Fidelma Fitzpatrick represents people and communities in toxic tort and environmental matters, including property damage and personal injury claims. Her experience with complex civil litigation has led her to represent other victims of corporate malfeasance, including thousands of women who suffered health problems after receiving medical devices such as Essure®, pelvic mesh/sling products and IUDs, as well as people harmed by consumer products such as chemical hair straighteners.
In addition to her toxic tort and medical casework, Fidelma also represents states, cities, counties and townships in litigation against opioid manufacturers, distributors and pharmacies in their claims the companies engaged in deceptive marketing and over-distribution of highly addictive opioids, creating and fueling the deadly opioid crisis.
In 2023, Honorable Mary Rowland appointed Fidelma as co-lead counsel for MDL 3060 In re: Hair Relaxer Marketing Sales Practices and Products Liability Litigation in the Northern District of Illinois. Plaintiffs in the MDL developed uterine cancer and other illnesses after using certain chemical hair relaxers. They assert defendant manufacturers failed to adequately test the products and warn customers about potential harms. Fidelma is also lead counsel of the Plaintiffs’ Executive Committee for the coordinated Essure® litigation in California against Bayer Corp., and she serves on the PEC for Paragard® IUD multidistrict litigation filed in the Northern District of Georgia for women who suffered severe effects seemingly linked to the birth control devices. She also serves as co-lead counsel of the Plaintiffs’ Executive Committee for a Philadelphia mass tort filed for farmers, railroad workers and others who developed Parkinson’s Disease after using Paraquat weed killer.
In 2012, Fidelma was appointed co-lead counsel of the pelvic mesh MDL In re American Medical Systems, Inc., Pelvic Repair Systems Products Liability Litigation in the Southern District of West Virginia. She also holds leadership roles in pelvic mesh state court litigations, including serving as liaison counsel in the American Medical Systems cases consolidated in Delaware and the Boston Scientific cases consolidated in Massachusetts. She continues to represent women who experienced complications after receiving pelvic mesh/sling products. Filed cases are against defendants including Boston Scientific, C.R. Bard, Inc., and Ethicon.
In addition to her leadership appointments in various mass tort actions, Fidelma regularly serves as trial counsel in varied product liability and medical device cases on behalf of Plaintiffs. She was co-lead trial counsel in the lead paint pigment case, The People of California v. Atlantic Richfield Company et al., in which Motley Rice represented 10 California cities and counties against national lead paint pigment manufacturers. In January 2014, the court ruled Sherwin-Williams Company, NL Industries, Inc., and ConAgra Grocery Products Company created a public nuisance by actively promoting lead for use in homes despite knowing that it was highly toxic. The parties subsequently reached a $305 million settlement that established an abatement fund to remove toxic lead paint from homes and protect the health and safety of thousands of California children.
Fidelma also held a central role in the state of Rhode Island's trial against former corporate manufacturers of lead paint pigment. She continues to litigate cases seeking to hold the lead paint pigment industry accountable for the childhood lead poisoning crisis and provide restitution and compensation to affected children and families. As a result of her work for lead poisoning victims, the Wisconsin State Supreme Court became the first to recognize the legal rights of poisoned children to sue lead paint pigment manufacturers.
Fidelma began working with Motley Rice attorneys in 1997 on the Massachusetts, New York and Rhode Island lawsuits against the tobacco industry. She serves on the Board of Regents at Canisius College and frequently speaks on environmental and mass tort topics at conferences for federal and state court judges, attorneys, academic professionals and law students.
“Painting Over Long-Standing Precedent: How the Rhode island Supreme Court Misapplied Public Nuisance Law in State v. Lead Industries Association” Roger Williams University Law Review (Summer 2010)
“Access to Justice: The Use of Contingent Fee Arrangements by Public Officials to Vindicate Public Rights” Cardozo J.L. & Gender (Spring 2008)
“Negligence in the Paint: The Case for Applying the Risk Contribution Doctrine to Lead Litigation” in Pace Environmental Law Review (Fall 2008)
2023 Product Liability: Plaintiffs – Nationwide, Band 2
2021, 2022 Product Liability: Plaintiffs – Nationwide, Band 3
Best Lawyers® Providence, RI
2008–2025 Mass tort litigation/class actions – plaintiffs
2021 Titans Of The Plaintiffs Bar
201G “Product Liability MVP”
Rhode Island Super Lawyers® list
2008, 2010–2023 Environmental litigation; Personal injury – products: plaintiff; Class action/mass torts
201G Elite Women of the Plaintiffs’ Bar 2018 Plaintiffs’ Lawyers Trailblazers 2015 Outstanding Women Lawyers
2023 Lawdragon Legends
2014–2024 Lawdragon 500
201G–2024 Lawdragon 500 Plaintiff Consumer Lawyers
2013, 2014, 2018 Dispute resolution – product liability, mass tort and class action – toxic tort – plaintiff
2010–2013 Top 100 Trial Lawyers™ – Rhode Island
2006 Rhode Island Lawyer of the Year
Public Justice Foundation 2014 Trial Lawyers of the Year
2006 Finalist: Trial Lawyers of the Year award
William Hamilton is an electronic discovery expert. Prior to joining the faculty, he served as the electronic discovery partner for his national law firm. Professor Hamilton has taught electronic discovery at the University of Florida for the past decade and is the co-author of the LexisNexis Practice Guide Florida e-Discovery and Evidence and A Student Electronic Discovery Primer: An Essential Companion for Civil Procedure Courses. Professor Hamilton currently teaches, among other courses, E-Discovery and Evidence, Complex Civil Litigation, and Professional Responsibility, which are relevant in today’s contemporary crisis created by voluminous data collection, privacy failures, and artificial generative intelligence.
He is also a neutral arbitrator and mediator for the World Intellectual Property Organization and the author of over a hundred domain name dispute decisions. Professor Hamilton has been recognized in Chambers USA, Florida Legal Elite, Best Lawyers in America, and Florida Super Lawyers.
A founding partner of Seeger Weiss, Christopher A. Seeger 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’ versatile practice also includes product liability, property damage, antitrust, and 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. at the state and federal levels. He has received more multidistrict litigation (MDL) appointments than any other lawyer between 2016 and 2019, according to a 2020 ALM study.
Chris served as co-lead counsel in the 3M Combat Arms Earplug Litigation, having been chosen by Judge M. Casey Rodgers from a pool of nearly 200 other applicants to represent more than 250,000 service members and veterans who suffered hearing injuries while using 3M earplugs. After more than four years of litigation, Chris secured a landmark settlement worth over $6 billion in August 2023, successfully resolving the largest mass tort in American history.
Appointed by Judge Joy Flowers Conti to lead the Philips Recalled CPAP, Bi-Level Pap, and Mechanical Ventilator Litigation, Chris represented patients impacted by the company’s recall of more than 10.8 million devices. He was the lead negotiator for an uncapped class action settlement worth a minimum of $479 million that was announced in September 2023, resolving economic loss claims of users and payers impacted by the recall. After receiving final approval for the economic loss settlement, Chris negotiated additional agreements in April 2024 to resolve plaintiffs' personal injury claims for $1.075 billion and medical monitoring claims for $25 million, providing compensation to patients who suffered significant physical injuries caused by the recalled machines.
In the National Prescription Opiate litigation, Chris was appointed to the Executive and Settlement Committees by Judge Dan A. Polster. In 2022, he played an instrumental role in securing settlements worth more than $15 billion with Walgreens, Walmart, CVS, and Kroger. Also, in 2022, a $6.6 billion settlement was reached with pharmaceutical manufacturers Teva and Allergan (AbbVie). Previously, in July 2021, the Plaintiffs’ Executive Committee in the federal opioid litigation formally announced the terms for a $26 billion global settlement agreement with opioid manufacturer Johnson & Johnson and the “Big Three” drug distributors AmerisourceBergen, Cardinal Health, and McKesson. To date, Chris has been involved in over $50 billion in settlements through the National Prescription Opioid Litigation.
Chris serves as co-lead counsel in the Proton-Pump Inhibitor Litigation on behalf of patients who suffered kidney injuries while using proton-pump inhibitor drugs. On October 3, 2023, he announced a $425 million settlement with AstraZeneca and additional agreements with GlaxoSmithKline, Pfizer, Procter & Gamble, and Takeda, bringing the total value of the resolution to $590.4 million.
Chris’s unprecedented run of recent settlements adds to his impressive legacy of resolving major cases and obtaining billions in compensation for injured plaintiffs. This includes a $4.85 billion landmark global settlement with Merck on behalf of patients who suffered heart attacks and strokes while taking Vioxx, a $21 billion-plus settlement with Volkswagen and Audi over the “clean diesel” scandal—the largest consumer auto industry class action settlement in U.S. history, a $1.5 billion settlement for farmers impacted by Syngenta GMO seed contamination—the largest agricultural settlement in U.S. history, and a $1 billion-plus uncapped settlement for retired NFL players and their families in the historic NFL concussion case.
After starting his career as a corporate defense lawyer representing the interests of big business, Chris was struck by the imbalance of power between corporations and the individuals harmed by them. As a result, 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.
Chris has been recognized for his outstanding work and unmatched success in leading complex federal cases. He has received the National Law Journal Elite Trial Lawyers Lifetime Achievement Award, been named a Lawdragon Legend, a Law360 Titan of the Plaintiff Bar, and been inducted into both the Trial Lawyer Hall of Fame and the Legal 500 Hall of Fame. He is consistently named to annual award lists, including Chambers USA Tier 1 for Product Liability, Lawdragon 500 Leading Lawyers in America, and Best Lawyers in America. Regularly quoted by the press regarding his work on nationally and internationally prominent cases, Chris has appeared 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.
Dana Rager is managing director of Western Alliance Bank’s Juris Banking Group.
Ms. Rager epitomizes the bank's culture and focuses on providing exceptional service to her portfolio of legal industry clients nationwide with high-touch service. She is an expert in escrow and distribution solutions for large qualified settlement funds and providing customized banking services for attorneys and law firms.
Ms. Rager’s industry knowledge and expertise of the entire life cycle of large settlements assures attorneys and claims administrators that the banking process will be smooth and unique to the needs of the class.
She is committed to providing legal experts and related businesses managing class actions and mass torts educational content covering the latest key topics and trends impacting the industry. Ms. Rager plays a vital role in developing insightful resources, such as Western Alliance Bank’s annual class action research report , the renowned annual Class Action Law Forum along with free CLE-eligible webinars featuring in-depth perspectives from leading practitioners.
Ms. Rager, who has been an integral member of Western Alliance Bank since 2006, previously held management positions within two other financial institutions.
She is based out of San Diego but provides services nationwide. She is active in the community and serves as Vice-Chair and Founding Member of the Academy of Our Lady of Peace Alumnae Council.
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 2023 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 2015–2024 editions of Chambers Global, The World’s Leading Lawyers for Business, most recently ranked in Band 1 for Litigation: Trial Lawyers. The Legal 500 U.S. selected Mike to the “Hall of Fame” in 2021–2024 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.
Dr. Douglas Kennedy is a part of Stinson's Survivor Protection Practice Group where he serves as a Survivor liaison. In this role he assists the legal team and works with Survivors in Diocese bankruptcies to help them better understand and endure the process. He has also been an educator, dedicated volunteer, consultant and focused upon the safety of youth for over three decades. Prior to his joining Stinson he was chosen by the US Department of Justice to serve on the Tort Claimants Committee in the Boy Scouts of America’s bankruptcy proceedings and served as its Co-Chair during the four-year process that resulted in a $2.5 billion trust agreement. A Survivor of sexual abuse by the Director of the Scout camp where he worked, Dr. Kennedy has been instrumental in communicating with Survivors, advocating for their interests, and has testified repeatedly in bankruptcy court. He also played a significant role in negotiating an agreement for the improvement of Scouting policies related to youth protection. As an educator for over three decades Dr. Kennedy Chaired his academic department, forged partnerships with schools overseas, led delegations to Central Asia and China, has been an invited speaker over a hundred times nationally and internationally and won his institution’s Distinguished Teaching Award an unprecedented three times. Recently, he was featured in the Netflix documentary "Scout's Honor", viewed over six million times. He has served as the President of his State professional association, Chair of his profession’s National Accreditation Council, and Board Chair and member of several non-profit organizations. He resides in Virginia Beach, Virginia with his wife and spoiled Golden Retriever where he can typically be found training for an upcoming triathlon.
U.S. District Judge Maxine M. Chesney has served on the federal bench since her 1995 appointment by President Clinton. Her legal career began in 1968 when she joined the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office, where she served for eleven years. During that time, she created the first special unit in the country for the prosecution of crimes involving sexual assaults. Judge Chesney began judicial service in 1979 when she was appointed to the San Francisco Municipal Court. In 1983, Governor Jerry Brown elevated her to the San Francisco Superior Court, where she served until 1995. Judge Chesney is a founding member of the National Association of Women Judges, has served on the Board of Governors of the Association of Business Trial Lawyers, and has been a lecturer and panelist at numerous judicial and CLE programs. She is a graduate of the University of California at Berkeley and its law school.
Jacob Cantrell serves as the Chief Risk Officer and leads the firm’s efforts in asset quality, risk management and return optimization. He joined the team in 2015 and has over 18 years of experience in the financial services and energy trading markets, and he excels in providing technical direction to achieve effective credit and business strategy deployment while protecting enterprise value. He has successfully served in key executive positions at The Commission Exchange, as its Chief Financial Officer, where he focused on developing a new asset class in the deregulated power and gas markets and EDF Trading as its Credit Manager, where he created the Strategic Credit & Structured Finance group focusing on lien based commodity supply agreements and lending relationships. Jacob also served as a Vice President at a regional bank in Texas, where he created a loan review department, oversaw the credit analytics team, and worked closely with the Board of Directors to ensure sound asset quality was maintained. Mr. Cantrell has a Bachelor of Science in Finance from Illinois State University and an M.B.A. from the University of Texas.
For over two decades, Kevin Anderson spearheaded consumer protection, public health, and antitrust efforts for North Carolina Attorneys General Roy Cooper and Josh Stein, serving in a front office role, as Consumer Protection Chief, and as lead attorney on numerous impactful cases. Mr. Anderson was a member of the executive committee or negotiation team in many high-profile multistate matters, including the national mortgage settlement, the opioids-related multistate involving pharmaceutical manufacturers and distributors, and the Google search antitrust case. He helped spearhead the office's groundbreaking litigation against JUUL, the first such case brought by a state Attorney General. Mr. Anderson also argued multiple appellate cases, including a precedent setting case involving one of the largest utilities in the country.
In 2020, Mr. Anderson testified before the U.S. House of Representatives' Subcommittee on Consumer Protection and Commerce regarding scams and the COVID-19 pandemic. He was awarded a Distinguished Service Award in 2022 by the North Carolina County Commissioners Association for his work on the opioids matter and for helping to draft a memorandum of agreement governing the details of remediation funding to the localities. He is currently serving as a Vice Chair of the American Bar Association's Consumer Protection Committee.
Mr. Anderson previously served as Assistant Counsel for a subcommittee of the Judiciary Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives. He also worked in private practice litigating complex cases at the Washington, D.C. law firm of Arnold & Porter.
Mr. Anderson graduated with high honors from the University of North Carolina (UNC) School of Law where he was a member of the law review. He obtained the Advanced Certificate in Mass Tort MDL Litigation from the Bolch Judicial Institute at Duke Law School. As an undergraduate at UNC-Chapel Hill, he played on the varsity tennis team and was awarded the Athletic Director's Scholar Athlete Award. Mr. Anderson has been an adjunct instructor at the UNC School of Law where he taught legal writing and appellate advocacy and at Duke University’s Sanford School of Public Policy where he taught a seminar on consumer protection.
Michelle is a nationally recognized litigator focused on electronic discovery law, data privacy, cross border discovery, and AI technology exploration. She counsels clients on the development and execution of defensible eDiscovery processes in connection with contentious, high-stakes commercial litigation, products liability cases, antitrust matters, and internal and government investigations. Michelle regularly advises multinational corporations on data loss and records retention, as well as challenges and solutions generated by emerging technologies.
Michelle frequently writes and speaks about issues and solutions related to electronic discovery. She was recognized by Relativity as a 2023 AI Visionary.
Daniel Carr is a Partner in the firm practicing out of the New Orleans office. Daniel heads up the firm’s Product Liability and Pharmaceutical and Medical Devices practices and has represented thousands of clients from across the United States in cases related to pharmaceutical products and medical devices, including litigations involving Xarelto, Pradaxa, ASR hip implants, TVM, Actos, Invokana, Onglyza, and others.
Daniel also has represented a diverse group of clients in a variety of complex litigation and arbitrations. He has represented institutional issuers of auction-rate securities in federal and state lawsuits and FINRA arbitrations, and he has served as co-counsel on several class action lawsuits, including an ERISA case that resulted in a $75 million settlement for 401(k) plan participants who alleged that a large financial-services firm imprudently invested their retirement money. Daniel also has worked with Adam Wolf to defend individuals and companies involved in the medical marijuana industry against civil RICO actions in Colorado and Massachusetts, and he is currently part of the firm’s team working to secure recovery for investors who lost millions of dollars in a failed investment scheme operated out of Portland, Oregon.
Daniel graduated from The University of New Orleans and received his law degree from Tulane School of Law, summa cum laude. While at Tulane, he was Senior Articles Editor for the Tulane Law Review and a fellow in the Legal Analysis Program. Following law school,Daniel had the honor of serving as a law clerk for Judge Jacques L. Wiener, Jr., on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.
Daniel is a member of several nationwide bar associations, including the Public Investors Arbitration Bar Association and the American Association for Justice, where he has served on the board of directors of the Business Torts Section. Super Lawyers has named Daniel as a Rising Star every year since 2013 in the areas of Products Liability and Business Litigation.
Daniel strives to provide all of his clients with the highest quality of advocacy, no matter how big or small the case, and he works together with the other members of the firm to make sure that each client receives the full benefit of the firm’s combined experience and expertise.
