sarah Lenhart. They have been blessed with three wonderful children, two sons and a daughter. Doug has coached his sons in T-ball, baseball, basketball, and soccer. Doug's favorite activities with his family are hunting with his sons, spending time at the lake, traveling, and being a frustrated Dallas Cowboys fan. All three of Doug's children attend or graduated from the University of Texas in Austin. Sarah Monsour is also a Longhorn. As might be expected, Doug is a dedicated Longhorn fan!
Chairing the firm’s Litigation section in Dallas, Tim Hudson is a trial lawyer who provides tailored counsel and representation for clients in matters involving product liability and mass torts in multidistrict litigation (MDL), as well as commercial litigation and trade secrets. Tim currently serves as national coordinating counsel and trial counsel for one of the nation’s largest medical device manufacturers.
With nearly 20 years of experience, Tim has significant experience defending major pharmaceutical, medical device, and life sciences companies in product liability actions. He has successfully tried cases to verdict in multiple states across the country, advises various business and manufacturers, and regularly represents clients in complex litigation involving product liability, business torts, and trade secrets. Tim also assists clients in relation to FDA labeling, compliance, and regulatory issues.
Tim is well-regarded by his clients, due to his honed and sought-after skills in defending, preparing, and trying cases, including taking plaintiff and expert depositions, and arguing discovery, dispositive and other pretrial motions.
In addition to counseling some of the nation’s largest medical device and pharmaceutical manufacturers on product liability claims, Tim regularly consults with businesses regarding the identification and protection of company trade secrets, and other confidential and proprietary assets. His trade secret experience involves representing clients in numerous industries in temporary restraining order (TRO) and temporary injunction proceedings. He also guides those facing issues relating to misappropriation of trade secrets, and represents clients in related bet-the-company litigation and disputes involving business ventures and departing employees. Tim is also a frequent speaker and author on matters relating to trade secret law in Texas.
Professional and Community Involvement
Honors
A skilled communicator and passionate advocate for her clients, Kristen has a record of delivering creative and proactive solutions – whatever the stage of the litigation and no matter her client’s place in the product supply chain. With a background as a general commercial litigator, Kristen’s practice focuses on defending the manufacturers of major pharmaceutical, medical device, consumer health and beauty, and retail products in high stakes litigation.
Kristen’s experience spans various state and federal jurisdictions, including several multidistrict litigations and coordinated proceedings across the country. Her strengths range from managing discovery, to preparing and defending fact and expert witnesses, from drafting dispositive and critical motions, to negotiating and implementing individual and mass tort settlements for her clients.
Kristen is a proactive, strategic and pragmatic attorney. She prides herself on her ability to communicate effectively orally and in writing, build consensus and coordinate strategy across attorneys and defense teams, and facilitate client objectives efficiently and with minimal business interruption.
Prior to joining Barnes & Thornburg, Kristen served as a law clerk to the Hon. Julio M. Fuentes in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.
Honors
Los Angeles Business Journal, Women’s Leadership Series & Awards, Qualified Nominee, 2020 Law360 Rising Star, 2021
Ms. Baxter-Kauf’s practice is concentrated in the firm’s data breach, antitrust law, business litigation, and securities litigation practice groups. She represents individuals, consumers, financial institutions and small businesses in litigation to protect their rights and, most often, the rights of the class members they seek to represent. Ms. Baxter-Kauf is a 2011 magna cum laude and Order of the Coif graduate of the University of Minnesota Law School. In 2018, she was one of only five attorneys nationally named a Rising Star by Law360 in the area of Cybersecurity & Privacy, was recognized as an Up & Coming Attorney by Minnesota Lawyer magazine in 2016, and for each of 2015-2021, has been named one of Minnesota’s Rising Stars by Minnesota Law & Politics magazine. Prior to joining the firm, Ms. Baxter-Kauf clerked for the Honorable Alan C. Page, the Honorable Helen M. Meyer, and the Honorable Christopher J. Dietzen, Associate Justices of the Minnesota Supreme Court.
Before law school, Ms. Baxter-Kauf was an award-winning coach of high school and college policy debate teams across the country and facilitated debate teams at Twin Cities urban middle and high schools. She coached the 2003 National Forensic League policy debate national champions.
Paul Karlsgodt serves as the leader of BakerHostetler’s Privacy and Digital Risk Class Action and Litigation team. He is an international thought leader in class action defense with more than 20 years of experience defending hundreds of consumer class actions.
Paul has significant experience defending class actions in the complex and cutting-edge area of data privacy on behalf of companies and organizations in a variety of industries. He has served as lead counsel for defendants in class action litigation arising out of data breach incidents of all sizes, and affecting numerous industries and governmental entities. He also defends clients in other privacy class actions arising out of corporate digital advertising and customer data collection practices, as well as class actions seeking the recovery of statutory damages.
Recognized by Chambers USA in Litigation, Paul was also named a Law360 Privacy MVP (2014 and 2015) and a National Law Journal “CyberSecurity & Data Privacy Trailblazer.” Paul is also a frequent speaker and commentator on class action law and privacy litigation
Experience
Mark's practice focuses on intellectual property, data privacy, antitrust, and class actions. He has resolved more than 400 cases in litigation, and is the go-to litigator for his technology clients. Companies look to Mark as their trusted advisor and litigator in new areas of the law and emerging technologies. In 2020, Mark acted as an outside policy advisor to one of the U.S. presidential candidates, while also working on the passage of the California Privacy Rights and Enforcement Act. In 2022, Mark was named one of the Lawdragon 500 Leading Litigators in America.
Mark has successfully defended numerous organizations through difficult high-stakes IP disputes, including patent, trade secret, and copyright and trademark litigation. The consumer class actions he resolves often include evolving privacy and regulatory issues, such as in the areas of data breach and misuse, product liability, wiretap acts, consumer data-reporting, and unfair and deceptive acts and practices litigation. He has been one of the firm’s lead attorneys in numerous high stakes business and consumer litigation against Google, involving some of the most important antitrust and technology issues of our time.
