This week's $417 million verdict against Johnson & Johnson—over claims its baby powder containing talc caused ovarian cancer—was surely a bitter pill for general counsel Michael Ullmann and his legal department to swallow.

Ullmann, a J&J in-house counsel since 1989, will now have to help his company fend off 4,800 similar suits from emboldened plaintiffs across the country, according to litigation notes in J&J's latest financial filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. And the number is likely to continue rising at a rapid clip following this massive verdict in the Los Angeles Superior Court.

New Brunswick, New Jersey-based Johnson & Johnson lost three baby powder cases in a row in Missouri before changing outside legal teams. It then won its fourth case on March 3 with a new defense team of Bart Williams and Manuel Cachan of the Los Angeles office of Proskauer Rose.