Paul is a Partner and chairs the State Attorney General Practice at Kelley Drye & Warren. Prior to joining Kelley Drye, he spent over two decades in the Texas Attorney General’s office, spearheading its consumer protection, advertising and marketing, public health, and data protection efforts.
Paul spent most of his time at the Texas Attorney General’s office in the Consumer Protection Division, including as Division Chief. Most recently, he served as part of the agency’s executive leadership team as the Associate Deputy Attorney General for Civil Litigation, where he oversaw all plaintiff litigation for the Attorney General. Paul played an instrumental leadership role in several major multistate investigations, many involving Fortune 500 companies, where he repeatedly obtained large settlements for the 50 states and territories, including many multimillion-dollar recoveries.
Paul has been repeatedly recognized by his peers for his professional achievements and leadership, including receiving the Career Staff of the Year Award from the National Association of Attorneys General in 2020 and the Faculty of the Year Award from the National Attorneys General Training and Research Institute for his significant contributions to developing and presenting high-quality legal training programs for his counterparts across the country.
Reagan Charleston Thomas joined the firm in 2022. Reagan graduated Magna Cum Laude, from Loyola Law School in 2018. While in law school, Reagan was a member of Loyola Law Review and the Phi Delta Phi Honor Society. Her law journal case note, Hoffman v. 21st Century North American Insurance Company: Abrogation of the Collateral Source Rule?, was selected for publication and appeared in Loyola Law Review. Her comment, Thumbs Down: The Trouble with Compelled Finger Print Access to Smart Devices, was selected for online publication and was cited to in the Federal Magistrate Journal Bulletin. Reagan was also named a William S. Crowe Scholar and was the 2016 recipient of the J. Skelly Wright Award for finishing as the top oralist in oral argument competitions.
Areas of Practice
Jason R. Erb is the senior vice president and chief legal and compliance officer for Hyundai Motor North America. Erb, who has been with Hyundai since 2002, is responsible for all legal matters across the region for the Hyundai and Genesis brands. This includes product liability, safety and warranty, intellectual property, risk management, cyber security, dealer franchise, environmental, and human resources, among other responsibilities. Erb was named to this position in September 2021.
Erb has been a part of the Hyundai team for over 20 years, joining the company as senior counsel. Most recently, he served as assistant general counsel and executive director, litigation. In this position, Erb was instrumental in developing the strategy and leading the skillful execution of class action and intellectual property litigation. Prior to Hyundai‚ Erb practiced law at Pillsbury Madison & Sutro in its Los Angeles office.
Erb earned his Bachelor of Science in Business Administration with highest honors from the Haas School of Business at the University of California‚ Berkeley‚ and his Juris Doctor from Duke University School of Law.
The Honorable Mark Falk (Ret.) joined Walsh after a distinguished judicial career, having served 19 years on the federal bench. Judge Falk leads the firm’s Mediation, Arbitration and Special Master Appointments practice and serves clients in a broad range of matters across numerous areas of law, including pharmaceutical patents litigation, commercial and insurance law, bankruptcy, employment law, products liability, corporate governance, internal investigations, securities litigation, and others.
In recognition of his years of excellent service, in 2019, Judge Falk’s colleagues in the District of New Jersey named him as the Court’s first Chief Magistrate Judge. Judge Falk is the author of hundreds of opinions in a wide range of areas including products liability, discovery and eDiscovery disputes, intellectual property, employment law, and a multitude of other topics reflecting the broad array of cases within the jurisdiction of the federal courts. During his nearly two-decade tenure, he mediated both complex and more routine matters, conducting well over a thousand mediations and settlement conferences, with most resulting in settlement.
Judge Falk is the Immediate Past President of the Federal Magistrate Judge’s Association and served two terms on the Advisory Committee on the Administration of the Magistrate Judge System in Washington.
In addition, Judge Falk served as the Compliance Judge in charge of administering the District Court’s Mediation Program and held positions on several other U.S. District Court committees, including the Rules Committee.
Before taking on the judgeship, Judge Falk was a partner with several top law firms during 25 years in private practice. He specialized in complex litigation and served as lead trial counsel in numerous high-profile trials in the state and federal courts.
Judge Falk currently serves as an Adjunct Professor of Law at Fordham Law School and at Rutgers Law School. He has lectured on a variety of legal topics at numerous other law schools and continuing legal education seminars including the New Jersey ICLE, the Federal Judicial Conference for continuing judicial education, and the New York Intellectual Property Association.
Karen Barth Menzies is an innovative attorney dedicated to advocating for women’s health causes and representing survivors of sexual assault. She has taken on the most powerful pharmaceutical companies in the world and some of the music entertainment industry’s most notorious personalities. In 2022, Karen founded KBM Law to ensure women had a female-led law firm to represent them in their fight for justice.
As a litigation leader, Karen has held top positions in mass tort lawsuits involving thousands of women pursuing claims against drug makers and medical device manufacturers. Her advocacy extends beyond the civil court system and into the halls of state legislatures, congress, and government agencies that determine the laws and regulations that protect and empower individuals. Advocacy beyond litigation also involves amplifying women’s voices and supporting their efforts to champion the justice issues that matter most to them.
Kiley Grombacher is a founder partner of Bradley/Grombacher, LLP. Since passage of the bar more than a decade ago, Ms. Grombacher, has specialized her practice in complex litigation including consumer and employment class actions, product liability, and pharmaceutical mass torts. Throughout her career, with her respective firms, Ms. Grombacher she has been instrumental in recovering more than $500 million dollars as well as significant injunctive relief for her injured clients.
After giving birth to her daughter, Ms. Grombacher became increasingly aware that women and children were, and continue to be, disproportionality impacted in the fields in which she practiced. She began to hone her practice in areas in which the disparity was acute including equal pay, defective products/pharmaceuticals, online privacy, elder neglect/abuse, sexual harassment and false advertising. She became passionate about advocating for the rights of women and children empowering them to share their stories, expose the truth and win the justice they deserve.
Having grown up on a tour bus, the child of a Rock and Roll musician, Ms. Grombacher has seen nearly all 50 states. She cherishes these memories and the hardworking men and women across this nation which she has had the pleasure to meet, befriend, and now represent. Ms. Grombacher is licensed in California and Tennessee but accepts cases from all 50 states, practicing pro hac vice in other states.
Ms. Grombacher has received numerous professional accolades. She is part of an elite group of attorneys to be chosen as a “Rising Star” and/or “Super Lawyer” in the field of complex litigation and has been selected as such each year since 2015. Ms. Grombacher has published articles on the field of class action litigation and has lectured on the topic to other lawyers.
As a mother, Ms. Grombacher is selective in the cases she chose and relishes cases that present a challenge. She is proud to represent the underdog and give a voice to the unheard.
National Attorney with National Results
A celebrated trial attorney and legal expert known as the female litigator “who stared down Bill Cosby” (The New York Times), Kristen Gibbons Feden joined Anapol Weiss as a shareholder in March 2024. In addition to being internationally recognized as a leading fierce and relentless litigator in the #MeToo Movement and her world-renowned closing argument in the Bill Cosby trial, Feden is known for the two eight-figure verdicts she won in a single day in 2023 – a $10.5M verdict for survivors of singer and entertainer R. Kelly and a $22M verdict for a sexual abuse survivor of a renowned pediatrician in New York. In early 2024, she won additional significant victories for other sexual abuse survivors of the same pediatrician, with 75 verdicts totaling over $1.3 billion.
Leader in Sexual Abuse Litigation
Feden leads the Anapol Weiss practice areas for sexual abuse, human trafficking, child abuse and exploitation, and civil rights litigation. Recognized on a national level as a formidable advocate in legal matters, Kristen has stood by numerous survivors of crimes, particularly sexual abuse, championing their quest for civil justice. She has garnered numerous accolades for her unwavering commitment to aiding the most vulnerable survivors, many of whom turned to her during their most challenging moments. Although Feden gained international recognition for her now-famous closing argument in the second trial of Commonwealth v. William H. Cosby, her commitment to advocating for survivors of sexual abuse extends beyond the courtroom. She initiated her involvement with survivors while serving as a prosecutor in Montgomery County, where she held the prestigious positions of Captain in the Domestic Violence and Elder Abuse Units, as well as a member of the Sex Crimes Unit. During her tenure, she successfully prosecuted numerous cases, including cases involving sexual and physical abuse, child pornography, domestic violence, and homicide.
Voted 2024 Lawyer of the Year
Feden was named 2024 Attorney of the Year by The Legal®. She was also named Attorney of the Year by The Philadelphia Citizen®. Additionally, Feden has consistently received commendations for her courtroom successes and advocacy on behalf of survivors during her time as a prosecutor and as a civil litigator, consistently taking cases to trial when others might not, including recognition by Victim Services Center of Norristown, Safe Harbor, Law Enforcement, the Victim’s Rights Law Center, Super Lawyers, Best Lawyers in America, The Nation’s Top One Percent by The National Association of Distinguished Counsel, Top 25 National Women Trial Lawyers in Pennsylvania, The National Black Lawyers Top 100, and Top 10 Most Influential Leaders Making an Impact in Legal Industry, 2024. Feden was also named to The Business Journals Top 40 under 40 - Philadelphia® in 2016, and was featured on the cover. While many of Feden’s case outcomes remain confidential, she tirelessly achieves exceptional and unmatched results for her clients, including:
Accomplished Legal Background
Beyond the courtroom, Feden serves as a powerful voice for survivors nationwide, and is frequently sought after for expert commentary on high-profile matters by attorneys and various international and national media outlets, including MSNBC, NBC, CNN, CBS, ABC, Fox, NPR,and the BBC. Internationally, Feden travels to speak out and advocate for changes in the law and societal understanding of the dynamics of sexual violence and the impacts of sexual trauma on survivors. Reflecting her leadership and public service in the community, Feden utilizes her expertise by serving on various Board and Court Appointments, including serving as Board President of Montgomery County’s Victim Services Center; and a Board Member of Aequitas, a national resource center for law enforcement investigating and prosecuting sex trafficking and other sex crimes, Victim Rights Law Center, and National Crime Victims Bar Association. She is also the, and a past Member of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court Criminal Procedural Rules Committee, appointed by now-Chief Justice Debra Todd. Feden’s expertise is frequently called upon by advocacy groups to present and deliver keynote speeches. Recognized by The National Women Trial Lawyers Association and selected as a member of The Specialty Associations by The National Trial Lawyers group, Feden exemplifies exceptional leadership qualifications, reputation, influence, stature, and public profile. Moreover, her dedication to teaching and mentoring the next generation of lawyers is evident in her roles as an adjunct professor at the Temple University Beasley School of Law, where she occasionally teaches in the top-ranked Temple LL.M. program in Trial Advocacy, and as a frequent keynote speaker at national conferences. Feden’s relentless pursuit of justice and advocacy for those finding their voice cements her status as a leading litigator and figure in the legal community. Feden is licensed to practice law in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York.
Samuel Issacharoff is the Bonnie and Richard Reiss Professor of Constitutional Law. He is a leading figure in the study of democracy, constitutions, and the courts, and is the author of Fragile Democracies: Contested Power in the Era of Constitutional Courts and, more recently, Democracy Unmoored: Populism and the Corruption of Popular Sovereignty. He also is a leading figure in the field of procedure and complex litigation, and served as the reporter for the American Law Institute’s Principles of Aggregate Litigation. He served as a senior legal advisor to the presidential campaigns of Barack Obama and has long experience as an appellate advocate in American courts. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
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 extends 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
John Yanchunis leads Morgan & Morgan’s class action group. Morgan & Morgan is America’s largest injury law firm with over 1,000 lawyers in offices throughout the United States. Its depth as a trial firm, and its self-funded financial resources, allow it to undertake the largest and most significant cases throughout the country. Mr. Yanchunis—whose career as a trial lawyer began over 42 years ago following the completion of a two-year clerkship with United States District Judge Carl O. Bue, Southern District of Texas, (now deceased)—has efficiently and expeditiously led many privacy- related Multidistrict Litigation (MDL) and non-MDL class action proceedings, including as Lead or Co-Lead Counsel in some of the largest privacy class actions. He has focused his practice on class action litigation for almost 30 years, and during this time , has litigated class actions involving a number of subjects and claims, including but not limited to anti-trust, automobile defects , consumer protection, environmental contamination and data privacy.
As a result of his experience in insurance and complex litigation, beginning in 2005, he was selected by Tom Gallagher, the Chief Financial Officer for the state of Florida and a member of the Florida Cabinet, to serve as lead counsel for the Florida Department of Financial Services and the Florida Department of Insurance Regulation (the insurance regulators of Florida) in their investigations of the insurance industry on issues concerning possible antitrust activity and other possible unlawful activities regarding the payment of undisclosed compensation to insurance brokers. He served as lead regulator counsel and worked with a core group of state Attorneys General from the National Association of Attorneys General, which were selected to conduct the investigations. The insurance regulator for Florida was the only insurance regulator in the group. The litigation that was filed and the related investigations netted millions of dollars in restitution for Florida consumers and resulted in significant changes in the way commercial insurance is sold in Florida and across the country.
During his career, he has tried numerous cases in state and federal courts, including one of the largest and longest insurance coverage cases in U.S. history, which was filed in 1991 by the Celotex Corporation and its subsidiary, Carey Canada, Inc. During the seventeen years the case pended, he served as lead counsel for several insurance companies, regarding coverage for asbestos and environmental claims. The case was tried in three phases over several years beginning in 1992. He was also lead counsel for these parties in the subsequent appeals that followed a judgment in favor of his clients.
Mr. Yanchunis began his work in data privacy litigation in 1999 with the filing of In re Doubleclick Inc. Privacy Litigation, 154 F. Supp. 2d 497 (S.D.N.Y. 2001), alleging privacy violations based on the placement of cookies on hard drives of internet users. Beginning in 2003, he served as co-Lead Counsel in the successful prosecution and settlement of privacy class action cases involving the protection of privacy rights of more than 200 million consumers under the Driver’s Protection Privacy Act (DPPA) against the world’s largest data and information brokers, including Experian, R.L. Polk, Acxiom, and Reed Elsevier (which owns Lexis/Nexis). See Fresco v. Automotive Directions, Inc., No. 03-61063-JEM (S.D. Fla.), and Fresco v. R.L. Polk, No. 07-cv-60695-JEM (S.D. Fla.). Subsequently, he also served as co-Lead Counsel in the DPPA class cases, Davis v. Bank of America, No. 05-cv-80806 (S.D. Fla.) ($10 million class settlement), and Kehoe v. Fidelity Fed. Bank and Trust, No. 03-cv-80593 (S.D. Fla.) ($50 million class settlement).
He has been appointed and served in leadership positions in most of the largest data breach cases filed in the area of privacy and data breaches: In re: Capital One Consumer Data Security Breach Litigation, No. 1:19-MD-2915-AJT (E.D. Va.)(settlement for $190,000,000 approved for 98 million consumers ) In re Yahoo! Inc. Customer Data Security Breach Litigation, No. 5:16-MD-02752-LHK (N.D. Cal.) (“Yahoo”) (Lead Counsel) (Court approved $117,500,000.00 common fund settlement for approximately 194 million US residents and 270,000 Israeli citizens ); In re The Home Depot, Inc.
Consumer Data Sec. Data Breach Litig., No. 1:14-md-02583-TWT (N.D. Ga.) (co-Lead Counsel) (final judgment entered approving a settlement on behalf of a class of 40 million consumers with total value of $29,025,000); In Re: Equifax, Inc. Customer Data Security Breach Litigation, 1:17-md-2800-TWT (N.D. Ga.) (member of the Plaintiffs’ Steering Committee) (final judgment entered approving $380.5 million fund for 145 million consumers ); In re: U.S. Office of Personnel Management Data Security Breach Litigation, 1:15-mc-01394-ABJ (D.D.C.) (“OPM”) (member of the Executive Committee) (motion for preliminary approval of a $60,000,000 common fund ); In re Target Corp. Customer Data Sec. Breach Litig., MDL No. 2522 (D. Minn.) (Executive Committee member) (final judgment approving a settlement on behalf of a class of approximately 100 million consumers).
His court-appointed leadership experience in non-MDL, data breach class actions is likewise significant, and to just name a few : Schmidt, et al., v. Facebook, Inc., No. 3:18-cv-05982 (N.D. Cal.) (Co- Lead Counsel) (“Facebook”) (class certified over Facebook’s opposition for 8 million residents , subsequently settlement of the class was approved by the court); Walters v. Kimpton Hotel & Restaurant, No. 3:16-cv-05387 (N.D. Cal.) (“Kimpton”) (Lead Counsel) (class action settlement final approval order entered July 11, 2019); and In re: Arby’s Restaurant Group, Inc. Data Security Litigation, Nos. 1:17- cv-514 and 1:17-cv-1035 (N.D. Ga.) (co-Liaison Counsel) (final approval of a class settlement entered June 6, 2019); and Jackson, et al., v. Wendy’s International, LLC, No. 6:16-cv-210-PGB (M.D. Fla.) (final approval of a class settlement entered February 26, 2019); Henderson v. Kalispell Regional Healthcare, No. CDV-19-0761 (Montana Eighth Judicial Court – Cascade County) (final approval of class settlement entered January 5, 2021); In re: Citrix Data Breach Litigation, No. 19-cv-61350 (S.D. Fla.) (preliminary approval of class action settlement entered on January 26, 2021); Kuss v. American HomePatient, Inc., et al., 18-cv-2348 (M.D. Fla.) (final approval of class action settlement entered on August 13, 2020); Fulton-Green v. Accolade, Inc., 18-cv-274 (E.D. Pa.) (final approval of class
action settlement entered September 23, 2019); Nelson v. Roadrunner Transportation Systems, Inc., 18-cv- 7400 (N.D. Ill.) (final approval of class action settlement entered September 15, 2020).