Mark has advised organizations on the launch of hundreds of products and services, in addition to handling their regulatory responses with federal and state regulators. Mark has supported a broad spectrum of data-driven products, including the internet of things, autonomous vehicles, smart infrastructure, automation/machine learning, real-time targeting technologies, digital media, shared/gig economies, augmented and virtual reality, gaming, fintech, blockchain technology, aggregation technologies, broadband, and security software and hardware.
Mark was one of the first Fellows of Informational Privacy (FIP) of the International Association of Privacy Professionals (IAPP), and is highly regarded in the tech industry as an important thought leader and writer on data-based technologies. Mark was previously an IT consultant at Arthur Andersen Consulting LLP, implementing database software.
Mark is a proud first-generation immigrant from Taiwan, and still fully fluent in Mandarin Chinese. He has served as outside counsel for some of Asia’s largest international companies.
Robert “Mike” Brock is a nationally recognized trial lawyer with 25 years of experience handling high-stakes, bet-the-business litigation. His practice focuses on representing pharmaceuticals and life sciences companies, particularly in product liability and mass tort cases. He has tried cases in a wide range of areas and has represented clients in antitrust, malpractice, toxic tort and securities class action litigation, as well as in other types of cases. Mike is a fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers.
Mike has represented companies in some of the most high-stakes litigation in recent history. He currently serves as lead trial lawyer for BP in the Deepwater Horizon oil spill litigation. His trial performance has been highly praised and widely reported in the press. According to the Financial Times, one legal professional said that “in a courtroom full of top-tier legal talent,” Mike was particularly impressive, delivering “one of the most methodical and skillful cross-examinations I have seen” in 25 years.
Mike has also been exceptionally successful in his representations of leading pharmaceutical companies in product liability cases. He secured jury verdicts for Merck in a Fosamax® case in New York City and for AstraZeneca in its first Seroquel® lawsuit in New Brunswick, NJ. He also served as lead trial counsel to Merck in several Vioxx® cases, securing wins in Alabama, California, Florida and New Jersey. Recently, he has served as lead trial counsel for Pfizer in its Chantix® litigation and for Boehringer Ingelheim in litigation concerning Pradaxa®.
Mike is recognized by various legal publications as a first-class trial lawyer in products liability and mass tort litigation. He has been selected as a “leading lawyer” by Chambers USA, America's Leading Lawyers for Business every year since 2009 and the current edition describes him as “a seasoned trial lawyer who boasts impressive experience representing a range of defendants in high-stakes product liability trials.” Sources for the guide say he is “one of the elite trial lawyers in the U.S.” with a “great courtroom presence” and an ability to “take complex issues and break them down in a way that’s accessible and understandable” and is “a first-rate first-chair trial lawyer” who “is front and center” in major disputes. He was also listed in the 2015–2023 editions of Chambers Global, The World's Leading Lawyers for Business. The Legal 500 U.S. selected Mike to the "Hall of Fame" in 2021–2023 and as a "leading lawyer" in 2014, 2015, 2018, 2019 and 2020 for Product Liability, Mass Tort and Class Action: Pharmaceuticals and Medical Devices, and singled him out as a “renowned trial lawyer.” He is also recognized by Benchmark Litigation as a “National Star.”
Prior to joining Kirkland, Mike was a partner at Covington & Burling LLP, where he was the chair of their product liability and mass torts practice.
In the complex and ever-evolving realm of mass tort litigation, expertise and insight are paramount.
As someone deeply immersed in this dynamic field, Andy brings a wealth of knowledge and experience to the table. With a comprehensive understanding of the intricate legal landscape, a keen awareness of the latest trends, and a track record of successfully assisting firms on acquiring mass tort cases, he has established himself as a trusted authority in this specialized area.
LICENSED IN: MA, MN, NY, RI, SC
ADMITTED TO PRACTICE BEFORE:
U.S. Court of Appeals for the First, Fourth, and Eleventh Circuits; U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island, District of
Massachusetts, and Northern, Southern and Eastern Districts of New York
EDUCATION:
M.A./J.D., Syracuse University, 1993
A.B., Brown University, 1988
Building upon his experience in complex asbestos cases, the historic tobacco lawsuits and the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks litigation, Don Migliori is a multifaceted litigator who can navigate both the courtroom and the negotiating table. He represents victims of defective medical devices and drugs, occupational diseases, terrorism, aviation disasters, antitrust, and securities and consumer fraud in mass torts and other cutting-edge litigation that spans the country.
Don serves in leadership roles for a number of multidistrict litigations, including being a key member of Motley Rice’s team that represents dozens of cities, towns, counties and townships in the National Prescription Opiate MDL against opioid manufacturers and distributors. He also represents states in similarly filed litigation. He played a significant role in negotiations on behalf of tens of thousands of women allegedly harmed by pelvic mesh/sling products and served as co-liaison counsel in the N.J. Bard pelvic mesh litigation in Atlantic County. Hundreds of cases have been filed in federal and state courts against multiple defendants.
He is also co-lead counsel for In re Ethicon Physiomesh Flexible Composite Hernia Mesh Products Liability Litigation, a member of the Plaintiffs’ Steering Committee for In re Bard IVC Filters Products Liability Litigation, as well as the Depuy® Orthopaedics, Inc. ASR™ and Pinnacle® Hip Implant MDLs. Don has litigated against both Ethicon, a Johnson & Johnson subsidiary, and C.R. Bard previously in pelvic mesh litigation and also against C.R. Bard in the Composix® Kugel® hernia mesh multidistrict litigation, In re Kugel Mesh Hernia Patch Products Liability Litigation, the first MDL before the federal court of Rhode Island. Don also serves as co-lead plaintiffs’ counsel and liaison counsel in the federal MDL, and as liaison counsel for the Composix® Kugel® Mesh lawsuits consolidated in Rhode Island state court on behalf of thousands of individuals alleging injury by the hernia repair patch.
As liaison counsel for all wrongful death and personal injury cases in the September 11th aviation security litigation, Don played a central role in the extensive discovery, mediations and settlements of more than 50 cases of aviation liability and damages against numerous defendants. He also represented families of the victims who opted out of the Victim Compensation Fund to seek greater answers, accountability and recourse. Additionally, he manages associated litigation as a lead attorney for In re Terrorist Attacks on September 11, 2001, MDL #1570, a groundbreaking case designed to bankrupt the financiers of al Qaeda.
Don contributed his experience in connection with the commencement of and strategy for shareholder derivative litigation brought on behalf Chiquita Brands International, Inc., alleging the defendants breached their fiduciary duties by paying bribes to terrorist organizations in violation of U.S. and Columbian law. He also served as trial counsel for PACE Industry Union-Management Pension Fund in a securities case against Forest Laboratories, Inc., and was involved in the initial liability discovery and trial strategy in an ongoing securities fraud class action involving Household International, Inc.
Don began working with Motley Rice attorneys in 1997 on behalf of the State Attorneys General in the historic lawsuit against Big Tobacco, resulting in the largest civil settlement in U.S. history. He tried several noteworthy asbestos cases on behalf of mesothelioma victims, including the state of Indiana’s first contractor liability verdict and first premises liability verdict for wrongful exposure to asbestos. He continues to manage asbestos cases and actively litigates mesothelioma lawsuits and individual tobacco cases in the courtroom.
Don is a frequent speaker at legal seminars across the country and has appeared on numerous television and radio programs, as well as in print media to address legal issues related to terrorist financing, aviation security, class action litigation, premises liability and defective medical devices. A "Distinguished Practitioner in Residence" at Roger Williams University School of Law for the 2010-2011 academic year, Don taught mass torts as an adjunct professor for more than 10 years. Don is an AV® rated attorney by Martindale- Hubbell®.
AWARDS AND ACCOLADES:
Chambers USA
2021 Product Liability: Plaintiffs – Nationwide, Band 3
Best Lawyers® Charleston, SC
2020 "Lawyer of the Year" Mass tort litigation/class actions – plaintiffs
2011–2024 Mass tort litigation/class actions – plaintiffs
Super Lawyers® lists
2018–2021 South Carolina Super Lawyers: Class action/mass torts; Personal Injury – products: plaintiff; Aviation and aerospace 2009–2017 Rhode Island Super Lawyers
2012–2013 Top 10 Rhode Island Super Lawyers lists
The National Trial Lawyers
2010–present Top 100 Trial Lawyers™: Rhode Island
Lawdragon
2018–2024 Lawdragon 500
2019–2023 Lawdragon 500 Plaintiff Consumer Lawyers
2019–2023 Lawdragon 500 Plaintiff Financial Lawyers
2010 Lawdragon 3,000
Rhode Island Lawyers Weekly
2020 Leader in the Law
2011 Lawyer of the Year
Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly
2011 Lawyers of the Year
Benchmark Plaintiff
2012–2014 Rhode Island “Litigation Star”: human rights and product liability
Providence Business News
2005 Forty Under 40
ASSOCIATIONS:
Law360 Product Liability Editorial Advisory Board, 2019, 2021
American Association for Justice, Board of Governors; former Executive Committee member
American Bar Association
Rhode Island Association for Justice, former President
The Fellows of the American Bar Foundation
James R. Dugan, II, is the founding partner of The Dugan Law Firm, APLC. Mr. Dugan began his career working with the late Wendell H. Gauthier and the Law Firm of Gauthier, Downing, LaBarre, Beiser & Dean in the areas of class action, mass tort, and complex litigation, beginning with the seminal class action lawsuit filed against the tobacco industry on the basis of nicotine addiction, Castano v. American Tobacco, et al. which resulted in a multi-billion settlement. After Mr. Gauthier’s untimely death in December of 2001, Mr. Dugan formed the Dugan & Browne Law Firm, the predecessor to The Dugan Law Firm and he continues to specialize in class action and mass tort litigation.
Mike Morgan, a native Floridian, is a personal injury lawyer based in Orlando, Florida. As a personal injury lawyer, he specializes in such cases as medical malpractice, insurance bad faith, wrongful death, defective products, premises liability, professional accidents, injuries caused by auto accidents and other personal injury cases on behalf of the victims or their families.
Mr. Morgan has successfully represented thousands of clients in mediation, negotiation, arbitration and litigation. Mike, as well as the entire team at Morgan and Morgan, does not represent insurance companies or large corporations. Rather, he has helped recover millions on behalf of thousands of injured people.
How the product safety team works
As the head of product safety, which is a combination of practices such as mass tort, product liability and fire litigation groups, Mr. Morgan works with a team of highly experienced attorneys who’ve handled personal injury cases like yours. However, each case is handled individually as it is unique.
Injury victims normally suffer financial stress and emotional trauma after an accident. Mike seeks to level the playing field by representing individuals who do not have the same privileges or legal representation as to the corporations that injured them. Being aware of the financial burden that follows an accident, Morgan and Morgan adopts a contingency fee model. This implies that once you give us the go-ahead to handle your case, you will incur no upfront costs nor any hourly fees. You only pay us after we win your case.
With the vast resources at his disposal, Mr. Morgan goes out of his way to discover the circumstances and facts that surround your case. In his practice as a personal injury litigator, Mike has come across and had access to nationally recognized consultants and experts from diverse fields such as investigators, auto accident reconstruction experts and medical practitioners who will help build a strong case.