He has also been appointed co lead counsel in a data privacy case that was certified as a class over Google’s opposition, Brown. et al., v. Google, LLC, 20-cv-03664 (N.D. Cal.). In another data privacy case against Google pending in the Northern District of California, San Francisco Division, Rodriguez, et al, v. Google, LLC, 20-cv-04688 (N.D. Cal.), the Court also certified a class over Google’s opposition on January 3, 2024..
In 2023 and in data breach cases, Mr. Yanchunis obtained reversals of lower courts in the 11th Circuit and the 2d Circuit Courts of Appeals: Bohnak v. Marsh & McLennan Companies, No. 22-319 (2nd Cir. 2023), Ramirez v. The Paradies Shops, LLC, No. 22-12853-HH (11th Cir. 2023), and Sheffler v. Americold Realty Trust, No. 22-11789-CC (11th Cir. 2023). On December 7, 2023, he presented argument before the Fourth Circuit in Ford v Sandhills Medical Ctr., Inc.,no.22-2268 (4th Cir.2023), a class case arising out of a health care facility, which resulted in the 4tH Circuit reversal of the lower court decision dismissing the case.
He now serves as an appointed member of the newly formed Cyber Security and Privacy Subcommittee of The Florida Bar. Finally, he is a frequent speaker in the United States and Europe, including in Israel, on data privacy and data breach litigation, and has been spoken at conferences on data privacy and data breaches in 2024 in London and Lisbon.
Mr. Yanchunis was recognized in 2019, 2020, 2024 by Law360 as one of the few select MVPs in the area of Cybersecurity and Privacy. Similarly, in 2016 and then in 2020, Mr. Yanchunis was recognized by the National Law Journal as a Trailblazer in the Area of Cybersecurity & Data Privacy. In 2020, Mr. Yanchunis was named Florida Lawyer of the Year by the Daily Business Review, and in 2022, he was awarded the Best Mentor award in the state of Florida by the same publication. This year he was named Consumer Lawyer of the Year by The Florida Bar’s Consumer Protection Committee.
In 2023, he was also recognized as a Titan of the Plaintiffs’ Bar by Law360. In 2025, Lawdragon named him in the 500 leadings lawyers in America.
Because of his experience in the area of cyber security and privacy and data breach litigation, he is a frequent speaker nationally and internationally. He spoke on these topics in May of 2024 in London, and he is scheduled to speak in London and Lisbon in the fall at two separate symposiums on data privacy and cyber security. Presently, he is organizing with several universities in the United States, the European Union, and Israel, a symposium to focus on data privacy. It is planned to be held in Rome in 2025. He also is a frequenter lecturer at Baylor College of Law in its LLM program on cyber security, most recently in June 2024.
Exhibiting his leadership skills and his ability to work collaboratively with others, Mr. Yanchunis has served in leadership positions on many professional committees and boards, most prominently as a member of the Board of Directors of The Florida Bar Foundation, a member of The Florida Board of Bar Examiners appointed by the Florida Supreme Court (5-year term, and he continues by appointment to date as an Emeritus Member), and an elected member for two terms to The Board of Governors of The Florida Bar, and to The Young Lawyers Division of The Florida Bar. He has served on The Florida Bar’s Consumer Protection Committee, including serving as its Chair. He has also served as an expert in ethical issues in class litigation for The Florida Bar in disciplinary proceedings.
In his profession, he received the Florida Bar Foundation President’s Award of Excellence, the Public Justice Impact Change Award, and for his work in representing a class of elderly indigent Floridians on Medicaid in a suit against the state of Florida, which resulted in an increase in the benefits to class members, he was awarded The Florida Bar Elder Law Section Chair’s Honor Award.
He has been recognized as a Super Lawyer for over 2 decades and is AV rated by Martindale Hubbell.
Mr. Benck is a dual US/Luxembourg citizen who graduated from Birmingham-Southern College (BA- Economics, 1990). He obtained his Juris Doctorate from the University of Alabama School of Law (JD, 1993).
Professionally, he serves as the Vice President, General Counsel and Assistant Secretary for Hibbett Sporting Goods, Inc. (Nasdaq: HIBB), a billion dollar, full line sporting goods distributor headquartered in Alabama with over 1,050 retail locations in approximately 36 US states, and nearly 10,000 employees.
Reporting directly to the CEO and the Board of Directors, he oversees the Legal Department and its staff of attorneys, Governmental Affairs, Economic and Competitive Intelligence, Enterprise Risk Management, Enterprise-wide Compliance, and serves as the Chief Privacy Officer (CIPP/US certified).
In addition to his role as chief legal officer for Hibbett, Mr. Benck serves in the following capacities:
Mr. Cachán is a fellow of the International Academy of Trial Lawyers, which is granted by invitation only and limited to 500 active trial lawyers from the United States. In recognition of his work, Mr. Cachán has been honored by several leading industry outlets and organizations, including:
Mr. Cachán has represented Fortune 500 companies before federal and state courts in jury trials across the nation in breach-of-contract litigations, banking actions, product liability lawsuits and professional malpractice cases. His representations have included:
Mr. Cachán is active in the legal community. He is a board member of Public Counsel, the largest provider of pro bono legal services in the United States. He also is an honorary trustee of the Mexican-American Bar Foundation, which provides scholarship assistance to Latino law students. Mr. Cachán previously served as a member of the Commission on Judicial Nominees Evaluation of the State Bar of California, which evaluates all candidates under consideration for a judicial appointment by the governor. He is past president of the Association of Business Trial Lawyers in Los Angeles. Mr. Cachán is the son of Cuban exiles and is fluent in Spanish.
Mark S. Cheffo, co-chair of Dechert’s global litigation practice, has extensive experience serving as national coordinating and trial counsel in complex product liability, insurance and mass torts litigation. He acts for corporations and individuals in the pharmaceutical, medical device manufacturing, bioengineering, insurance and industrial products industries, amongst others. Mr. Cheffo has also handled numerous toxic and environmental exposure suits.
Mr. Cheffo has taken part in several trial teams in high-profile pharmaceutical litigation, managing all stages of a dispute from negotiation, through pre-trial proceedings to trial. In addition to defending expert and company witness depositions, Mr. Cheffo has briefed and conducted numerous Daubert and Frye challenges. He has also briefed and argued dispositive motions and appeals in state and federal courts throughout the United States. Mr. Cheffo also has considerable experience conducting arbitrations and mediations relating to disputes.
Widely recognized as a leader in the field, Mr. Cheffo holds a Band 1 ranking from Chambers USA and is acknowledged as a Leading Lawyer by The Legal 500 U.S. for product liability and mass torts matters. He earned the title of "Litigator of the Week" from The American Lawyer for representing GSK and Saint- Gobain. In 2024, Who’s Who Legal: Life Sciences recognized Mr. Cheffo as a Recommended Individual for Product Liability. In 2023, he was named a Global Elite Thought Leader for Life Sciences - Product Liability by Who's Who Legal and received the Life Sciences Lawyer of the Year award at the Who's Who Legal Awards 2020. BTI Consulting Group listed Mr. Cheffo as a Client Service All-Star and Product Liability Attorney of the Year by LMG Life Sciences in 2022. He was chosen as one of Law360's MVPs of the Year in the Product Liability category in 2019 and 2020. Mr. Cheffo is part of a product liability team that has garnered numerous accolades over the past two decades, including Law360's Practice Group of the Year for Product Liability in 2018 and 2019, and New York Law Journal's Litigation Department of the Year for Product Liability in 2019, 2020, 2021, and 2022.
Mr. Cheffo maintains an active pro bono practice, assisting clients in a variety of matters. Most notably, he obtained a judgment of more than US$1.7 million for liability and legal fees on behalf of 11 restaurant workers in New York’s Chinatown. He also obtained a jury verdict in a defamation case and obtained a directed verdict in a case brought by three plaintiffs who had been shot while in prison.
Prior to joining Dechert, Mr. Cheffo was co-chair of Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan’s global product liability and mass torts practice.
Born 1953 in Wheeling, WV
Federal Judicial Service:
Judge, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio
Nominated by William J. Clinton on December 22, 1995, to a seat vacated by Carl Bernard Rubin. Confirmed by the Senate on July 22, 1996, and received commission on August 1, 1996. Served as chief judge, 2015-2019.
Education:
Brown University, A.B., 1975
Case Western Reserve University School of Law, J.D., 1978
Professional Career:
Private practice, Bellaire and St. Clairsville, Ohio, 1978-1993
Special counsel to the attorney general, State of Ohio, 1979-1993
City councilman, St. Clairsville, Ohio, 1988-1991
U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Ohio, 1993-1996
Jamie Falgout is Of Counsel practicing out of the firm’s New Orleans office. She primarily focuses her practice in the firm’s Products Liability and Pharmaceutical and Medical Device section.
She also helps clients in handling sexual abuse and assault claims and assists clients in a variety of complex litigation and arbitrations. Jamie is currently litigating multiple ERISA actions involving breaches of fiduciary duties on behalf of retirement plan participants and beneficiaries.
She received both her Juris Doctorate from Tulane Law School and Master of Business Administration from the A.B. Freeman School of Business at Tulane University. While there, she served as Senior Editor of the Environmental Law Journal and Coach of the Willem C. Vis International Arbitration Moot Court team.
Prior to law school, Jamie moved from New Jersey to New Orleans to attend Tulane University. She graduated with a B.A. in Political Science and Homeland Security.
Jamie is a member of several nationwide bar associations, including the Public Investors Bar Association and the American Association for Justice.
Lindsey Scarcello’s practice is focused on the representation of injured parties, with an emphasis on complex litigation against pharmaceutical companies and consumer product manufacturers. In 2024, she was appointed to the Plaintiffs' Executive Committee in In re: Oral Phenylephrine Marketing and Sales Practices Litigation (MDL 3089). She was also on the Plaintiffs’ Steering Committee in In Re: Acetaminophen – ASD–ADHD Products Liability Litigation (MDL 3043). Lindsey was a member of the trial team for three bellwether cases in In Re: 3M Combat Arms Earplug Products Liability Litigation (MDL 2885), the largest mass tort in US history. She frequently works with expert witnesses to develop general and case specific opinions and defends experts at deposition. She also has significant experience deposing adverse experts and drafting motions to exclude expert opinion testimony.
Lindsey has experience at all stages of litigation, from pre-filing investigation through appeal. She has successfully represented catastrophically and fatally injured individuals in various categories of litigation, including products liability, trucking accidents, motor vehicle collisions, and premises liability. As trial counsel for a young mother injured on a rural Missouri highway, Lindsey obtained one of the Top 100 Car Accident Verdicts in the United States in 2018. She has been named to the National Trial Lawyers: Top 40 Under 40 in Civil Litigation for the State of Missouri every year since 2018, and she has been recognized as a Super Lawyers Rising Star since 2021.
Judge Breyer received his AB in 1963 from Harvard College and his JD in 1966 from UC Berkeley School of Law. Upon graduation from law school, he clerked for Oliver J. Carter, chief judge, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. He then served as an assistant district attorney in San Francisco until 1973, when he was appointed assistant special prosecutor, Watergate Special Prosecution Force. He entered private practice in 1974, specializing in the defense of white-collar criminal cases.
He was appointed to the U.S. District Court, Northern District of California, in 1997 by President Clinton. In 2011, he was appointed by the Chief Justice of the United States to serve on the Judicial Panel on Multi-District Litigation. He was appointed by President Obama (with the consent of the Senate) in 2012 to serve as Vice Chairman of the United States Sentencing Commission, and re-appointed in 2017 by President Trump. During his twenty-five year judicial career, Judge Breyer has presided over a number of criminal matters implicating foreign concerns such as terrorism, theft of intellectual property, sex trafficking, and the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.
Additionally, he managed one of the largest civil cases filed in the United States: Volkswagen’s installation of defeat devices in their diesel vehicles intended to circumvent environmental laws. Since 1997, Judge Breyer has advised the governments of Egypt, India, Malaysia, Thailand, Turkey, and Ukraine on criminal justice and civil case management issues. In October 2018 he received the prestigious Devitt Award, the highest honor bestowed upon a United States Article III federal judge.
Alexandra Walsh is a nationally recognized trial attorney, with extensive experience trying and winning cases in courts throughout the country. Her successes have been recognized by the American College of Trial Lawyers, Chambers & Partners, and the New York Journal Verdict Hall of Fame, among other organizations. While Alex began her career defending corporate clients, in 2021 she began a new chapter in her practice by launching Walsh Law, a firm dedicated to fighting for plaintiffs. In 2024, Alex brought the team she built at Walsh Law to Anapol Weiss where she has helped the firm expand its trial practice to the national level.
Today, Alex dedicates much of her practice to representing survivors of sexual assault. She is co-chair of the Trial Committee in the MDL In re Uber Technologies, Inc. Passenger Sexual Assault Litigation, which has brought to light Uber’s failures to prevent thousands of sexual assaults every year. In addition, Alex represents hundreds of men and women who survived childhood sexual assault while in custody of the various states’ juvenile justice systems. Alex and her team are also fighting to hold Roblox, Discord, and Snapchat accountable for the predatory grooming, sexploitation, and sexual assault that these companies knowingly enable through their online platforms. Most recently, Alex has joined the fight against the Alexander Brothers, real estate moguls who for years used their wealth and prominence to engage in a sprawling sex trafficking scheme.
Alex plays a leadership role in various other national litigations as well, including the MDLs concerning toxic contamination of commercial baby food products; the hidden risks of Ozempic, Wegovy, and other weight loss medications; and the intentionally addictive effect of social media platforms.
Before beginning her law practice, Alex was honored to serve as law clerk to two of the country’s top jurists: 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 earned her law degree at Stanford Law School, where she was awarded Order of the Coif, and graduated summa cum laude from Bowdoin College.
Alex serves on the board of D.C.’s Legal Aid Society, the city’s oldest and largest civil legal services organization and represents Legal Aid clients in landlord-tenant disputes. Alex is also a board member for LIFT-DC, a national non-profit dedicated to breaking the cycle of poverty for families with children through targeted career, education, and financial coaching.
Drawing upon professional experience and knowledge in the legal and counseling professions, Alexandra “Cookie” Echsner-Rasmussen is an advocate for well-being in the law. Alexandra received her B.A. in Political Science and International Relations from Saint Louis University, Madrid. She received her J.D. and a certificate in International Law from Florida State University College of Law Cum Laude. She is trained as a 200-hour yoga hatha teacher and graduated with her M.S. in Counseling and Psychology with a certification in addiction counseling from Troy University. She is trained in EMDR therapy and is currently a Registered Mental Health Counseling Intern in the State of Florida primarily working with clients in inpatient and outpatient treatment of addiction from a wellness based, non-12 step perspective.
Alexandra has worked on a vast array of pharmaceutical product and medical device mass tort cases. She has considerable experience preparing for depositions of key witnesses in mass tort litigations. She was a trial team member for a Xarelto bellwether jury trial in Jackson, Mississippi, and in Pennsylvania state court. The results of the trials ultimately led to a global settlement of the Xarelto MDL.
Additional litigations that Alexandra has worked on include the representation of women who suffered personal injuries from the birth control implant Essure and consumers and businesses in claims against Skanska for damages sustained from the destruction of the Pensacola Bay Bridge. She has worked on the national multidistrict litigation against the manufacturers of Proton Pump Inhibitors (PPIs). Alexandra currently works on the Social Media Addiction and Hair Relaxer litigation.
She has been an active member of the Mental Health and Wellness Committee of the Florida Bar since Summer 2018. Alexandra is the Secretary of the Mindfulness in Law Society and Chair of the Florida Chapter of the Mindfulness in Law Society. She is a member of the Escambia-Santa Rosa Bar Association, the C. Roger Vinson American Inn of Court, the American Association for Justice, Women En Mass, and the Society of Women Trial Lawyers. Alexandra is a huge proponent for providing trauma-informed legal services and therapy. She has written extensively about lawyer and law student well-being, mindfulness, trauma-informed communication, and has had various speaking engagements and CLE courses on the topics.
Stuart Davidson is a partner in Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd LLP’s Boca Raton office. His practice focuses on complex consumer class actions, including cases involving deceptive and unfair trade practices, privacy and data breach issues, and antitrust violations.
He has served as class counsel in some of the nation’s most significant privacy and consumer cases, including: In re Facebook Biometric Information Privacy Litigation, No. 3:15-cv-03747-JD (N.D. Cal.) ($650 million recovery in a cutting-edge class action concerning Facebook’s alleged privacy violations through its collection of user’s biometric identifiers without informed consent); In re Yahoo! Inc. Customer Data Security Breach Litigation, No. 5:16-md-02752-LHK (N.D. Cal.) ($117.5 million recovery in the largest data breach in history); Kehoe v. Fidelity Federal Bank & Trust, No. 9:03-cv-80593-DTKH (S.D. Fla.) ($50 million recovery in Driver’s Privacy Protection Act case on behalf of half-a-million Florida drivers against a national bank); In re Sony Gaming Networks & Customer Data Security Breach Litigation, No. 3:11-md-02258-AJB-MDD (S.D. Cal.) (settlement valued at $15 million concerning the massive data breach of Sony’s PlayStation Network); and In re Solara Medical Supplies Data Breach Litigation, No. 3:19-cv-02284-H-KSC (S.D. Cal.) ($5 million all-cash settlement for victims of healthcare data breach).
Stuart currently serves as Plaintiffs’ Co-Lead Counsel in In re American Medical Collection Agency, Inc. Customer Data Security Breach Litigation, No. 2:19-md-02904-MCA-MAH (D.N.J.) (representing class of LabCorp customers), In re Independent Living Systems Data Breach Litigation, No. 1:23-cv-21060-KMW (S.D. Fla.), Garner v. Amazon.com, Inc., No. 2:21-cv-00750-RSL (W.D. Wash.) (alleging Amazon’s illegal wiretapping through Alexa-enabled devices), In re American Financial Resources, Inc. Data Breach Litigation, No. 2:22-cv-01757-MCA-JSA (D.N.J.), In re Fortra Tile Transfer Software Data Security Breach Litigation, No. 1:24-md-03090-RAR (S.D. Fla.) (representing Aetna patients), on Plaintiffs’ Executive Committee in In re Lakeview Loan Servicing Data Breach Litigation, No. 1:22-cv-20955-DPG (S.D. Fla.), and on Plaintiffs’ Steering Committee in In re FTX Cryptocurrency Exchange Collapse Litigation, No. 1:23-md-03076-KMM (S.D. Fla.). Stuart also currently represents the State of Arkansas in a major antitrust enforcement action, State of Arkansas ex rel. Griffin v. Syngenta Crop Protection AG, No. 4:22-cv-01287-BSM (E.D. Ark.).
Stuart also spearheaded several aspects of In re EpiPen (Epinephrine Injection, USP) Marketing, Sales Practices & Antitrust Litigation, No. 2:17-md-02785-DDC-TJJ (D. Kan.) ($609 million total recovery achieved weeks prior to trial in certified class action alleging antitrust claims involving the illegal reverse payment settlement to delay the generic EpiPen, which allowed the prices of the life-saving EpiPen to rise over 600% in 9 years), served as Co-Lead Class Counsel in three cases brought against Genworth Life Insurance Company on behalf of long-term care insureds, Skochin v. Genworth Life. Ins. Co., No. 3:19-cv-00049-REP (E.D. Va.); Halcom v. Genworth Life Ins. Co., No. 3:21-cv-00019-REP (E.D. Va.); and Haney v. Genworth Life Ins. Co., No. 3:22-cv-00055-REP (E.D. Va.), recovering hundreds of millions of dollars in cash damages for policyholders, and served as Plaintiffs’ Co-Lead Counsel in In re NHL Players’ Concussion Injury Litigation, No. 0:14-md-02551-SRN-BRT (D. Minn.) (representing retired National Hockey League players in multidistrict litigation suit against the NHL regarding injuries suffered due to repetitive head trauma and concussions), and in In re Pet Food Products Liability Litigation, No. 1:07-cv-02867-NLH-AMD (D.N.J.) ($24 million recovery in multidistrict consumer class action on behalf of thousands of aggrieved pet owners nationwide against some of the nation’s largest pet food manufacturers, distributors, and retailers). He also served as Plaintiffs’ Co-Lead Counsel in In re UnitedGlobalCom, Inc. Shareholder Litigation, C.A. No. 1012-VCS (Del. Ch.) ($25 million recovery weeks before trial); In re Winn-Dixie Stores, Inc. Shareholder Litigation, No. 16-2011-CA-010616 (Fla. Cir. Ct.) ($11.5 million recovery for former Winn-Dixie shareholders following the corporate buyout by BI-LO); and In re AuthenTec, Inc. Shareholder Litigation, No. 5-2012-CA-57589 (Fla. Cir. Ct.) ($10 million recovery for former AuthenTec shareholders following a merger with Apple). The latter two cases are the two largest merger and acquisition recoveries in Florida history.
Stuart is a former lead assistant public defender in the Felony Division of the Broward County, Florida Public Defender’s Office. During his tenure at the Public Defender’s Office, he tried over 30 jury trials and defended individuals charged with major crimes ranging from third-degree felonies to life and capital felonies. He has been quoted in numerous major media outlets regarding his cases, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, USA Today, U.S. News & World Report, New York Daily News, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, the Boston Globe, the Miami Herald, The Globe & Mail, and Law360, and is a frequent speaker at conferences involving class action practice and procedure.
Stuart has been honored in the category of Outstanding Antitrust Litigation Achievement in Private Practice at the American Antitrust Institute’s Antitrust Enforcement Awards. He has also been named a Litigation Star by Benchmark Litigation, a Recommended Lawyer by The Legal 500, a Leading Lawyer in America, a Leading Litigator in America, a Leading Plaintiff Financial Lawyer, and a Leading Plaintiff Consumer Lawyer by Lawdragon, one of “Florida’s Most Effective Lawyers” by American Law Media’s Daily Business Review, and a member of The National Trial Lawyers: Top 100-Civil Plaintiffs. He has also been named a Super Lawyer by Super Lawyers Magazine. He is a member of the Sedona Conference Working Group 11 Brainstorming Group, focusing on the California Consumer Protection Act. Stuart currently serves on the 2024 Consumer Protection Editorial Advisory Board for Law360.
Stuart earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science from the State University of New York at Geneseo. Stuart earned a Juris Doctor degree from the Nova Southeastern University Shepard Broad College of Law, where he graduated summa cum laude in the top 3% of his class. While in law school he was the Associate Editor for the Nova Law Review and was the recipient of Book Awards (highest grade) in Trial Advocacy, International Law, and Criminal Pretrial Practice.
Amanda Karl represents consumers, employees and others who have been harmed by corporations. She has prosecuted a wide range of complex cases, including product defect, failure-to-warn, wage and hour, data breach, sexual assault, and securities cases, within a variety of industries. In 2024 she was honored as a Rising Star by Law360, a highly selective award that recognizes top attorneys under the age of 40.
In addition to her case achievements, Amanda is deeply committed to mentorship and expanding the pathway for plaintiffs’ lawyers from underrepresented backgrounds. She has supported many law school recruiting efforts, most recently playing a key role in the development and candidate selection process of the firm’s 1L Diversity Fellowship. For the firm’s new associates and summer associates, Amanda has helped conceptualize and oversee onboarding and training.
Amanda has also spearheaded the creation of Gibbs Law Group’s Voting Rights Task Force, which seeks to identify opportunities for both attorneys and staff to promote voter engagement and maximize voter participation. Under Amanda’s guidance, the firm has not only participated in voting rights litigation, but has also implemented several internal programs to promote involvement across the firm in protecting and expanding the right to vote.
Amanda is a 2014 graduate (Order of the Coif) of the University of California at Berkeley School of Law, where she served as the Managing Editor of the California Law Review and Director of the Workers’ Rights Disability Law Clinic. During law school, she worked as a Clinical Law Student at the East Bay Community Law Center, assisting with litigation targeting criminal record reporting violations, and as a law clerk at Equal Rights Advocates, working on women’s employment issues. Following graduation from law school, she served as a law clerk to the Honorable Richard A. Paez, United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and to the Honorable Claudia Wilken, Northern District of California. Amanda received her undergraduate degree, magna cum laude, in Sociology and Human Rights from Columbia University in 2009.
Outside of work, Amanda serves on the Board of Directors of the East Bay Community Law Center, a legal nonprofit organization that is both the largest provider of free legal services in the East Bay Area and Berkeley Law’s largest clinical offering. She also enjoys reading, strength training, and exploring new places and foods with her husband and kids.
Nick Wasdin represents clients in important disputes before judges and juries around the country. Nick has tried numerous cases to decision, including, most recently, as trial counsel or lead trial counsel on five different federal jury trials during a single twelve month period ending in 2022. Trial opponents refer to Nick as “an extremely talented and committed advocate,” and Nick’s presentations in the courtroom have been praised by a federal judge as “outstanding” and “as good as any that I’ve seen” in 18 years on the bench.
Prior to co-founding Dwoskin | Wasdin LLP, Nick was a partner at Kirkland & Ellis—a leading international law firm—where he represented clients in a wide variety of cases, including in the areas of products liability, business and commercial disputes, class actions and consumer fraud. Nick has extensive experience litigating large mass torts and trying high-stakes cases in multi-district settings.
Nick received his B.A. from the University of Florida and his J.D. from the University of Michigan, where he served as an editor of the Michigan Law Review. Nick is a member of the Board of Directors of the Federal Bar Association, Chicago Chapter.
James Williams is a nationally recognized trial attorney who has litigated cases in 15 different states, Puerto Rico, and Milan, Italy. Savoy Magazine has named him to their list of the “Top Must Have Lawyers in the Country.” He has been named one of the “Top 100 High Stakes Litigators” by the organization that rates America’s top 100 attorneys. He is one of the “Nation’s Top One Percent” of attorneys according to the National Association of Distinguished Counsel.
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.
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.
Matt Francis is the CEO and co-founder of Pattern Data, an innovative provider of AI-powered software solutions for the legal industry. Pattern Data's technology supports law firms and third-party administrators in navigating complex litigation, specializing in case development, claims evaluation, settlement analytics, and data management with a particular focus on mass tort cases. Pattern Data's software has been successfully deployed in high-profile litigations, such as the 3M Combat Arms Earplug Litigation and the Philips CPAP Litigation.
Prior to founding Pattern Data, Matt served as Vice President of Product, Class Action & Mass Torts at Epiq, following his role as Vice President of Healthcare Resolutions at The Garretson Group.
Hillary M. Nappi is a partner at Hach Rose Schirripa & Cheverie and practices in the area of complex civil litigation. Passionate about giving a voice to those who have been silenced too long, Ms. Nappi zealously advocates for survivors of sexual abuse and assault. She is currently litigating many cases against several entities – both public and private – in wake of New York State’s recent passage of the Child Victims Act.
Ms. Nappi is admitted to the Bars of the states of New York and New Jersey, Pennsylvania and to the United States District Court for the Southern, Eastern, Northern and Western Districts of New York and District of New Jersey. Prior to joining the Firm, Ms. Nappi spent nine years working at the law offices of Boies, Schiller & Flexner LLP. While in law school, Ms. Nappi worked as a legal assistant/paralegal to the firm’s Chairman, David Boies. After her admission to the bar, Ms. Nappi was promoted to Staff Attorney. As a Staff Attorney, Ms. Nappi worked on large complex litigation matters as well as conducted regulatory investigations. Ms. Nappi later joined a boutique litigation firm in Westchester County where she honed her trial skills in the areas of criminal defense, commercial litigation, family law, and estate litigation. In 2018, Ms. Nappi was named “Top 40 Under 40 Criminal Defense Attorneys” by National Trial Lawyers and a Super Lawyers Metro Rising Star in 2018 and 2019.
Ms. Nappi earned her Bachelors of Science Degree in Criminal Justice from Pace University’s Pleasantville Campus. Ms. Nappi later received her Juris Doctor from Pace University School of Law (now the Elisabeth Haub School of Law). Ms. Nappi was a participant in NAAC Moot Court Competition and a member of Pace Law School’s Moot Court Board. During law school, Ms. Nappi was also heavily involved in the ABA through its Law Students Division where she was the Second Circuit Lt. Governor for Non-Traditional Law Student Relations.
Chris Klotz joined AWKO in September 2024. He graduated from Louisiana State University with a Bachelor of Science in Psychology and a minor in English. In 1992, he earned his J.D. from Mississippi College School of Law. Before joining AWKO, Chris spent nine years as a Partner/Owner of Stevenson Klotz Law Firm, where he focused on multi-plaintiff drug litigation, 1983 Civil Rights litigation, financial fraud, single event injury, and wrongful death. He has extensive experience in both federal and state trial and appellate courts.
At AWKO, Chris’s practice is centered on sexual assault, social media addiction, medical device, and pharmaceutical litigation. His current focus is on helping survivors of child and women’s sexual assault and those affected by social media addiction. He plays a key role in AWKO’s nationwide litigation against Catholic clergy, the Southern Baptist Convention, and the Boy Scouts of America in cases of sexual abuse and assault, as well as the firm’s Central California Women’s Facility litigation in Chowchilla and the Florida Juvenile Justice litigation.
Chris’s upbringing in a military family, which required moving every three years, profoundly shaped who he is today. Growing up as the “new kid” in many duty stations – from Hawaii to St. Louis, New Orleans to Manila—he learned to quickly make friends, understand his surroundings, and perceive social dynamics. His unique childhood experiences fostered his strong listening skills and contributed to his decision to study psychology.
Now residing in Pensacola, Chris remains committed to his clients and is constantly focused on finding ways to better serve them. He is deeply grateful for the lessons he learns from his clients while helping them navigate their legal challenges.
Areas of Practice
Sasha M. Gurvitz is a member of KTBS Law LLP.
Ms. Gurvitz has represented clients as restructuring counsel in a variety of roles, both out of court and in chapter 11 cases in Delaware, Texas, New York, California, Nevada, and Indiana. Ms. Gurvitz has represented chapter 11 debtors in numerous mid-market Delaware bankruptcy cases. Ms. Gurvitz also has experience representing official creditors’ committees, purchasers of assets, secured lenders, DIP lenders, contract counterparties, landlords, equity holders, independent directors, chapter 11 trustees, and other chapter 11 stakeholders. Ms. Gurvitz’s chapter 11 practice has recently been focused on mass tort and sexual abuse, healthcare, real estate, retail, and restaurant bankruptcy cases. Ms. Gurvitz serves as official committee counsel to the survivor committee in the bankruptcy case of The Roman Catholic Bishop of San Diego, and represented the interests of sex abuse survivors in the Boy Scouts and USA Gymnastics bankruptcy cases. Ms. Gurvitz served as official committee counsel in 3M’s mass tort bankruptcy case, In re Aearo Technologies. Ms. Gurvitz serves as counsel to a publicly-traded REIT in connection with certain healthcare bankruptcy cases and workouts. In addition to her primary restructuring work, Ms. Gurvitz has represented clients in federal multi-district litigation, in fraudulent transfer actions, and in appeals, including to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, Seventh Circuit, and Ninth Circuit.
Ms. Gurvitz is a member of the California State Bar, the American Bankruptcy Institute, the Turnaround Management Association, and the Financial Lawyers Conference. Ms. Gurvitz serves as Immediate Past President for the Southern California chapter of the Turnaround Management Association, as Co-Chair for the American Bankruptcy Institute’s Southwest Conference, and on the Board of Governors of the Financial Lawyers Conference. Ms. Gurvitz is honored to have been named as a Super Lawyers Rising Star for the years 2019 through 2024 and as a member of the American Bankruptcy Institute’s 2021 class of “40 Under 40 Emerging Leaders in Insolvency.” Ms. Gurvitz has written articles for several bankruptcy publications, including Colliers on Bankruptcy, Colliers Practice Guide, the Norton Adviser, and Law360, and enjoys speaking at conferences on bankruptcy-related topics.
Ms. Gurvitz received her J.D. from UCLA School of Law, where she graduated tenth in her class and was admitted to the Order of the Coif and awarded the 2013 American Bankruptcy Institute Medal of Excellence. Ms. Gurvitz earned her undergraduate degree from the University of California, Berkeley, where she graduated with highest honors.
Tom Pirtle is a nationally acclaimed trial lawyer renowned for his groundbreaking achievements in personal injury, wrongful death, defective product, and commercial dispute cases. With an exceptional track record in the courtroom, Tom has secured numerous landmark verdicts. Additionally, he has displayed his commitment to representing the rights of injured individuals through leadership positions in significant multi-district litigations, including:
Tom graduated with honors, receiving a Bachelor of Science degree from Stephen F. Austin University in 1987, where he was awarded Most Outstanding Graduate by the Board of Regents. He went on to graduate from South Texas College of Law in 1990.
Kristi Schubert advocates for the rights of sexual abuse and exploitation survivors involved in civil lawsuits. She is committed to aggressively fighting for justice on behalf of the men, women, and children she represents.
Kristi has successfully litigated against a wide variety of organizations, including churches, schools, private employers, medical facilities, and youth-facing organizations. She has obtained significant compensation and closure for countless survivors. Kristi also represents individuals who have been catastrophically injured due to the negligence of others, including in vehicular accidents and premises liability claims.
Valued as a smart, effective, and formidable litigator, Kristi understands the impact litigation can have on survivors of sexual abuse and on those who have suffered catastrophic injuries. She works compassionately and tirelessly with each client to identify what they need to feel heard, understood, and supported throughout the entire justice process. Her experience in advocating for victims’ rights spans all types of sexual offenses, including rape, child molestation, sexual assault, sex trafficking, and other forms of sexual exploitation.
In addition to her proven legal prowess and intellectual acuity, Kristi brings a unique combination of empathy, patience, communication skills, diligence, and ethical integrity to every victim she is privileged to represent. She offers the careful guidance, support, and strategic advocacy victims need to move forward after experiencing trauma. By taking time to connect with her clients to understand their trauma and pain, Kristi can prepare them for what lies ahead; she explains complex legal concepts in an understandable way while also defending their rights in and out of court.
Kristi is a litigator and trial attorney who cares deeply about people. Her outstanding personal skills and ability to apply esoteric legal theory to criminal behavior are further strengthened by her strong ethical compass, unwavering professionalism, absolute commitment to justice, and innate ability to empathize and shield her clients from aggressive defense attorneys. It is no surprise that Kristi is a frequently invited author and lecturer on representing survivors of sexual abuse, as well as a dedicated proponent of educating the community on the legal rights of abuse survivors.
Kristi is listed among 2019 Louisiana Super Lawyers “Rising Stars” and named a “Top 40 Under 40” civil plaintiff trial lawyer in Louisiana by The National Trial Lawyers from 2019 through 2023 and the National Trial Lawyers: Top 100 honor for 2024. Kristi is also an honored member of the New Orleans CityBusiness “Leadership in Law” class of 2021, 2022, and 2023. An active participant in the Louisiana Association for Justice, Kristi headed the LAJ Women’s Caucus Publications Committee from 2019 to 2020, has written many articles for the LAJ Louisiana Advocates publication, and received the 2015 and 2020 LAJ community service awards, as well as myriad other accolades. Kristi also received the STAR – Sexual Trauma Awareness and Response 2023 Champion of Change honor.
Kristi graduated summa cum laude from Baylor University with a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science. She received her Juris Doctor from Boston University School of Law, where she served as note editor for the Public Interest Law Journal, co-director of the Student Advisory Commission, and co-chair for the Public Interest Project Charity Auction.