With the understanding that not everyone wants to sue, Mr. Morgan will in most cases recommend a suit only after other settlement possibilities have been explored.
What makes Mike Morgan stand out?
Mike’s proven track record of exceptional settlements can be attributed to his attention to detail, outstanding oral and writing skills, and aggressive advocacy. He adopts a hands-on approach and works closely with clients to map out a strategy so that they obtain the maximum compensation.
Some of his recent settlements include the McClain Brian and Yegelwel Hoce vs. Harris R-Li Sales case in which Mr. Morgan won a settlement of $2,047,000 and the Barnes vs. Molinaro case for which the verdict was a $166,000 settlement.
Mr. Morgan supports numerous charities including the Make-A-Wish Foundation and the Frozen Turkeys as a way of giving back to the community.
Elizabeth Middleton Burke uses the law and science to help people injured by pharmaceutical drugs, medical devices and other medical errors.
Beth proudly advocates on behalf of consumers who rely on the pharmaceutical industry for safe and effective treatments. As a member of RPWB’s pharmaceutical and medical device team, she enjoys the challenge of investigating, organizing and litigating science-based cases for the benefit of clients who were not warned about the serious side effects they experienced.
She was born in Hartsville, South Carolina, and grew up in Lake City. As an undergrad, Beth was preparing for medical school when she decided her academic strengths were better suited for law school. She clerked for the Hon. Paula H. Thomas before beginning her career in pharmaceutical litigation at Suggs & Kelly in Columbia. She joined RPWB in 2003.
Many of the cases Beth works are on behalf of female patients who have been seriously injured by prescription medication. Pharmaceutical cases are inherently complicated and involve defendants with tremendous resources at their disposal. Beth has successfully stood up to the world’s largest corporations on behalf of consumers throughout the country.
In addition to pharmaceutical cases, Beth also accepts medical device, medical malpractice, product liability and catastrophic personal injury cases.
She is active with the Southern Trial Lawyers Association and American Association for Justice, where she currently chairs the Republican Trial Lawyers Caucus and the State Delegates. Beth serves as a Trustee of the College of Charleston, her beloved alma mater.
At the firm’s New York office, Mildred Conroy is an associate attorney in the Complex Litigation department. Since 2018, Mildred has been practicing law and fighting on behalf of clients who have been wronged by corporations. Mildred has considerable experience in Federal Court as an active and central member of several bellwether trial teams
Prior to joining Simmons Hanly Conroy, Mildred was an associate at Lanier Law Firm. At both firms, her clients were those who suffered injuries or harm by defective products and corporate negligence.
While at Lanier, Mildred worked on the Depuy Orthopaedics Pinnacle Hip Implant litigation, the Johnson & Johnson talc trial in St. Louis, and the National Prescription Opiate litigation MDL 2804.
Mildred was a critical member of the trial teams that received the following settlements and verdicts:
As part of the nationwide opioid litigation, Mildred also served on the trial team in San Francisco that secured a landmark victory for the people of San Francisco. Mildred’s particular focus was creating the liability storylines used each day in court as well as the overall day to day case management. This case was also a significant factor in driving Walgreen’s multibillion dollar, nationwide settlement.
In a milestone opinion, Judge Charles R. Breyer concluded that “the aggregate evidence that Plaintiff presented at trial was not only adequate to establish Walgreen’s culpability — it was devastating.”
Representative Cases
Adam Levitt is one of the nation’s leading advocates for plaintiffs in complex, multidistrict, class action, public client, mass tort, and commercial litigation. Drawing on his extensive experience pursuing and obtaining justice for those who have been wronged by powerful defendants, he co-founded DiCello Levitt to create a top-tier complex issues and trial firm founded on excellence, trust, and respect—where every team member’s voice and talents are valued.
In his decades-long career, Adam has scored numerous significant and precedent- setting victories, delivering more than $20 billion in recoveries to clients in biotechnology, financial services, securities, insurance coverage, consumer protection, automotive defects, agricultural products, and antitrust disputes. His reputation for innovatively taking on tough cases has led to his appointment to leadership positions in many historic and headline-grabbing litigations, including three of the largest biotechnology class actions in U.S. history, where he served as co-lead counsel, helped recover more than $1.7 billion on behalf of plaintiffs, and created a game-changing economic model to measure crop contamination damages that set the modern industry standard. He was also retained by multiple State Attorneys General to hold some of the world’s largest chemical companies accountable for widespread environmental contamination from their “forever chemicals” known as PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances). Also, as part of a leadership group characterized as a “class action dream team,” Adam helped secure a $16 billion settlement in litigation arising from Volkswagen’s emissions scandal, and, in a rare class action trial, he and his fellow co- lead counsel secured a milestone $102.6 million jury verdict against General Motors for hiding engine defects from consumers.
Adam is also a leader in the legal profession and a frequent speaker on multidistrict litigation, consumer protection, automotive litigation, biotechnology, corporate governance, securities litigation, and internet privacy. Nationally recognized as an authority on class action litigation, Adam writes a monthly class action column in The National Law Journal, has testified before the Illinois Supreme Court Rules Committee on class action practice, and chairs an annual class action litigation conference in Chicago.
As a founding partner of DiCello Levitt, Adam has cultivated a diverse roster of skilled litigators to advance the cause of justice for individuals, businesses, and public clients. The firm’s attorneys are highly respected for their ability to litigate and win cases and have secured billions of dollars in recoveries for their clients through class action, business-to-business, whistleblower, personal injury, civil rights, and mass tort litigation. They have worked on some of the highest-profile securities actions ever filed, developed game-changing legal theories to secure landmark wins against tech giants that misused and exposed massive troves of personal data, and held some of the world’s largest corporations accountable for endangering and harming American consumers. With a long history of working with public clients, Adam and his partners understand the wants and needs of government officials and their teams, and, as experts in trial practice and jury persuasion, they consistently achieve best-in-class results for their clients.
Adam’s own groundbreaking work on behalf of plaintiffs has been recognized locally and nationally in prestigious ranking directories, including Chambers USA, where he has received a Band 1 ranking for Mainly Plaintiffs Litigation in Illinois for three consecutive years. Chambers USA also ranked Adam in Illinois for General Commercial Litigation and nationwide for Product Liability Litigation, where the editors describe him as the “go-to plaintiffs’ attorney in the class actions space.” In 2021, 2022, and 2023, Benchmark Litigation named Adam a National Litigation Star and Securities and Litigation Star in Illinois. According to The National Law Journal, Adam is a “pioneer” in technology litigation. Crain’s Chicago Business has named him a Notable Litigator and Trial Attorney and a Notable Gen X Leader in Accounting, Consulting, and Law, and Lawdragon has named him one of the 500 Leading Plaintiff Financial Lawyers and one of the 500 Leading Plaintiff Consumer Lawyers in the United States. An elected member of the American Law Institute and the Economic Club of Chicago, Adam considers the formation of DiCello Levitt in 2017 to be a pivotal moment in his distinguished legal career. With a shared vision and commitment to helping people and businesses use the legal system to have their voices heard, he and his partners intend to maintain their industry-wide influence for years to come with a steadfast resolve for justice in all its dimensions.
Attorney Holly Nighbert is a partner in the Complex Litigation Department at Simmons Hanly Conroy, focusing her practice on prescription opioids, pharmaceutical, and other mass tort litigation. She represents everyday people, businesses, and municipalities who have been harmed by major corporations, particularly medical device and pharmaceutical manufacturers.
Since she started at the firm in 2012, she has helped recover over a billion dollars in verdicts and settlements on behalf of those harmed by corporate wrongdoing.
Evening the Playing Field
Holly became a lawyer to help people who need it most. Through her work, she seeks to even the playing field for the average person and their families or communities who were harmed by large pharmaceutical companies with unlimited resources.
“My clients are up against some of the largest companies in the world, and the work I’m doing to hold those companies accountable makes a very big difference for real, everyday people,” she said.
Holly has extensive experience litigating every aspect of a case, from signing the client to working up discovery and depositions or serving on the trial team in court. Her past representative cases include DePuy Pinnacle Hip Implants, Propecia, Transvaginal Mesh, Lipitor, Mirena, Invokana, Taxotere, and Wright Medical Hip Implants.
Fighting the Opioid Epidemic
Holly is a key member of the firm’s opioid litigation team, which represents local governments across the country in state and federal courts. The opioid lawsuits allege drug companies contributed to the opioid crisis by carelessly promoting painkillers and downplaying addiction risks. The litigation seeks to secure meaningful funds for communities that incurred millions in costs dealing with the estimated 400,000 opioid-related deaths since 1996.
Holly oversees casework and serves as the client contact for more than 125 opioid lawsuits filed on behalf of government entities in more than 18 states including New York, Illinois, Wisconsin, Louisiana, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Iowa, Indiana, and more. Coordinating with individual legislatures to ensure the settlements are accepted can be very complicated.
“It’s imperative that I have an in-depth understanding of the intricacies of the litigation because we have sophisticated clients who are attorneys themselves,” she said. “It’s my job to keep them updated and help move their cases forward.”
When she’s not working directly with her clients, she focuses on completing discovery, depositions, and trial preparation for both State and federal MDL cases. Holly also serves as a member of the trial teams, running the exhibit list for all cases and ensuring case-specific expert evidence and documents are prepared and ready. These trials often overlap, requiring a massive amount of organization.
In October 2019, Holly was instrumental in helping secure a total recovery of $325 million for Cuyahoga and Summit counties in Ohio in the first federal bellwether trial. The settlements avoided what would have been the first trial in the opioid MDL, with the remaining four defendants finalizing deals just hours before opening arguments were set to begin.
In November 2021, she helped secure a historic jury verdict holding pharmacy chains CVS, Walgreens, and Wal-Mart responsible for their role in the opioid epidemic in Lake and Trumbull counties in Ohio. It was the first jury verdict in an opioid case nationwide.
Also in 2021, Holly spent three months in West Virginia, the state with the highest overdose and death rates in the country. West Virginia refused to settle with distributors and instead went to trial. Holly ran all exhibits on-site until she was required on-site for the New York State trial and then continued to run exhibits for West Virginia remotely while also running exhibits for New York. This included collecting all county-specific documents, ensuring experts had the appropriate documents, and generally supplying the trial team with everything necessary to argue the case.
New York Opioid Trial
Holly played an integral part on the trial team that successfully litigated the nation’s first opioid case to be heard before a state jury and secured a liability verdict against the remaining defendants.
The trial began in June 2021 and lasted 7 months. It is believed to be the longest jury trial in New York history and included more than 800 exhibits, of which Holly helped oversee in her role as a key member of the trial team.
Leading up to the New York trial’s opening arguments, several original defendants, including Johnson & Johnson and the pharmacies CVS, Walgreens, Rite-Aid, and Wal-Mart, were severed from the trial. During the course of the trial, the team recovered more than $1.7 billion in settlements against opioid manufacturers and distributors.
San Francisco Opioid Trial
As part of the fourth bellwether case in the federal prescription opioid litigation, Holly helped secure $350 million in settlements for the city of San Francisco:
Holly also served as a member of the trial team for all bellwether trials for the DePuy Pinnacle MDL. Her work helped secure jury verdicts totaling more than $1.75 billion. She prepped witnesses, including plaintiffs and experts, and prepared exhibits and demonstratives. She also served as the coordinator between the courtroom and trial team’s war room, ensuring team lead Jayne Conroy had everything she needed during trial.