Matthew M. Ford is a Senior Assistant Attorney General at the Office of the Arkansas Attorney General. His practice focuses on data privacy, cybersecurity, technology, and other consumer protection matters involving deceptive and unconscionable trade practices. He regularly participates in multistate investigations involving data breaches alongside state enforcers across the United States. Matthew holds five certifications from the International Association of Privacy Professionals: the CIPP/US, CIPP/E, CIPT, CIPM, and the AIGP. He is also a CompTIA Security Analytics Expert after obtaining the Security+, CySA+, and CASP+ certifications. Matthew also serves on the IAPP Training Advisory Board. Matthew is licensed to practice law in Arkansas and Colorado.
Chelsie Warner joined Aylstock, Witkin, Kreis & Overholtz, PLLC in 2012. She earned her J.D. from the University of Montana School of Law in 2009, following her graduation from Old Dominion University with a Bachelor’s in Political Science in 2005.
As a partner, Chelsie has been instrumental in shaping the firm’s legal landscape. Her expertise spans a wide array of legal areas, including product liability, multi-district litigation, class actions, and practice in state, federal, and bankruptcy courts. She has been involved in a diverse range of cases, including those related to Hormone Replacement Therapy, Proton Pump Inhibitors, Orthopedic Product Liability, Transvaginal & Hernia Mesh, BP Oil Spill, Abilify, 3M Earplugs, RoundUp, Child Sexual Assault, Opioids, Talcum Powder, and Bank of America Mortgage Modification.
Chelsie’s practice primarily focuses on sexual assault, social media addiction, medical device, and pharmaceutical litigation. She plays a vital role in AWKO’s nationwide cases involving Catholic clergy, Southern Baptist, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and Boy Scouts sexual abuse and assault litigations, as well as the firm’s USDA discrimination litigation. Her current emphasis is on assisting survivors of child sexual assault and those impacted by social media addiction. She also represents claimants in multiple bankruptcy cases, including those related to the opioid crisis and the Boy Scouts of America.
Before her tenure at AWKO, Chelsie served as an Assistant District Attorney for the State of Nevada. In this role, she prosecuted a wide range of criminal cases, covering misdemeanors, juvenile criminal enforcement, and felonies. She gained valuable experience in both bench and jury trials and was responsible for child support enforcement within the child support division, as well as the prosecution of Department of Child and Family Services cases.
Chelsie is licensed to practice law in Washington, Montana, Wyoming, and Nevada. Additionally, she holds licenses in the 9th and 5th Circuit Courts of Appeals, where she has effectively presented and argued her clients’ positions. Chelsie’s commitment to representing victims and survivors is a cornerstone of her legal career, providing them with a strong platform to share their stories.
Areas of Practice
The Managing Partner of Lieff Cabraser’s Nashville office, Mark Chalos has been appointed to lead multidistrict litigations and class actions in federal and state courts throughout the country. Mark represents individuals who have suffered catastrophic personal injuries, as well as consumers, businesses, and municipalities that have been defrauded. Mark prosecutes product defect cases against U.S. and foreign corporations that make and sell allegedly defective or dangerous consumer products, ranging from automobiles to pharmaceutical drugs and devices. Mark also represents survivors of institutional sexual abuse, which includes compelling institutions to adopt procedures and safeguards to prevent future abuse.
Mark has obtained hundreds of millions of dollars for his clients in jury verdicts, arbitration rulings, and settlements.
To help fight the opioids catastrophe that has devastated communities across America, Mark represents large and small counties, cities, Native American tribes, and health benefit providers in litigation that seeks to make our communities safer. In addition to serving on the firm’s court-appointed leadership team in the national opioids litigation, Mark recently served as trial counsel in the national bellwether trial on behalf of the City of San Francisco, which resulted in a successful verdict for his client.
Mark also represents families in communities that have been deprived of access to safe drinking water, including in Jackson, Mississippi, and Benton Harbor, Michigan, where residents have been exposed for years to water poisoned with lead and other contaminants.
Mark has been appointed to leadership roles in numerous complex civil proceedings, including: Co-Lead MDL Counsel in In re: Generac Solar Power Systems Marketing Sales Practices and Products Liability Litigation, MDL No. 3078; Co-Lead MDL Counsel, In re Evenflo Co., Inc. Marketing, Sales Practices and Products Liability Litigation (child booster seats), MDL 2938 (D. Mass); Co-Lead MDL Counsel and Co-Lead Trial Counsel, In re Whirlpool Front Loading Washer Products Liability Litigation, MDL 2001 (N.D. Ohio); Co-Lead Interim Class Counsel, Miller v. Ford (engine failures), Case No. 2:20-cv-01796 (E.D. Ca); Co-Lead Class Counsel, Weidman v. Ford (brake failures), Case No. 2:18-cv-12719 (E.D. MI); Co-Lead Class Counsel in Alger v. FCA US, LLC (exploding headrests), Case No. 2:18-CV-00360 (E.D. Ca); Co-Lead Counsel in Braziel v. Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy (consolidated litigation re: lead contamination of Benton Harbor’s water system), Case No. 22-000046-MM (Michigan Court of Claims); Plaintiffs Executive Committee, In re: East Palestine Train Derailment, Case No. 4:23-cv-00242 (N.D Ohio); Plaintiffs Executive Committee, Murphy v. Graco Children’s Products (child booster seats), Case No. 1:20-CV-03030-LMM (N.D. Ga.); Chair of MDL Expert Committee, In re General Motors Air Conditioning Marketing and Sales Practices Litigation, MDL 2818 (E.D. MI); Plaintiffs Steering Committee, In re Exactech Polyethylene Orthopedic Products Liability Litigation, MDL 3044 (EDNY); Plaintiffs Steering Committee, Federal/State Litigation Liaison, in In re New England Compounding Pharmacy, Inc. Products Liability Litigation (fungal meningitis/infections), MDL 2419 (D. Mass); Plaintiffs Steering Committee and Co-Chair Plaintiffs Expert Committee in In re Navistar Diesel Engine Product Liability Litigation, MDL No. 2223 (N.D. Ill); and Plaintiffs Steering Committee in In re Ford Switch Fire Litigation, Texas state MDL, Travis County, Texas, Cause No. D-1-GN-08-000901. Mark also represents clients in many centralized litigations across the country.
Mark served in the court-appointed leadership representing East Palestine, Ohio residents in litigation arising from a train derailment and fire that released toxic chemicals into their community. The $600 million settlement is believed to be the largest settlement for a railroad disaster in U.S. history.
An active member of the legal community, Mark serves as President of the Tennessee Trial Lawyers Association (formerly served as Vice-President, Secretary, and Treasurer of the organization), on its Board of Governors, and as a Trustee of the political action committee Lawyers Involved for Tennessee (LIFT). On the national level, Mark serves as Co-Chair of the American Association for Justice (AAJ) Class Action Litigation Group, serves as a Member of the AAJ Public Affairs Committee and is a Past-Chair of the AAJ Public Education Committee. Mark serves on the board of directors of the Tennessee Innocence Project, an organization dedicated to freeing wrongly convicted and incarcerated persons.
Mark and his co-authors recently updated their acclaimed book, Litigating International Torts in United States Courts (Thomson Reuters West, 2022 ed.), a practical resource for legal practitioners and judges. Mark has also authored a number of articles published in peer-reviewed journals, including articles in the national publications TRIAL Magazine and The Trial Lawyer on holding foreign companies accountable for injuries they cause in the U.S., and has served on the Law360 Product Liability Editorial Advisory Board, providing feedback on Law360’s news coverage of the legal world.
Mark serves as an Adjunct Professor of Law at Vanderbilt Law School, teaching The Practice of Aggregate Litigation. Mark served as a Drafting Team Leader for “Guidelines And Best Practices For Large And Mass-Tort MDLs,” (2d Edition, 2018), Bolch Judicial Institute, Duke Law School, as well as for “Discovery Proportionality Guidelines and Practices,” 99 JUDICATURE, no. 3, Winter 2015, at 47–60, Duke Law Center for Judicial Studies. He also served on the Select Committee on Class Actions within Emory University School of Law’s Institute for Complex Litigation and Mass Claims.
Mark is a frequent speaker at legal seminars nationwide on a variety of civil litigation topics. He has also been cited by top-tier media outlets including The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, The Washington Post, NPR’s Morning Edition, Associated Press, Forbes, ABC News, CNN, CBS This Morning, FoxNews, and MSNBC. Recently, Mark acted as legal analyst for a series of articles in The Tennessean regarding a nationally significant privacy trial based on illegal videos taken of a woman in a Nashville hotel by another hotel guest and distributed on the internet, leading to a $55 million jury verdict for the plaintiff.
Mark has been named among The Best Lawyers in America, “Mid-South Super Lawyers,” “Nashville’s Best Lawyers,” and Nashville Business Journal’s “Best of the Bar.” Mark has been included in The Best Lawyers in America via peer vote nationwide in the fields of “Mass Tort Litigation/Class Actions-Plaintiffs” from 2012 through 2023. Mark was named in the Nashville Business Journal’s “Best of the Bar” from 2015-2017 and to the “Top 100: Tennessee Super Lawyers” for 2015 and 2019, a distinction for attorneys with the highest evaluations statewide. Mark was named an American Bar Foundation Fellow in 2016. The organization is dedicated to advancing justice through rigorous research on the law and membership is limited to 1% of attorneys in each state. Also from 2016 – 2022, Mark was listed as one of Nashville Post’s lawyers “In Charge.”
Mark is admitted to practice before the United States Supreme Court; United States Court of Appeals for the First, Sixth, and Seventh Circuits; the United States District Court for the Western, Middle, and Eastern Districts of Tennessee; the Northern District of Florida; and the courts of the State of Tennessee. He is a member of the American, Tennessee, and Nashville Bar Associations, as well as the American Association for Justice and Tennessee Trial Lawyers Association.
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.
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.
Dai Wai leads Parabellum's commercial litigation vertical. He has closed dozens of investments from inception with aggregate capital commitments in excess of $600 million.
Dai Wai is one of three individuals in the US ranked Band 1 by Chambers for litigation funding and one of The Legal 500’s eight global “Industry Leaders.” He has also been recognized by Leaders League as one of the leading litigation funding professionals in the US, by Lawdragon as a global leader in legal finance, and by Lexology as the inaugural winner of the Client Choice Award for third-party funding in the US. He frequently speaks and comments on developing issues in the industry, and has authored industry commentary for Bloomberg Law, Law360, Carrier Management, ACC Docket, Corporate Counsel, and The Law Reviews.
Dai Wai also manages Parabellum’s public policy initiatives. He is a member of the US Regional Committee of the International Legal Finance Association (ILFA) and coordinator of ILFA’s global best practices working group, and he has testified before multiple legislative bodies on matters related to legal finance. He also served as one of two industry representatives on the New York City Bar Association’s Litigation Funding Working Group, is a member of the New York City Bar Association’s Litigation Committee, contributed to the Government Accountability Office’s study of litigation funding, is an alumnus of the New York City Bar Association's Professional Ethics Committee, and participated on the Uniform Law Commission's Third-Party Funding of Litigation Study Committee.
Prior to joining Parabellum, Dai Wai was a litigation partner at Dorsey & Whitney LLP, where he specialized in commercial and antitrust litigation. Dai Wai has broad experience in all manners of complex commercial litigation, ranging from contract disputes to trade secret misappropriation to securities. He has advised and represented clients ranging from Fortune 100 companies to closely-held family businesses through all phases of litigation. While in private practice, Dai Wai was consistently named a Super Lawyers Rising Star in Business Litigation.
Dai Wai received his A.B., cum laude, from Georgetown University and his J.D. from New York University School of Law. He is active in the Asian American Bar Association of New York, where he is a former board member, Co-Chair of the Judiciary Committee, and Co-Chair of the Litigation Committee. He is also an alumnus and faculty member of the New York City Bar Association Associate Leadership Institute and a member of the New York City Bar Association Litigation Committee.
Representative Mandie Landry was sworn into the Louisiana House of Representatives on January 13, 2020. As a freshman Democratic legislator, she’s become a force in Baton Rouge in every possible way: scoring money for her district and city for the S&WB and flood protection, juvenile justice, and education; fiercely defending reproductive rights; and expanding maternal health care by $20 million dollars a year.
Born and raised in Louisiana, Mandie’s working-class, union family encouraged her to succeed academically. The first in her family to graduate from college and law school, she was awarded academic scholarships to the University of Notre Dame and Georgetown Law School. Mandie moved back home to New Orleans when her father was diagnosed with mesothelioma, a terminal workplace illness caused by asbestos.
Mandie has been a practicing attorney for almost 20 years, in both Washington, D.C. and New Orleans, representing both civil and criminal clients. As a lawyer, Mandie has represented an abortion clinic, a fertility clinic, and minors seeking permission from the court to have an abortion. This experience assists her in being a state legislative leader in reproductive rights.
Mandie has put career as a practicing attorney to good use by becoming a skilled legislator. In Baton Rouge, Mandie works on legislation that is both principled and practical. As a member of the minority Democratic Party in a super majority Republican legislature, she’s worked across the aisle to pass sensible legislation and to educate her colleagues on progressive issues important to New Orleans. Mandie works independently of the Capitol’s army of lobbyists and special interests to do what District 91 elected her to do: stand up for those without a voice and protect our city at all costs.
Education
University of Notre Dame, 2000
Georgetown University Law Center, 2005
Representative Mandie Landry Delivers for District 91 and New Orleans
Chad Hutchinson is an experienced trial attorney who has defended clients in the products, pharmaceutical and medical device industries the majority of his career. He has successfully tried multiple cases to verdict in first chair trial roles and assisted teams in multi-district litigation and various state courts all over the country. Chad has previously been selected as a winner of the Law360 Distinguished Legal Writing Award by The Burton Foundation for his published work. He is listed in Best Lawyers in America® and Super Lawyers® and is AV-rated by Martindale-Hubbell.
About Chad
Chad serves as national/regional counsel in the defense of various manufacturers and distributors in both commercial and product liability litigation. He also handles catastrophic loss/high exposure tort matters around the country for several insurers. As part of his medical device practice, Chad routinely prepares and defends company witnesses and 30(b)(6) representatives. His work with expert witnesses focuses on the fields of biomaterials, polymer science, chemistry, toxicology and epidemiology. He has deposed numerous Plaintiffs’ experts in these fields, several of which concluded with successful Daubert/Frey challenges that limited or excluded the admissibility of their opinions. He has also presented to judges presiding at court- ordered Science Days, as well as led all work-up phases for experts, including selection, preparation, defending their depositions, and directing their testimony at trial.
In 2018, a client selected Chad as its “Attorney of the Year.” He graduated from the prestigious International Association of Defense Counsel (IADC) Trial Academy. In 2019, Chad served as a faculty member of the trial academy. Chad is active in several industry organizations, including IADC, where he serves as Vice Chair of Programs and Projects within the Drug, Device & Biotechnology Committee. Chad is also a member of the Trial Attorneys of America.
Chad obtained a J.D., cum laude, from Mississippi College. He obtained both an M.A., cum laude, in Taxation and a B.A., cum laude, in Accountancy from the University of Mississippi. He is admitted to practice in Alabama, Tennessee and Mississippi.
Practice Areas and Industry Teams
Experience
Bar Admissions
Distinctions
Associations
Education & Honors
Papers, Presentations and Publications
Sharon is a courtroom-proven trial lawyer with extensive experience in high-profile cases involving parallel proceedings in state and federal courts. Known for her ability to collaborate across the aisle in mass tort litigation in particular, she is a frequent writer and speaker on trial strategy and case management, and has been named a “Key Lawyer” by The Legal 500 in life science and product liability defense. Sharon also has significant experience working with and examining witnesses, as well as in setting case strategy for joint defense groups in complex matters.
Sharon has represented Fortune 100 companies in class actions, mass torts, and multidistrict litigation (MDL) in the pharmaceutical and consumer product industries. She has been a key member of several trial teams, including representing a major pharmacy chain in the Opioid litigation (described by the Washington Post as “the most complex civil lawsuit in U.S. history”) and more recently securing a defense verdict on behalf of a multinational medical device and health care company in the NEC litigation in state court after the Plaintiff requested over US$6.2B in damages. Sharon previously served as a law clerk to the Honorable Edith Brown Clement of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.
Daniel is co-chair of O’Melveny’s State Attorneys General Investigations and Litigation Group. He is an experienced litigator and strategic advisor who specializes in high-stakes litigation, government investigations and controversies, and regulatory matters. Daniel regularly handles government contract disputes, including bid protests at the state and local levels. His broad practice encompasses products liability, healthcare, environmental, technology, financial services, and white collar and investigation matters that could appear before government agencies.
Daniel also represents government agencies in appellate litigation, investigations, and regulatory counseling matters.
Daniel previously served as Chief of Policy and Senior Counsel to California Attorney General Kamala D. Harris. In that position, he was a member of the four-person executive team that supervised and operated the 5,000-person California Department of Justice. As Harris’s primary legal policy advisor, Daniel was responsible for developing and executing the Attorney General’s policy initiatives and supervising some of the department’s most complex and high-profile matters, covering healthcare, technology and privacy, criminal justice, civil rights, environmental and consumer law. As a result, he has a deep understanding of the national state attorney general landscape and the best strategies for engagement with AG’s offices.
Mary Liu joined AWKO in 2012. After graduating from the University of Florida in 1994 with a Bachelor of Science, Mary spent the first 13 years of her career in management consulting, executive coaching, and human resources. In 2010, Mary graduated Summa Cum Laude while earning her J.D. from the Nova Southeastern University School of Law, ranking in the top 2% of her graduating class.
Mary focuses her practice on sexual assault, social media addiction, medical device, and pharmaceutical litigation. Mary is leading AWKO’s nationwide sexual assault and online sexual abuse and exploitation of children litigations. Mary represents clients against various institutions that have perpetuated such abuse, such as churches, schools, youth groups, and detention facilities. Mary is passionate about representing victims and survivors, and giving them a strong platform to have their voices heard.