Holly earned her J.D. from the University of Dayton School of Law in Dayton, Ohio, where she graduated with honors. She also received a Pro Bono Commitment to Community award for her work helping Hurricane Katrina victims get needed relief from the U.S. government. In addition, Holly holds a B.A. in political science from Purdue University.
“I take pride in what I do,” Holly said. “Working diligently on a case and building lasting relationships with my clients are what make my job fulfilling.”
Representative Cases
Hannah Pfeifler joined the firm as an associate in 2020 after clerking for the Honorable David R. Proctor in the Northern District of Alabama. She received her Bachelor of Science from the University of Florida in 2016 and her Juris Doctorate from Florida State University College of Law in 2019.
Current Cases
Areas of Practice
Education
Sara Schramm recently joined the Hammers Law Firm in Atlanta, Georgia as a partner where she is working on Paragard, NEC, Ozempic and Suboxone Film MDLs. Sara previously served on the Early Vetting Subcommittee for the 3M Combat Arms Earplug MDL in the Northern District of Florida for the duration of that litigation and is currently working on 3M settlement administration as primary counsel for her clients. As a shareholder at her prior firm, Sara represented clients and provided support to leadership attorneys in the transvaginal mesh, hernia mesh, talcum powder and opiate litigations. Sara proudly served on the Talcum Powder MDL Bellwether team.
As an MDL team member, Sara is an empathetic communicator and a passionate advocate for clients. Early vetting of claims, individual case development and bellwether selections are where she spends a lot of her time. Sara worked through law school evening division as a clerk at one of the largest firms in New York City where she was part of the defense team on the Fen-Phen Diet Drug MDL. Her early practice years were spent on the defense side of asbestos litigation where she had the opportunity to travel to over 100 plaintiff depositions and hear the work histories and exposure stories directly from injured plaintiffs. These experiences inform her work on the plaintiff side.
Sara also volunteers her time as an advocate in her community and she is proud of the time and energy she devotes to serving children as a Court Appointed Special Advocate or CASA in the Piedmont Circuit in Georgia. As a passionate advocate and voice for children in the foster care system, Sara was awarded the “Deep End Advocacy Award” by Piedmont CASA in her first year in this role back in 2018.
Sara also serves on numerous local and national boards including her role as Board Chair of the Athens Area Community Foundation, and various roles within the American Association for Justice. Sara serves on the Membership Outreach Committee of AAJ and she is an active member of the AAJ Women Trial Lawyers Caucus. She is a past President of the Western Circuit Bar Association and she recently completed AAJ’s Leadership Academy training as part of a carefully selected leadership class.
Sara was raised in Iowa Falls, Iowa by public school educators. Prior to earning her Juris Doctorate from Brooklyn Law School, Sara graduated from the University of Georgia with her Bachelor of Arts with majors in History and Spanish Literature.
Mr. Bradford has been a partner at AWKO since he joined the firm in 2009. He specializes in the litigation and trials of complex cases. Brad heads up the firm’s single-event department, litigating significant injury and wrongful death cases resulting from defective products and trucking, motorcycle, and automobile accidents. Brad has obtained dozens of multi-million dollar verdicts and settlements on behalf of his personal injury clients.
Brad’s litigation and trials of complex cases extend to the firm’s mass-tort practice as well. Brad has been heavily involved AWKO’s litigation and trials against 3M in the Combat Arms earplug litigation. Brad was lead trial counsel in Vilsmeyer v. 3M, which resulted in a $50 million verdict on behalf of the Plaintiff in March of 2022. Brad was also lead trial counsel in Beal v. 3M, which resulted in a $77.5 million verdict on behalf of the Plaintiff in May of 2022. Brad served as trial counsel in two transvaginal mesh trials, one resulting in a $20 million verdict on behalf of the Plaintiff and the other resulting in a confidential settlement. Brad also litigated numerous other transvaginal mesh cases up to the courthouse steps resulting in confidential settlements on the eve of trial.
In addition to heading up the firm’s single-event practice, Brad is currently focusing on the 3M Combat Arms earplug litigation, sexual abuse cases against the Catholic clergy, and cancers caused by hair-straightening products.
An aggressive advocate for the rights of victims to pursue justice in the courts, Mr. Bradford has been recognized by Florida Trend magazine as a “Legal Elite” and by Florida Super Lawyers as a “Rising Star” in the area of personal injury law, representing a high degree of peer recognition and professional achievement for his work as a trial lawyer.
Mr. Bradford is an EAGLE member of the Florida Justice Association and formerly served as a member of the organization’s Board of Directors. He is also a past president of the First Circuit Trial Lawyers Association and a member of the American Association for Justice. Mr. Bradford frequently lectures about civil trial practice and complex litigation around the country.
Mr. Bradford received his Bachelor of Science degree from the University of South Alabama in 1995 and his law degree from the University of Alabama in 1999. Following graduation, Brad was a partner at Green and Bradford for ten years before joining AWKO in 2009. Brad is admitted to the Florida and Alabama bars and litigates and tries cases throughout the country.
Areas of Practice
Kim Branscome is a nationally renowned trial lawyer and litigation strategist who focuses on complex litigation and trials involving product liability, professional liability, environmental and toxic torts, and securities matters. She has secured several high-profile product liability trial victories on behalf of leading multinational corporations across a broad range of sectors, including the pharmaceutical, consumer products, energy and automotive industries. Kim is widely regarded as one of the most talented and respected lawyers in the product liability and mass tort litigation area, with clients describing her as a “rising star” and as “someone clients trust to try their cases.”