Further, Mary was Court-appointed to the Plaintiffs’ Steering Committee in the Social Media Addiction Litigation for both the Northern District of California and the Los Angeles County Superior Court, where she helps lead hundreds of lawsuits against Meta, Snap, TikTok, and YouTube.
Prior to joining AWKO, Mary served as an Assistant Attorney General for the State of Florida, representing the state in civil prosecutions of cases involving child abuse, abandonment, and neglect. Mary also founded a successful family law practice, representing clients in cases involving the dissolution of marriage and domestic partnerships, child custody and support, and grandparent visitation disputes. In addition to her extensive experience as a practicing attorney, Mary also served as an Assistant Professor of Law at Irvine University College of Law, where she taught courses in Civil Procedure and Community Property.
Mary is licensed to practice law in Florida and California. She is currently serving on the Board of Directors for Child USA, the national think tank for child protection. Mary is also serving as a co-chair for the American Association for Justice’s CDA Section 230 litigation group, which is dedicated to representing victims and survivors of online exploitation.
Andre has been honored twice with a California Lawyer Attorney of the Year Award: in 2023 for his involvement and success at trial in Patz v. City of San Diego, and in 2019 for his work in the California Supreme Court in De La Torre v. CashCall. He is on the Board of the Civil Justice Research Initiative of Berkeley Law, a Fellow of the American Bar Foundation, a member of the Lawyers Committee of the National Center for State Courts, a Trustee of the National Civil Justice Institute, past Chair of the American Association for Justice’s LGBT Caucus, past Trustee of the National College of Advocacy, and a member of Williams College’s Latino/a and BiGLATA Alumni Network.
Jim's practice focuses on the defense of pharmaceutical, medical device and consumer product litigation in state and federal courts nationwide, particularly consolidated mass torts and multi-district litigations.
In Chambers, clients describe Jim as having "[a]n incredible ability to synthesize complex scientific issues into very persuasive arguments that can be used both in court and in negotiations with the other side."
He serves as national coordinating counsel and MDL counsel for consolidated litigations across the U.S. involving thousands of plaintiffs as well as in numerous single-plaintiff cases involving pharmaceuticals, consumer products and medical devices. In conjunction with those roles, Jim emphasizes efficient discovery and manages significant mass tort e-discovery undertakings for his clients.
Jim has also coordinated the resolution of some of the largest, mass torts of the last decade.
Jim also counsels clients on product liability due diligence related to potential acquisitions and divestitures.
Regarding pharmaceutical and biologic manufacturers, Jim's experience includes:
Regarding medical device and consumer products manufacturers, Jim's experience includes:
JB Kelly is Of Counsel in the Litigation Department at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz. Mr. Kelly’s practice leverages his more than 30-year career in the public sector working with state attorneys general (AG) as he handles a variety of complex, often multistate matters, involving critical public policy and strategic issues.
Mr. Kelly has extensive experience assisting clients in addressing enterprise-threatening, publicly scrutinized issues that require a sophisticated and nuanced approach with regulators, shareholders, consumers and other stakeholders. Although this includes preemptive compliance counseling and training, when issues do arise, Mr. Kelly also works with clients to design and implement accompanying tactics for communication with both regulators and the public that allow for minimal interruption of their business operations. When enforcement action is unavoidable, he regularly advises clients in negotiations with state AGs, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and other federal regulators and represents them in inquiries, investigations and litigation.
In addition to advising and representing clients in connection with AG issues across the country, Mr. Kelly counsels clients on a variety of consumer protection issues, especially those involving deceptive or unfair trade practices. He represents clients facing regulatory scrutiny by the FTC as well as by the state-level counterparts, which have similar statutory jurisdiction through “Little FTC Acts.” Mr. Kelly also helps clients understand consumer fraud laws and assists them in successfully navigating consumer complaints and the related government oversight process.
Mr. Kelly served as general counsel to North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper from 2001 to 2012, overseeing major litigation involving the State of North Carolina. He was a member of the negotiation teams in high-profile, multistate settlements involving mortgage foreclosure, Ameriquest and tobacco, among others.
Mr. Kelly is admitted to practice in the State of North Carolina and the District of Columbia. His court admissions include the United States District Courts for the Eastern, Middle and Western Districts of North Carolina and the District of Columbia, the United States Courts of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, and the United States Supreme Court. Mr. Kelly graduated with a B.A. from University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill in 1980. He received a J.D. from the University of North Carolina School of Law in 1984, where he served as research editor of the North Carolina Law Review.
Fouad Kurdi mediates high-stakes, complex disputes that span a wide range of legal specialties, including product liability, contracts, cyber security & privacy, bankruptcy, antitrust, mass tort, and mass action cases. Recently, Fouad successfully mediated numerous disputes involving public nuisance claims asserted by thousands of public entities against multiple companies, culminating in settlements exceeding $15 billion. Fouad has also mediated complex PFAS-related disputes, including claims asserted by public and private entities against chemical suppliers and industrial operators.
Fouad has notable experience mediating complex antitrust disputes, recently facilitating a mid-trial settlement in a closely watched federal antitrust case involving a challenged multi-billion dollar cross-border merger. In the commercial bankruptcy sector, Fouad is currently mediating several high-profile bankruptcy cases, including multiple chapter 11 cases involving divisional mergers (so-called “Texas Two-Step” cases). Fouad was trained by and often mediates with Professor Eric Green, one of the country’s most highly regarded mediators. Fouad holds a certificate from Harvard Law School’s Program on Negotiation after successfully completing an intensive formal course on mediating disputes.
In addition to his mediation practice, Fouad specializes in the administration of complex mass tort trusts, where he provides operational and strategic guidance. He is highly experienced in establishing and implementing claim evaluation protocols, ensuring complex claims are administered in a cost-efficient and timely manner. Passionate about finding creative solutions to the novel issues that often arise in complex trusts, Fouad collaborates with stakeholders to craft and implement successful strategies. He strives to build meaningful and trusting relationships with all trust stakeholders and claimants.
Currently, Fouad serves as the Executive Director of the Takata Airbag Tort Compensation Trust Fund and the Takata Airbag Individual Restitution Fund, where he oversees all Trust operations, including legal, claims administration, financial reporting, economic forecasting, lien resolution, and investment management. Fouad also served as an advisor to the Insys Victim’s Restitution Trust (VRT), a trust formed in the first major opiate-related chapter 11 bankruptcy case to compensate tort claimants.
Before joining Resolutions, LLC, Fouad served as a litigation and financial restructuring associate at Brown Rudnick LLP, following a clerkship for the Honorable Mary F. Walrath at the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware. Fouad has also published several articles on many bankruptcy law issues, including bankruptcy trusts. See, e.g., Channeling Injunctions In Hindsight: Lessons Learned from the Takata Airbag Trust, 2022 Ann. Surv. of Bankr. Law 7; A Question of Power: Non-Consensual Third-Party Releases in Chapter 11 Plans, 25 Norton J. Bankr. L. & Prac. 4 Art. 6 (Aug. 2016); Is Lung Disease “Individual” Enough? In re Emoral and Why the Answer is No, Am. Bankr. Ins. Unsecured Trade Creditors Newsletter (Feb. 2015). Fouad graduated cum laude from Georgia State University’s College of Law, where he also completed a master’s degree in taxation.
Jayne Conroy is a named partner at Simmons Hanly Conroy and oversees practice areas in the Complex Litigation Department. Under her leadership, the firm has become one of the country’s largest plaintiff law firms dedicated to helping those injured by corporate wrongdoing.
With a legal career spanning more than three decades, Jayne has earned a superb national reputation as an elite trial lawyer, skilled strategist and decisive negotiator. She has consistently helped secure billions of dollars in verdicts and settlements for thousands of individuals, families and communities in numerous courtrooms nationwide.
“We are a threat to defendants because we are everywhere,” Jayne said while talking about the depth of experience in her department. “They know they have to deal with us, and we are prepared to try cases.”
Jayne focuses her practice on helping plaintiffs exclusively in mass torts, class actions, product liability, pharmaceutical and sexual abuse litigation. She serves or has served on dozens of court-appointed leadership committees in complex legal actions of national scope. These complex mass tort cases, called multidistrict litigations or MDLs, involve thousands of cases originating from state courts around the country and consolidated before a single federal judge.
Jayne’s most recent MDL appointment includes the Plaintiff’s Executive Committee in the In re: Camp Lejeune Water Litigation in the North Carolina Southern Division which alleges drinking may have been contaminated with toxic chemicals that can cause multiple types of cancer, birth defects, Parkinson’s disease and more. She has also been appointed to the Plaintiffs’ Steering Committee Leadership in the In re: Social Media Adolescent Addiction/Personal Injury Products Liability Litigation, which alleges social media platforms encourage addictive behavior in adolescents and the Plaintiff’s Steering Committee for the multidistrict litigation against McKinsey & Company in the In re McKinsey & Co Inc National Prescription Opiate Consultant Litigation, Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation, which alleges McKinsey knowingly engineered marketing tactics that caused an avalanche of opioid addiction.
Chris Chorba is co-chair of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher’s Class Actions Practice Group. He specializes in defending class actions and complex litigation, and he has been recognized in Chambers USA: America’s Leading Lawyers for Business and in The Best Lawyers in America for Commercial Litigation. Law360 also named Mr. Chorba a “Class Action MVP,” which profiles attorneys who have “distinguished themselves from their peers by securing hard-earned successes in high-stakes litigation, complex global matters and record-breaking deals.” The National Law Journal also recognized him as a “Trailblazer” for his work defending consumer class actions.
Mr. Chorba has had substantial experience litigating a broad range of complex commercial matters at the trial and appellate level in California and throughout the country, and in multi-district litigation (MDLs). His litigation and counseling experience includes work for companies in every industry, including automotive, beauty / cosmetic, consumer products, education, entertainment, financial services, food and beverage, health care, insurance, life sciences, retail, social media, sports and gaming, technology, telecommunications, and utility / energy.
Kate Charonko is a thought leader and pioneer in the field of Electronically Stored Information (ESI) and is Bailey Glasser’s ESI group’s Practice Group Leader. Kate is a Certified e-Discovery Specialist (CEDS).
In her role as ESI Practice Group Leader, Kate designs ESI strategies that provide structured and conceptual analytic functionality for numerous aspects of e-Discovery, including document review strategy, use of technology and technology assisted review (TAR), collection and preservation strategy, ESI protocols, and training and implementation of e-Discovery practices.
In addition to her e-Discovery practice, Kate serves as part of Bailey Glasser’s multidistrict litigation (MDL) teams focusing on product liability actions across the country. Serving in various leadership and liaison positions, Kate focuses her MDL practice on complex discovery and e-Discovery matters.
Kate frequently speaks on various e-Discovery topics, including ESI, TAR, AI and legal ethics. In 2019, she was invited to share her “lessons learned” about her path to becoming a lawyer in Nora Riva Bergman’s book, “50 Lessons for Women Lawyers From Women Lawyers.”
Chambers USA, USA-Nationwide-Product Liability: Plaintiffs (2024)
2024 Lawdragon 500 X – The Next Generation, Electronically Stored Information
National Trial Lawyers Top 100, West Virginia (2024)
National Trial Lawyers Top 100, "Top 40 Under 40,” West Virginia (2023 and 2024)
Best Lawyers - Ones to Watch, Technology Law (2021)
Best Lawyers, Women in the Law (2021)
Jennifer M. Hoekstra is a partner with Aylstock, Witkin, Kreis & Overholtz, PLLC. 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.
Jennifer has been involved in complex litigation cases of all forms since 2007. Her passion and expertise lies in Electronically Stored Information and coordinating discovery across multiple defendant litigations. She has earned a solid reputation and plays an integral role in multiple complex litigation cases, practicing in the areas of Pharmaceutical Mass Torts, Defective Device Mass Torts, and other complex litigation.
Ms. Hoekstra is currently on the Plaintiffs Executive Committee for the MDL 3060 Hair Relaxer and MDL 2789 Proton-Pump Inhibitors Products Liability Litigations. Additionally, Jennifer is a passionate litigator and has been central to the successful outcome in dozens of MDL bellwether trials over the course of her career with more than $11 Billion in trial verdicts to her credit. Most recently in 2021 and 2022, she served as trial counsel and/or as an integral member of the trial team in all of the sixteen 3M Earplug trials securing more than $300 Million in compensatory damages for military veterans.
Since 2022, Jenni Peacock has served as the managing trustee of the Mallinckrodt Opioid Master Disbursement Trust II, which provides settlement funds to Mallinckrodt's public and private opioid creditors for opioid abatement and victim compensation. In this fiduciary role, Ms. Peacock oversees and directs the Trust's litigation, including for insurance coverage and to recoup funds from the former parent company and from a share repurchase program.
Prior to becoming a trustee, Jenni Peacock served as a Senior Assistant Attorney General with the Office of the Tennessee Attorney General. Over the last 20 years, Ms. Peacock held leadership roles in complex multistate attorneys general investigations and litigation on a variety of consumer protection issues including pharmaceuticals, mortgages, and credit ratings. Ms. Peacock was a national leader overseeing the multistate investigations and settlement efforts to obtain funds from opioid manufacturers and distributors to help states, tribes, and local communities abate the opioid epidemic. Ms. Peacock led the Purdue Pharma multistate investigation and was one of the principal negotiators of the initial $6 billion settlement going into the Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Ms. Peacock also was actively engaged in the negotiation of the original $1.6 billion opioid settlement with Mallinckrodt going into the Chapter 11 bankruptcy. While serving as one of the primary attorneys general representatives on court-approved government ad hoc committees, Ms. Peacock was involved in almost all aspects of the Mallinckrodt and Purdue Pharma bankruptcies. Ms. Peacock was also actively involved in the negotiations of the $21 billion settlement with opioid distributors AmerisourceBergen, Cardinal Health, and McKesson, and the $5 billion settlement with manufacturer Johnson & Johnson. In 2020, the National Association of Attorneys General bestowed the Attorney General Career Staff of the Year Award on Ms. Peacock in recognition of her leadership in these opioid matters.
Federal Judicial Service:
Judge, U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana
Nominated by William J. Clinton on May 19, 1998, to a seat vacated by Okla Jones. Confirmed by the Senate on September 28, 1998, and received commission on October 1, 1998. Assumed senior status on January 1, 2023.
Education:
Southeastern Louisiana College, B.A., 1966
Loyola University New Orleans School of Law, J.D., 1970
Professional Career:
Law clerk, Hon. William Redman, Louisiana Court of Appeal, Fourth Judicial Circuit, 1969-1970
Law clerk, Hon. Fred Cassibry, U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Louisiana, 1970-1971
Private practice, New Orleans, Louisiana, 1971-1998
With more than two decades of practicing personal injury law, Rosemary Pinto has earned an impressive record of courtroom victories, most of which were in cases that other lawyers had rejected as unwinnable. Even in law school, Ms. Pinto stood out among her peers as one of the preeminent litigators. She won the Villanova Law School Theodore F. Riemel Moot Court Competition, in which law students presented a series of arguments before trial and appellate judges.
As a trial lawyer representing injured victims, she has achieved some of the largest verdicts in Philadelphia against corporations and medical treaters in cases that were against seemingly insurmountable odds. Ms. Pinto has an extensive background litigating mass tort actions. In the past, she represented asbestos manufacturers and insurance companies in complex matters. Currently, she confines her practice to the representation of victims, including victims of defective drugs and products that have been irresponsibly marketed to the public. Ms. Pinto also has the added advantage in the courtroom of having practiced insurance defense law early in her career. With this background, Ms. Pinto is able to predict what the defense will do in nearly every case.
Ms. Pinto has been recognized by Super Lawyers as a “Top Rated Products Liability Attorney in Philadelphia, PA” since 2005, and has been recognized in Best Lawyers in America© since 2006. She is frequently asked to lecture to other lawyers in the areas of medical malpractice, product liability and improvement of trial skills by the Philadelphia Bar Institute, the Pennsylvania Trial Lawyers Association and the Philadelphia Trial Lawyers Association. Ms. Pinto has taught at the Beasley School of Law in the Trial Advocacy Program. She also participated in the Philadelphia Bar Association’s program, teaching civics to high school students. She has appeared on television and radio in relation to cases litigated, her pro bono work and her work in the legal community.
Ms. Pinto credits her success in the courtroom to her background. Her father was one of the preeminent trial lawyers in the country and thus she developed a love of the law at an early age. In addition, as a former high school history teacher, Ms. Pinto believes that courtroom trials are very similar to teaching, because in both situations you are exposing a captive audience (that might prefer to be somewhere else) to a new set of facts or evidence, and you need to present the information in a way that is interesting so that the audience becomes involved in the process. Ms. Pinto is a firm believer in our justice system and the ability of a jury of one’s peers to weigh the evidence and come up with a fair decision. She says that it is the collective wisdom of a jury that gives it the ability to see through false statements and red herrings to achieve a just result. Ms. Pinto takes an active role in politics by supporting both political candidates and judicial candidates that support the Constitution of the United States and our justice system in the hopes of ensuring access to justice for all, not just the wealthy corporations and insurance companies. Giving back to the community is important to Ms. Pinto as an attorney, so she continually represents indigent clients, donates to and helps raise money for charitable causes and holds receptions for candidates seeking public office who support the rights of all of our citizens. Ms. Pinto has been on the Board of Governors of the Philadelphia Trial Lawyers Association, the Philadelphia Bar Association, and the Pennsylvania Trial Lawyers. She has also served on the Board of Delegates to the Pennsylvania Bar Association.
Warren Postman is the Managing Partner of Keller Postman LLC. He combines a deep understanding of the civil litigation system with broad substantive expertise to solve complex litigation challenges for the firm’s clients.
Warren has helped build Keller Postman’s arbitration practice, which devotes unparalleled resources to resolving the claims of consumers and employees who are subject to forced arbitration clauses. The firm’s commitment to arbitration allows it to aggressively pursue individual arbitrations for tens of thousands of clients simultaneously and, as described by the New York Times, has left defendants “scared to death.” Warren has won numerous precedent-setting victories requiring defendants to comply with their obligation to arbitrate under agreements they drafted.
Due in large part to the arbitration practice Warren has built at Keller Postman, the rise of “mass arbitrations” has been one of the most significant recent developments in civil litigation. In the last two years alone, Keller Postman has secured millions in settlements for more than 500,000 individual clients.
Before joining Keller Postman, Warren was Vice President and Chief Counsel for Appellate Litigation at the U.S. Chamber Litigation Center. In that role, he managed appellate strategy for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which participates in more than 150 cases each year to shape the law on a wide range of issues affecting businesses. Working closely with senior in-house lawyers at some of the world’s largest companies, Warren gained unique insight into the dynamics and trends that shape business litigation.
Warren was previously an attorney in the Issues & Appeals practice at Jones Day, where he helped guide trial and appellate strategy in some of the firm’s most complex and high-stakes cases.
Warren served as a law clerk for Justice David H. Souter at the Supreme Court of the United States and Judge William A. Fletcher at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. He graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law School, where he was Articles Editor on the Harvard Law Review, and graduated magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Brandeis University.
Warren is licensed to practice law in California and the District of Columbia only.
Judge Jane Triche Milazzo was sworn in as a United State District Court Judge on October 12, 2011, after being unanimously confirmed by the United States Senate on October 11, 2011.
Judge Milazzo graduated from LSU Law School in 1992 and immediately went into practice with her family at the Law Offices of Risley Triche, LLC, where she engaged in a general civil practice. Judge Milazzo was the first female to practice law in Assumption Parish and ultimately became the first female elected to Louisiana’s 23rd Judicial District Court.
Judge Milazzo regularly speaks to lawyers on issues of professionalism, advocacy, and complex litigation. She currently presides over the multidistrict litigation, In Re: Taxotere (Docetaxel) Products Liability Litigation. She is married to her husband, John. They have six children and five grandchildren.
Norman E. Siegel litigates high-stakes cases for companies and individuals. He has earned a reputation locally and nationally for his ability to strategize, negotiate and deliver results. He was recently named by Best Lawyers as a 2020 “Lawyer of the Year” and by Law360 as a “Titan of the Plaintiff’s Bar” for his work in class action litigation following big wins against some of the largest corporations in America.
Norm has successfully tried to verdict a wide range of cases, obtaining several multimillion- dollar jury verdicts, and has obtained billions in settlements for his clients.
Norm concentrates his practice in three principal areas:
Business Litigation. Norm successfully deploys the firm’s contingency fee business litigation model in bet-the-company and “David vs. Goliath” matters involving intellectual property, breach of contract, fraud, misrepresentation and more. In one such matter, he prosecuted a groundbreaking antitrust case on behalf of Heartland Surgical Specialty Hospital, which claimed the region’s dominant hospital systems conspired to prevent it from obtaining in-network provider contracts. After Norm secured a key admission from a defense witness, Heartland settled with all defendants.
Data Breach and Privacy. Named one of Law360's “MVPs of the Year” for Cybersecurity and Privacy, Norm has served as lead counsel in several of the largest data breach cases litigated to date, including the sprawling multidistrict litigation alleging Equifax compromised the personal information of more than 148 million Americans in a 2017 data breach. More than 250 cases were filed against Equifax, and Norm was selected lead counsel over scores of other applicants. A leader in this burgeoning field of law, Norm has prosecuted data breach claims against Capital One, Quest Diagnostics, Target Corp., The Home Depot Inc., Marriott, the Office of Personnel Management, and the National Board of Examiners in Optometry, and he is the co-founder of the American Association for Justice’s data breach and privacy group.
Class Actions. Norm’s recent work includes multimillion-dollar jury verdicts and settlements on behalf of consumers who were overcharged for life insurance policies. In Vogt v. State Farm Insurance Co., Norm delivered the closing argument to the jury that returned a $34 million verdict for Missouri owners of State Farm life insurance. Norm also served as lead counsel in Larson v. John Hancock Life Insurance Co., a nationwide class action that ultimately settled for $59.75 million just before trial. For his work in the field, Best Lawyers recently named Norm “Lawyer of the Year” for class action litigation.
Norm began his career as an Assistant Attorney General at the Missouri Attorney General’s Office, where he gained a broad range of experience in complex litigation. He was later named partner at the firm now known as Dentons before starting Stueve Siegel Hanson in 2001. Norm was recognized as a 2020 Missouri Lawyers Awards Influential Lawyer by Missouri Lawyers Weekly; has been named among the “500 Leading Plaintiffs’ Lawyers in America” by Lawdragon; and is listed among Best Lawyers in America and Kansas City Business Journal’s “Best of the Bar.” He has been honored several times as a Top 100 Missouri/Kansas “Super Lawyer” and a Benchmark Plaintiffs “Local Litigation Star.”
Norm has served on the boards of the Healthcare Foundation of Greater Kansas City, the Kansas City Bar Foundation and the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum. Outside the office, he enjoys tennis, collecting art, and spending time with his family and his dog, a Whoodle named Lucky.
Eric Gibbs prosecutes consumer protection, antitrust, whistleblower, financial fraud and mass tort matters. He has been appointed to leadership positions in dozens of contested, high profile class actions and coordinated proceedings, and currently serves in leadership positions in In re Equifax, Inc. Customer Data Security Breach Litigation, In re: Wells Fargo Auto Insurance Marketing and Sales Practices Litigation, In re Risperdal and Invega Product Liability Cases, In re Banner Health Data Breach Litigation. Eric has recovered nearly a billion dollars for the clients and classes he represents, and has negotiated groundbreaking settlements that resulted in meaningful reforms to business practices, and have favorably impacted plaintiffs’ legal rights.
Reputation and Recognition by the Courts
In over twenty years of practice, Eric has developed a distinguished reputation with his peers and the judiciary for his ability to work efficiently and cooperatively with co-counsel, and professionally with opposing counsel in class action litigation.
[Mr. Gibbs] efficiently managed the requests from well over 20 different law firms and effectively represented the interests of Non-Settling Plaintiffs throughout this litigation. Judge Wu, In re Hyundai & Kia Fuel Economy Litigation (C.D. Cal)
The attorneys who handled the case were particularly skilled by virtue of their ability and experience.
Judge Debevoise, In re: Mercedes-Benz Teleaid Contract Litigation (D.N.J.)
They are experienced and knowledgeable counsel and have significant breadth of experience in terms of consumer class actions.
Judge Sabraw, Mitchell v. American Fair Credit Association (Alameda County Superior Court)
Representation was professional and competent; in the Court’s opinion, counsel obtained an excellent result for the class.
Judge Fogel, Sugarman v. Ducati North America (N.D. Cal)
Achievements and Leadership
Eric has been widely recognized for his professional excellence and achievements, and has been selected by numerous publications as a leading lawyer in the field of Class and Mass Actions.
In 2019, Law360 recognized Eric among its “Titans of the Plaintiffs Bar,” one of only 10 attorneys nationwide to receive the award, honoring “influential plaintiffs lawyers who had significant wins in 2018.” He also received the 2019 California Lawyer Attorney of the Year (CLAY) Award for his work in the Anthem Data Breach Litigation. The Daily Journal named Eric to its prestigious list of “Top Plaintiff Lawyers in California” for 2019 and 2016, and Law360 recognized Eric as a “2016 Consumer Protection MVP,” the only plaintiff-side lawyer in the country selected in that category. In 2018, Law360 named Eric a “Cybersecurity & Privacy MVP,” one of only five attorneys who received the honor nationwide. Consumer Attorneys of California selected Eric and co-counsel as finalists for the Consumer Attorney of the Year award for their work in achieving $100 million settlement in the Chase “Check Loan” Litigation.
His cases have been chronicled in major legal and news publications including NBC News, CNN, the National Law Journal, The New York Times, Auto Week, Market Watch, and Bloomberg News.
Eric holds a variety of leadership positions in professional associations dedicated to consumer advocacy, and he is frequently called upon to present on developing trends in the law at conferences throughout the country. Eric heads our California whistleblower attorney practice group.
Litigation Highlights
In re Anthem, Inc. Data Breach Privacy Litigation
Served as a court-appointed member of the Plaintiffs’ Steering Committee representing the interests of plaintiffs and putative class members following a massive data breach of approximately 80 million personal records. The lawsuit settled in August 2018 for $115 million, the largest data breach settlement in history.
In re Chase Bank U.S.A., N.A. “Check Loan” Contract Litigation
Multidistrict litigation that alleged Chase Bank wronged consumers by offering long-term fixed-rate loans, only to later more-than-double the required loan payments. Eric led negotiations in the case, which resulted in a $100 million settlement with Chase eight weeks prior to trial.
In re Adobe Systems Inc. Privacy Litigation
As court-appointed lead counsel, Eric and his team reversed a long line of decisions adverse to consumers whose personal information was stolen in data breaches. Judge Koh issued a 41 page decision in plaintiffs’ favor and Eric negotiated a comprehensive reform of Adobe’s data security practices. The court’s landmark decision on Article III standing in this case marked a sea change and has been cited favorably in over twenty cases in the year since it was issued.
After more than a decade of litigation, Eric as lead counsel achieved a nationwide class action settlement on behalf of approximately 5 million consumers of Intel Pentium 4 processors. The lawsuit changed Intel’s benchmarking practices and Intel agreed to a cash settlement for the class, along with $4 million in charitable donations.
Parkinson v. Hyundai Motor America
Eric served as class counsel in this lawsuit alleging that the flywheel and clutch system in certain Hyundai vehicles was defective. After achieving nationwide class certification, Hyundai agreed to a settlement that provided for 50-100% reimbursements to class members for their repairs and full reimbursement for rental vehicle expenses.
De La Cruz v. Masco Retail Cabinet Group
Eric served as lead attorney litigating the collective claims of dozens of misclassified account representatives for overtime pay under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). Successfully certified a class of current and former Masco account representatives and personally arbitrated the case to judgment obtaining full recovery for the class.
In re Providian Credit Card Cases
Eric played a prominent role in this nationwide class action suit brought on behalf of Providian credit card holders alleging that Providian engaged in unlawful and fraudulent business practices in connection with the marketing and fee assessments for its credit cards. The Honorable Stuart Pollack approved a $105 million settlement, plus injunctive relief—one of the largest class action recoveries in the United States arising out of consumer credit card litigation.
Kim Bueno serves as lead counsel for jury trials throughout the country. A member of King & Spalding’s Product Liability and Mass Torts practice group based in Austin, she represents clients in high-stakes personal injury actions and complex commercial litigation.
Kim is a Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers and has been recognized by Chambers USA for Litigation—Trial Lawyers (2024); Nationwide Product Liability & Mass Torts (2021-2024); and Texas: Austin & Surrounds – Litigation: General Commercial (2023-2024).
The Legal 500 US (2024) named her a Leading Lawyer in Product Liability, Mass Tort and Class Action—Defense: Pharmaceutical and Medical Devices, highlighting her high-profile victories in federal and state courts throughout the country.
Kim holds a J.D. with high honors from The University of Texas School of Law and a B.A., summa cum laude, from Southern Methodist University. She is licensed to practice in Texas.
Paul Geller, managing partner of Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd LLP’s Boca Raton, Florida office, is a founding partner of the Firm, a member of its Executive Committee, and head of the Firm’s Consumer Practice Group. Paul’s 30 years of litigation experience is broad, and he has handled cases in each of the Firm’s practice areas. Notably, before devoting his practice to the representation of consumers and investors, he defended companies in high-stakes class action and multi-district litigation, providing him with an invaluable perspective. Paul has tried bench and jury trials on both the plaintiffs’ and defendants’ sides and has argued before numerous state, federal, and appellate courts throughout the country.
Paul was recently selected to serve in a leadership position on behalf of governmental entities and other plaintiffs in the sprawling litigation concerning the nationwide prescription opioid epidemic. In reporting on the selection of the lawyers to lead the case, The National Law Journal reported that “[t]he team reads like a ‘Who’s Who’ in mass torts.” Paul was also a critical member of the team that negotiated over $50 billion in settlements against certain opioid distributors, manufacturers and dispensers. Prior to the opioid litigation, Paul was a member of the leadership team representing consumers in the massive Volkswagen “Clean Diesel” emissions case. The San Francisco legal newspaper The Recorder labeled the group that was appointed in that case, which settled for more than $17 billion, a “class action dream team.” Paul was recently one of the Lead Counsel in In re EpiPen (Epinephrine Injection, USP) Mktg., Sales Pracs. & Antitrust Litig., a nationwide class action that alleged that pharmaceutical companies Pfizer and Mylan N.V. engaged in anti-competitive and unfair business conduct in its sale and marketing of the EpiPen auto-injector device. The case recently settled for $609 million.
Some of Paul’s other recent noteworthy successes include the then largest privacy class action settlement in history – a $650 million all cash recovery in In re Facebook Biometric Info. Privacy Litig., concerning the use of biometric identifiers through Facebook’s “tag” feature. In addition to the monetary recovery, Facebook disabled the tag feature altogether, deleting user facial profiles and discontinuing the use of facial recognition software.
Paul serves on the Trial Lawyers of Mass Torts Advisory Board and was formerly on the Advisory Board of Emory University School of Law and the separate Board of The Institute for Complex Litigation and Mass Claims at Emory. He is a member of the Trial Law Institute and the Diversity Law Institute of the Litigation Counsel of America. Paul is also a member of the Supreme Court Historical Society. Additionally, he served for many years as a member of the Board of Advisors for The Center on Civil Justice at New York University School of Law. In these roles and others, Paul frequently lectures on class action and MDL issues at judicial seminars, bar conferences, and academic programs. Paul is also a recurring member of the faculty of the Mass Torts MDL Certificate Program at the Bolch Judicial Institute at Duke University School of Law, as well as the Baylor MDL Judicial Summit.
Paul is rated AV by Martindale-Hubbell (the highest rating available), twice named one of the nation’s top “40 Under 40” by The National Law Journal, and named one of “Florida’s Top Lawyers” by Law & Politics and South Florida Business Journal. He has also been named a Legend, a Leading Lawyer in America, a Leading Plaintiff Financial Lawyer, and a 500 Leading Plaintiff Consumer Lawyer by Lawdragon; a Leading Lawyer by Chambers USA; a Plaintiffs’ Lawyer Trailblazer by The National Law Journal; one of Florida’s “Legal Elite” by Florida Trend magazine; and one of “Florida’s Most Effective Lawyers” by American Law Media’s Daily Business Review. Additionally, Best Lawyers® named Paul a Best Lawyer in America and a Florida Best Lawyer in the area of “Mass Tort Litigation/Class Actions – Plaintiffs,” and he was additionally chosen as Lawyer of the Year in that same category. Super Lawyers Magazine has also named Paul a Florida Super Lawyer for 16 consecutive years.
Paul earned his Bachelor of Science degree in Psychology from the University of Florida, where he was a member of the University Honors Program. He earned his Juris Doctor degree from Emory University School of Law, with Highest Distinction, where he was an editor of the Emory Law Journal, a member of the Order of the Coif Legal Honor Society, and awarded multiple American Jurisprudence Book Awards for earning the highest grade in class.
Tom Cartmell is a founding partner of the firm, and a leading trial attorney for individuals, businesses and public entities in cases pending across the United States. Tom has been appointed by federal judges throughout the United States to leadership in over a dozen MDL matters, and is widely recognized for his trial skills. Tom has been selected for membership in many prestigious, invitation-only trial lawyer organizations, including the American College of Trial Lawyers and the International Society of Barristers. In 2024, Tom was recognized by Lawdragon in their prestigious lists of 500 Leading Lawyers in America and 500 Leading Plaintiff Consumer Lawyers in America. Tom is a multiple time recipient of Best Lawyers of America’s “Lawyer of the Year” Award and is listed in Chambers USA: America’s Leading Lawyers for Business. He holds the Martindale-Hubble peer review rating of AV Preeminent.
Tom has also been recognized locally for his achievements as a trial lawyer. He is the Past President of the Kansas City Chapter of the American Board of Trial Advocates (ABOTA). In 2001, Tom received the Thomas J. Conway Award from the Kansas City Metropolitan Bar Association, recognizing a lawyer with courage and zeal for the client and a collegial attitude toward fellow lawyers. In 2003, based upon the recommendation of State Court Judges, Tom received the Lon O. Hocker award as one of three outstanding trial lawyers in Missouri. He also received honors as a Missouri and Kansas Super Lawyer from 2006 to present. The Kansas City Business Journal has recognized Tom as “Best of the Bar” more than 15 times. Tom served as the Municipal Judge for the City of Mission Hills, Kansas for 16 years, and served as an adjunct professor of trial advocacy at the University of Kansas Law School for eight years.
Tom’s cases span the spectrum from high-profile MDL matters involving dangerous medications, defective products or other complex issues to representing businesses in commercial disputes or high exposure injury cases. He has recovered more than a billion dollars for clients in jury verdicts and settlements. He is regularly chosen to act as lead counsel in major trials. For example, in the recent Transvaginal Mesh MDLs– one of the largest MDLs in history – he was lead or co-lead trial counsel in five bellwether trials. Settlements in these MDLs are reported to total more than $8 billion.
Described by Chambers as “a top-notch lawyer” for his representation of plaintiffs in contentious matters, Tom has a long history of achieving top-notch results in high stakes matters. He currently represents two dozen counties – including Buchanan County, Missouri, with one of the highest rates of opioid prescriptions in the country over the past five years – and he has taken nearly a dozen depositions of opioid company corporate witnesses in the MDL, In Re: National Prescription Opiate Litigation, MDL No. 2804. He was recently appointed by Judge Orrick in the Northern District of California to serve as Government Entity Liaison Counsel for plaintiffs in In re: JUUL Labs, Inc. Marketing, Sales Practices & Products Liability Litigation, MDL No. 2913, and represents over 75 school districts across American in this litigation against the vaping company, Juul Labs, Inc. Tom also represents the Commonwealth of Kentucky and the State of Oregon in consumer protection litigation against Johnson & Johnson and Ethicon involving transvaginal mesh sales within the state. He was also named by the Honorable M. Casey Rogers to a five-attorney Executive Committee providing leadership in the 3M Combat Arms™ Earplugs Products Liability Litigation, MDL No. 2885, pending in the Northern District of Florida.