Experience
Kim has deep experience litigating in federal and state courtrooms across the country, with a particular emphasis on the most high-profile mass torts and product liability matters, as well as high-stakes securities class actions and other complex civil litigation. Kim’s representations include:
Awards & Recognitions
Kim is widely recognized by leading publications and legal directories for her trial accomplishments and expertise. The American Lawyer named Kim to its 2022 list of “West Trailblazers,” which recognizes lawyers in the western states who have moved the needle in the legal industry. Chambers USA has recognized Kim in the Product Liability & Mass Torts (USA) category for the past four years, describing her as a “well-regarded trial lawyer who has amassed a broad range of experience in mass torts and class actions.” The Legal 500 US also recognizes Kim in its Product Liability, Mass Tort and Class Action-Defense categories across consumer products, pharmaceuticals, and medical devices and toxic torts, describing her as a “strong practitioner with excellent strategic smarts.” The Daily Journal recognized her as one of the “Top 100 Lawyers” in California in 2019 and one of the “Top Women Lawyers” in California in 2019, 2020 and 2021. The Los Angeles Business Journal named Kim to its “Top Litigators & Trial Lawyers” and “Most Influential Women Lawyers” lists in 2019 and Law360 named her a “Rising Star” in 2017.
Caitlin Woods is an associate in Lieff Cabraser’s San Francisco office. She has worked on mass tort, sexual abuse, personal injury, civil rights, employment, and antitrust matters.
Caitlin is a member of Plaintiffs’ leadership team in the Uber sexual assault multi-district litigation alleging negligence by the rideshare giant in preventing, detecting, and responding to sexual violence between drivers and riders. Lieff Cabraser was appointed Co-Lead and Liaison Counsel for the Uber MDL Plaintiffs in December 2023.
Caitlin was also a member of Plaintiffs’ leadership and trial teams in the JUUL e-cigarette multi-district litigation, in which Lieff Cabraser served as Co-Lead and Liaison Counsel. Caitlin second-chaired depositions of JUUL’s CEO, Altria’s CEO, JUUL’s co-founder, and JUUL’s tobacco marketing expert, as well as voir dire in the first and only bellwether trial. The JUUL MDL resolved with two historic settlements: one with JUUL Labs, Inc. and related Defendants in November 2022, and a second with the Altria Defendants in May 2023, announced immediately after Plaintiff rested its case in San Francisco Unified School District v. Altria.
As a law student, Caitlin externed at the Northern District of California and interned for the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence. Caitlin continues to pursue her commitment to gun violence prevention while at Lieff Cabraser through advocacy on behalf of victims, their families, and government entities. Caitlin also serves as a Co-Chair of the Asian American Bar Association’s Women’s Committee.
Before practicing law, Caitlin worked on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. as a congressional aide to then-House Democratic Whip, Steny H. Hoyer.
Chris T. Hellums earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in business from the University of Alabama in 1990 and graduated from the University of Alabama School of Law in 1993.
Throughout his career, Chris has handled complex civil litigation across the country. His practice has included litigating individual, class action and mass action cases in the areas of antitrust, securities fraud, insurance fraud and bad faith, product liability, commercial disputes, and data privacy. Chris also represents and consults publicly traded companies in large-scale multijurisdictional litigation.
Chris has been appointed to various leadership positions in the following MDLs: MDL 1985, In re Total Body Formula Products Liability Litigation; MDL 2406, In re Blue Cross Blue Shield Antitrust Litigation; MDL 2441, In re Stryker Rejuvenate and ABG II Hip Implant Products Liability Litigation; MDL 2595, In re Community Health Systems, Inc., Customer Data Security Breach Litigation; MDL 2734, In re Abilify (Aripiprazole) Products Liability Litigation; and MDL 2885, In re 3M Combat Arms Earplug Products Liability Litigation.
Glenn is a partner leading the appellate practice group at Clarkson, a class action boutique in Malibu, California. Glenn is a certified appellate specialist and has argued 50 appeals across numerous courts, including four cases in the California Supreme Court and in multiple federal courts of appeals. Glenn also has an active amicus practice, submitting multiple amicus briefs in the United States Supreme Court in 2023. Glenn won a California Lawyer of the Year award in 2015 for his California Supreme Court win in Iskanian v. CLS Transportation and has been named to the “Top 100 Lawyers in California” list by the Daily Journal. Glenn also serves on a committee of practitioners and judges helping to evaluate new appellate judicial nominees for Governor Newsom.
Sarah N. Westcot is the Managing Partner of Bursor & Fisher’s Miami office. She focuses her practice on consumer class actions, complex business litigation, and mass torts.
Sarah has represented clients in a wide array of civil litigation, and has substantial trial and appellate experience in both federal and state court. She served as trial counsel with Scott A. Bursor in Ayyad v. Sprint Spectrum L.P., and helped to win a jury verdict defeating Sprint’s $1.06 billion counterclaim and securing the class’s recovery of more than $275 million in cash and debt relief.
Sarah also has significant experience in high-profile, multidistrict litigations. She served on the Plaintiffs’ Steering Committee in In re Zantac (Ranitidine) Products Liability Litigation, MDL No. 2924 (S.D. FL). She currently serves on the Plaintiffs’ Executive Committee in In re Apple Inc. App Store Simulated Casino-Style Games Litigation, MDL No. 2985 (N.D. Cal.) and In Re: Google Play Store Simulated Casino-Style Games Litigation, MDL No. 3001 (N.D. Cal.).
Sarah is admitted to the state bars of California and Florida, the bars of the United States District Courts for the Northern, Central, Southern, and Eastern Districts of California, the United States District Courts for the Southern and Middle Districts of Florida, and the bars of the United States Courts of Appeals for the Second, Eighth, and Ninth Circuits.
Sarah earned her Bachelor of Science and Bachelor of Arts degrees from the University of Florida. She received her Juris Doctor from the University of Notre Dame Law School in 2009. During law school, Sarah clerked with the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office in Chicago and the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office in San Jose, CA, gaining early trial experience in both roles.