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 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 by the 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.
Honors: Cum Laude
Major: Mathematics
Minor: Journalism
A founding partner of Seeger Weiss, Christopher A. Seeger 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’ versatile practice also includes product liability, property damage, antitrust, and 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. at the state and federal levels. He has received more multidistrict litigation (MDL) appointments than any other lawyer between 2016 and 2019, according to a 2020 ALM study.
Chris served as co-lead counsel in the 3M Combat Arms Earplug Litigation, having been chosen by Judge M. Casey Rodgers from a pool of nearly 200 other applicants to represent more than 250,000 service members and veterans who suffered hearing injuries while using 3M earplugs. After more than four years of litigation, Chris secured a landmark settlement worth over $6 billion in August 2023, successfully resolving the largest mass tort in American history.
Appointed by Judge Joy Flowers Conti to lead the Philips Recalled CPAP, Bi-Level Pap, and Mechanical Ventilator Litigation, Chris represented patients impacted by the company’s recall of more than 10.8 million devices. He was the lead negotiator for an uncapped class action settlement worth a minimum of $479 million that was announced in September 2023, resolving economic loss claims of users and payers impacted by the recall. After receiving final approval for the economic loss settlement, Chris negotiated additional agreements in April 2024 to resolve plaintiffs' personal injury claims for $1.075 billion and medical monitoring claims for $25 million, providing compensation to patients who suffered significant physical injuries caused by the recalled machines.
In the National Prescription Opiate litigation, Chris was appointed to the Executive and Settlement Committees by Judge Dan A. Polster. In 2022, he played an instrumental role in securing settlements worth more than $15 billion with Walgreens, Walmart, CVS, and Kroger. Also, in 2022, a $6.6 billion settlement was reached with pharmaceutical manufacturers Teva and Allergan (AbbVie). Previously, in July 2021, the Plaintiffs’ Executive Committee in the federal opioid litigation formally announced the terms for a $26 billion global settlement agreement with opioid manufacturer Johnson & Johnson and the “Big Three” drug distributors AmerisourceBergen, Cardinal Health, and McKesson. To date, Chris has been involved in over $50 billion in settlements through the National Prescription Opioid Litigation.
Chris serves as co-lead counsel in the Proton-Pump Inhibitor Litigation on behalf of patients who suffered kidney injuries while using proton-pump inhibitor drugs. On October 3, 2023, he announced a $425 million settlement with AstraZeneca and additional agreements with GlaxoSmithKline, Pfizer, Procter & Gamble, and Takeda, bringing the total value of the resolution to $590.4 million.
Chris’s unprecedented run of recent settlements adds to his impressive legacy of resolving major cases and obtaining billions in compensation for injured plaintiffs. This includes a $4.85 billion landmark global settlement with Merck on behalf of patients who suffered heart attacks and strokes while taking Vioxx, a $21 billion-plus settlement with Volkswagen and Audi over the “clean diesel” scandal—the largest consumer auto industry class action settlement in U.S. history, a $1.5 billion settlement for farmers impacted by Syngenta GMO seed contamination—the largest agricultural settlement in U.S. history, and a $1 billion-plus uncapped settlement for retired NFL players and their families in the historic NFL concussion case.
After starting his career as a corporate defense lawyer representing the interests of big business, Chris was struck by the imbalance of power between corporations and the individuals harmed by them. As a result, 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.
Chris has been recognized for his outstanding work and unmatched success in leading complex federal cases. He has received the National Law Journal Elite Trial Lawyers Lifetime Achievement Award, been named a Lawdragon Legend, a Law360 Titan of the Plaintiff Bar, and been inducted into both the Trial Lawyer Hall of Fame and the Legal 500 Hall of Fame. He is consistently named to annual award lists, including Chambers USA Tier 1 for Product Liability, Lawdragon 500 Leading Lawyers in America, and Best Lawyers in America. Regularly quoted by the press regarding his work on nationally and internationally prominent cases, Chris has appeared 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.
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.
With more than a decade of experience in the mass tort industry, Nick D'Aquilla brings a wealth of knowledge and a proven track record of success to the Counsel Financial team.
Nick is a leading figure in administering complex settlements, contributing to the administration of more than $20 billion in mass tort settlements across many high-profile cases. His expertise in solution design and oversight services has contributed to the resolution of more than 40 mass tort and class action litigations, including environmental, pharmaceutical, medical device and sexual assault matters.
Before joining Counsel Financial, Nick was a senior member of a complex settlement fund advisory team for a national bank, where he developed underwriting methodologies that enabled credit extensions to mass tort plaintiffs’ firms. In the last 18 months, he has analyzed and valued more than $1.5 billion in loan collateral derived from mass tort dockets.
Prior to entering the mass tort industry in 2012, Nick served as a civil defense litigator for the Louisiana DOJ, acting as lead counsel for personal injury, contract dispute and subrogation matters. He earned a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, earned his Juris Doctor, cum laude, from the Southern University Law Center, and Master of Laws in Health Law from Loyola University of Chicago School of Law.
Judge Ada Brown brings both civil and criminal law experience to the federal bench. She began her legal career as a prosecutor with the Dallas County District Attorney's office, where she was promoted to chief prosecutor a court seven months on the job as an assistant DA. She quickly rose through the ranks and was chief prosecutor of four different courts. Judge Brown prosecuted felony crimes such as rape, robbery and murder before specializing in the prosecution of drug crimes and internet crimes against children. She brought hundreds of pedophiles to justice.
During her tenure as an assistant district attorney, Judge Brown tried over 130 jury trials to verdict as lead prosecutor and tried approximately 100 bench trials to verdict as lead prosecutor. She also prosecuted about 500 internet crimes against children, including prosecuting child pornographers, child molesters, and child sex traffickers. In 2005, Judge Brown was one of 2.5% of Texas attorneys under 40 selected by Super Lawyers magazine as a Rising Star in criminal prosecution. In 2005, Judge Brown was appointed to preside as judge over Dallas County's oldest criminal trial court. At the time of her appointment at age 30, she was the youngest sitting trial court judge in Texas. As a trial court judge, Judge Brown tried about 50 jury trials to verdict and about 100 bench trials to verdict.
After leaving the bench, Judge Brown joined the law firm of McKool Smith, where she focused on high-stakes patent infringement and complex commercial litigation cases. In a representative case, Judge Brown presented Plaintiff's damages testimony in a medical device patent case where the jury returned a verdict of $250 million for her clients. This was the 12th highest civil verdict in the US for 2008. In another case, she presented evidence to a jury who awarded her client $345 million. This award was increased to $391 million on final judgment and was the 10th largest jury verdict in the US for 2011. In 2012 and 2013, Brown was one of 2.5% of attorneys under 40 in Texas selected by Super Lawyers magazine as a Rising Star in commercial litigation.
In 2013, Texas Governor Rick Perry appointed her to serve on the Fifth District Court of Appeals, Texas's busiest appellate court. At the time of her appointment, at age 38, she was the youngest sitting appellate justice in Texas. During her six-year term as a state appellate judge, she authored over 545 majority opinions on the merits. Her appellate reversal rate while on the state appellate court was 0.73%. She was reversed just four times by a higher court during her six-year term as a state appellate judge.
In the last Dallas Bar Association poll in which she was evaluated, she was the highest rated appellate judge on her court in 4 of 5 areas of evaluation, including having proper judicial temperament and demeanor, authoring well-reasoned opinions based on proper application of the law; being open-minding with respect to deciding legal issues, and having the highest approval rating of her overall performance as a judge.
In September of 2018, she was appointed by President Trump to be the first African-American woman district court judge in the Northern District of Texas. She is also one of just six Native American federal judges in the nation and is the first Choctaw woman judge in American history. In her three years on the federal bench, she has resolved 880 civil and criminal cases, and has a 0.6% reversal rate. In the first Dallas Bar Association poll in which she was evaluated as a federal judge, she was the highest rated district court judge in the area of impartiality.
Judge Brown enjoys volunteering by serving on various commissions and committees. Judge Brown was appointed by Texas Governor Rick Perry to serve as a Commissioner for the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement Standards and Education, the regulatory agency responsible for licensing all police officers in Texas. Governor Perry later appointed Judge Brown to serve as a commissioner for the Texas Department of Public Safety, where she was one of five civilians responsible for overseeing 10,000+ employees and a $2.3 billion biennial budget. The commission oversees all departments of the Texas Department of Public Safety, including the legendary Texas Rangers division, the Texas Highway Patrol division, and the Texas Driver License division. Judge Brown served on the DPS commission for 5 years and was awarded the Yellow Rose of Texas Award for Community Service from Governor Perry after her service on the DPS commission ended.
In 2021, Judge Brown was awarded the Charlye Ola Farris Award from the Dallas Association of Black Women Lawyers. She was Dallas Bar Association Inspiring Woman in 2022 and the keynote speaker at the Dallas Bar Association's Martin Luther King Day Luncheon in 2022. She is a frequent speaker at judicial and legal seminars and CLE events..
For several years, Judge Brown served as an adjunct professor of trial advocacy at Southern Methodist University Law School. She has been a faculty member at trial skills courses for the National Institute for Trial Advocacy programs for over a decade, and recently volunteered to teach a one-week trial advocacy course and gave a lecture on the fundamentals of voir dire at the University of Texas at Dallas College School.
Judge Brown graduated magna cum laude from Spelman College, where she received her Bachelor of Arts degree. She was a Presidential Scholar at Emory University School of Law, where she received her Juris Doctor degree and received an academic award of excellence in mediation. She has been accepted into Duke University School of Law's LLM program, where she will graduate with the class of 2024.
Motley Rice co-founder Joe Rice is recognized as a skillful and innovative negotiator of complex litigation settlements, having served as the lead negotiator in some of the largest civil actions our courts have seen in the last 30 years. Corporate Legal Times reported that national defense counsel and legal scholars described Joe as one of the nation's “five most feared and respected plaintiffs’ lawyers in corporate America.” As the article notes, "For all his talents as a shrewd negotiator ... Rice has earned most of his respect from playing fair and remaining humble.” His alma mater, the University of South Carolina School of Law, rebranded in his honor in November 2023, and is now known as the Joseph F. Rice School of Law.
Joe was recognized by some of the nation’s best-regarded defense lawyers as being “the smartest dealmaker they ever sat across the table from,” Thomson Reuters has reported. Professor Samuel Issacharoff of the New York University School of Law has commented that he is “the best strategic thinker on the end stages of litigation that I’ve ever seen.”
Joe serves on the Board of Advisors for Emory University's Institute for Complex Litigation and Mass Claims and has taught negotiation at top law schools. In 2013, he established the Ronald L. Motley Scholarship Fund at the University of South Carolina School of Law.
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 2023 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 2015–2024 editions of Chambers Global, The World’s Leading Lawyers for Business, most recently ranked in Band 1 for Litigation: Trial Lawyers. The Legal 500 U.S. selected Mike to the “Hall of Fame” in 2021–2024 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.
Co-chair of the Product Liability practice group, 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 “one of the leading lawyers in this space” and as “someone clients trust to try their cases.”
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:
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. Forbes recognized Kim on its inaugural 2024 “America’s Top 200 Lawyers” list. 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.
Partner Virginia E. Anello was born and raised in Covington, Louisiana, and currently heads up the firm’s New Orleans office. She attended Louisiana State University on an honors scholarship. Ms. Anello graduated from LSU magna cum laude and received a Bachelor of Science in Economics with a minor in Italian. She went on to attend the Paul M. Hebert Law Center at LSU where she received her Juris Doctor Degree and her Bachelor of Civil Law Degree, graduating in the top 30% of her class. Ms. Anello is admitted to practice law in the States of New York, Massachusetts, and Louisiana. She is also admitted to practice law in the Eastern, Southern and Northern Districts of New York, the Eastern and Western Districts of Louisiana, the District of Massachusetts, the U.S. Court of Federal Claims in Washington, D.C. and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.
Since obtaining her law degree, Ms. Anello has devoted her entire career to always representing injury victims and consumers, primarily in mass tort and class actions. Her practice areas in the law have always focused on, and continue to focus on, products liability litigation and complex litigation, with an emphasis on consumer fraud and mass tort litigation. Consistent with the firm’s philosophy, she is dedicated to ensuring that an underdog can be heard.
Ms. Anello joined Douglas & London in 2007 and she focuses her work primarily on representing individuals nationwide who have been injured as a result of defective pharmaceutical drugs, medical devices and vaccines. Currently, Ms. Anello is actively involved in representing individuals who have been injured as a result of the prescription drugs Elmiron and Belviq. Regarding Elmiron, Ms. Anello was appointed in January 2021 by U.S. District Court Judge Brian Martinotti as co-lead counsel in the action styled as In Re: Elmiron (Pentosan Polysulfate Sodium Products Liability Litigation (MDL 2973), pending in the District Court of New Jersey. This consolidated action involves hundreds of individual plaintiffs claiming severe eye injuries as a result of ingesting Elmiron to treat interstitial cystitis. In her role as co-lead counsel, Ms. Anello is involved in all aspects of pre-trial discovery and management, retention of experts and motion practice, as well as oversight of a Plaintiff Steering Committee of 24 other lawyers.
With respect to Belviq, a weight loss drug, Ms. Anello is actively pursuing individual lawsuits across the country on behalf of individuals who have suffered cancer as a result of their ingestion of the drug.
Before commencing her work with Elmiron and Belviq, Ms. Anello was actively involved in multidistrict litigation involving the diabetic drug Invokana pending in the District Court of New Jersey, where she served on the science, law and briefing and discovery committees. In July 2017, Ms. Anello was just one of two lawyers asked to present at Science Day before Judge Martinotti, defense counsel, and other plaintiffs’ counsel from across the country about the then-current state of medical and scientific knowledge regarding Invokana, including how it works and how it causes the injuries alleged (diabetic ketoacidosis, acute kidney injury and amputations). This litigation ultimately resolved through individual confidential settlements.
In addition to her work identified above, Ms. Anello is actively involved in the firm’s vaccine litigation department, which she currently manages. Since 2007, she has represented children and adults who have been injured by vaccinations and has handled numerous cases in the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program. Many of these cases have settled or been successfully adjudicated on the merits within the Vaccine Program.
In 2018, Ms. Anello began litigating cases specific to a Shingles vaccine, Zostavax, which is not covered by the Vaccine Program. Because of the multitude of cases that have been filed relating to this particular vaccine, a multidistrict litigation was created in the District Court of Pennsylvania before the Honorable Judge Harvey Bartle, and, in September 2018, Ms. Anello was formally appointed by Judge Bartle as a member of the Plaintiff Executive Committee charged with the responsibility of overseeing and assisting with the national ligation. Ms. Anello represents hundreds of injured individuals in this endeavor.
Other nationwide pharmaceutical and medical device litigations in which Ms. Anello has been involved and worked on through settlement include those relating to hip replacement systems (DePuy ASR, DePuy Pinnacle, Biomet M2A, Wright Conserve, and Stryker Rejuvenate), proton pump inhibitors (Prilosec, Nexium, Prevacid, Protonix,) the acid concentrate Granuflo, the prescription pain drug Vioxx, the Medtronic Sprint Fidelis Lead Wire, and the Contaminated Heparin litigation.
In addition, Ms. Anello works alongside firm partner, Michael A. London, in representing women who have been diagnosed with cancer as a result of their in utero exposure to the drug Diethylstilbestrol (‘DES’).
While proud to represent individuals from across the country in the products liability arena, Ms. Anello is equally as proud of her legal efforts focused on issues of importance to New York City and the surrounding areas, where she spend her early career. She is actively involved in representing individuals who have been injured as a result of their exposure to toxins at the World Trade Center site following September 11, 2001. She originally represented these victims in the World Trade Center Disaster Site Litigation pending before the Honorable Judge Alvin Hellerstein of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York and she oversaw the firm’s settlement of that matter. Since Congress reopened the September 11, 2001 Victims’ Compensation Fund in 2010 and continued it in 2015, Ms. Anello has been directing her efforts at ensuring that these injured individuals, as well as those injured as a result of their working, living and going to school in the Lower Manhattan area, are compensated under the Act.
Additionally, in her role in the Firm’s class action litigation department, Ms. Anello represents New York residents who lost power due to the grossly negligent conduct of the Long Island Power Authority and its managing contractor, National Grid, prior to and following Superstorm Sandy. A proposed class action is currently pending in Nassau County Supreme Court.
As a class action attorney, Ms. Anello represents consumers and union health funds and other insurers who have been deceived and misled by product manufacturers. She is particularly involved in all of the firm’s class action work, including the firm’s class action against Bayer in which it was alleged that Bayer falsely represented to consumers that its over-the-counter combination aspirin drugs, Bayer Women’s Low Dose Aspirin + Calcium and Bayer with Heart Advantage delivered certain health benefits, which they, in fact, did not. Thanks to her hard work and dedication, as well as that of the firm, the Bayer combination aspirin class action settled for $15 million. Ms. Anello and Douglas & London are always investigating new class actions.
Ms. Anello is an active member of the New York State Trial Lawyers Association (NYSTLA) and American Association of Justice (AAJ). Since 2014, Super Lawyers has selected Ms. Anello as a Rising Star in New York, and, in 2018, she was selected by Peer Recognition as one of Best Lawyers in New York City as published in the Wall Street Journal, and this status continues today. Most recently, in 2021, Ms. Anello was selected as one of the Top Women Attorneys in New York.
Ms. Anello attributes her success to her parents, who raised her with a strong work ethic, did whatever they could to promote her thirst for knowledge, and instilled in her a sense of integrity to stand up for and protect those who cannot protect themselves.