Sarah is a member of The National Trial Lawyers Top 100 Civil Plaintiff Lawyers, and was selected to The National Trial Lawyers Top 40 Under 40 Civil Plaintiff Lawyers for 2022.
222 2nd Avenue South Suite 1640
Nashville, TN 37201
t 615.313.9000
f 615.313.9965
kbyrd@lchb.com
A Relentless, Principled Advocate
A partner based in our Nashville office, Kenneth S. Byrd is an experienced trial attorney at Lieff Cabraser, obtaining several large jury trial verdicts against Big Tobacco over the past several years. He received the Tennessee Association for Justice’s 2015 Paladin Award for his successful litigation against cigarette manufacturers R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company, Philip Morris USA Inc., and Lorillard Tobacco Company in Florida federal courts. The Paladin Award is TAJ’s highest honor and is given to the state’s top trial lawyer of the year. Kenny’s successful work on these cases included separate $27 million and $41 million jury verdicts that were upheld on appeal.
Kenny represents clients in mass tort cases, defective product cases and consumer fraud litigation. He represents consumers in consumer class action cases as well as injured individuals and their loved ones in personal injury and wrongful death lawsuits filed in across the country.
Kenny’s leadership roles include his appointment to the Plaintiff Steering Committee and Early Vetting Subcommittee in In re: 3M Combat Arms Earplug Liability Litigation, MDL No. 2885 (the largest MDL in history as far as number of claimants), and his appointment to the Plaintiffs’ Steering Committee in In Re: AME Church Employee Retirement Fund Litigation, MDL No. 3035.
Kenny is also a member of Lieff Cabraser’s Whistleblower/False Claims Act practice group, assisting whistleblowers to stop fraud and the misuse of funds in government contracts and programs.
Areas of Practice
Consumer Protection, Defective Products
Education
Boston College Law School, Boston, Massachusetts J.D. (Cum Laude) - 2004
Samford University B.S. - 1995
Honors: Cum Laude
Major: Mathematics
Minor: Journalism
Bar Admissions
Tennessee, 2004
U.S. Court of Appeals, 6th Circuit, 2009
U.S. District Court, District of Colorado, 2019
U.S. District Court, Northern District of Illinois, 2016
U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Michigan, 2020
U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Tennessee, 2006
U.S. District Court, Middle District of Tennessee, 2005
U.S. District Court, Western District of Tennessee, 2007
Published Works & Presentations
Faculty, “Texas Two Step. When Insurance is Gone and the Bankruptcy Court Is Not: Mass Torts in Crisis,” Mississippi Association for Justice (MAJ) Winter CLE Seminar, December 2022
Speaker, “Mass Torts/Class Actions and Bankruptcy Issues,” Trial Lawyers of Mass Torts Inaugural Conference, December 2022
Co-author, American Bar Association, Survey of Federal Circuit Court’s Class Action Decisions - 2018
Professional Associations and Memberships
American Bar Association
American Constitution Society, Nashville Chapter (Member; Chair of 2008 Supreme Court Preview Event) Camp Ridgecrest Alumni & Friends (Board Member) Harry Phillips American Inn of Court, Nashville Chapter (Associate Member, 2008 - 2010; Barrister, 2010 - 2014) Historic Edgefield, Inc. (President, 2009 - 2011) Nashville Bar Association Tennessee Bar Association Tennessee Trial Lawyers Board of Directors Tennessee Trial Lawyers Association (Board of Governors)
Awards and Media
Selected for inclusion by peers in The Best Lawyers in America in fields of Consumer Protection, Personal Injury Litigation-Plaintiffs, and Product Liability Litigation-Plaintiffs, 2018-2024 “Lawyer of the Year for Product Liability Litigation,” Nashville, Best Lawyers, 2023 “Lawdragon 500 Leading Plaintiff Consumer Lawyers in America,” Lawdragon, 2021-2023 “Outstanding Private Practice Antitrust Achievement,” American Antitrust Institute, 2020 Media interview, “Full Measure Talks to Kenny Byrd About the “Forgotten” Tobacco War.” 2019 Adjunct faculty, Vanderbilt Law School, “The Practice of Aggregate Litigation,” 2018- present. Media interview, “Kenneth Byrd in Nashville Scene on Big Tobacco Sponsorship of Schools,” 2017 Media interview, “The Big Drag,” Cover story highlighting Kenny Byrd and national impact of tobacco litigation, Nashville Scene, 2015 “Paladin Award,” Tennessee Association for Justice, 2015 “Rising Star for Mid-South,” Super Lawyers, 2014
Faith E. A. Lewis is an associate in Lieff Cabraser’s San Francisco office. Faith works primarily on class actions and multidistrict litigation in the firm’s employment, mass torts, and defective products practice groups. Recently, this work includes the Social Media Adolescent Addiction MDL and the Oral Phenylephrine MDL.
Faith earned their J.D. from Yale Law School, during which time Faith was an NAACP LDF Earl Warren Scholar and a WLALA Ruth Bader Ginsburg Equity Scholar – honors awarded to law students with demonstrated commitments to racial justice and the public interest.
While at Yale, Faith served as Co-President of OutLaws. Faith was also a clinic member of the Access to Law School Clinic, Geriatric Medical-Legal Partnerships, the San Francisco Affirmative Litigation Project, and the Health Justice: Theory to Practice Clinic. As a law student, Faith worked as a law clerk at the San Francisco City Attorney’s Office and two private, plaintiffs’-side law firms in the Bay Area.
Michael Anderson is the Chief Product Officer at Filevine. Michael has had a career in digital transformation work straddling technology and finance industries. He specializes in analytics, technology solutioning, and implementation. Prior experience includes leadership roles in global credit risk analytics at Goldman Sachs and product support at Qualtrics. Michael holds a BA from Brigham Young University in International Relations and an MA in International Economics from Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies.