King & Spalding Lands New York Tort Trial Team From Orrick
The four partners from Orrick share clients including Johnson & Johnson and Dow with King & Spalding.
February 03, 2020 at 05:00 AM
4 minute read
King & Spalding has brought on a four-partner mass tort group from Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe in New York.
The litigation partners Morton Dubin, John Ewald, Kristen Fournier and Kathy O'Connor—joined King & Spalding on Saturday. The Atlanta-based firm has one of the largest mass-tort practices in the country.
The Orrick partners share clients with King & Spalding, notably Johnson & Johnson and Dow, and have co-counseled on mass tort cases with the firm for more than a decade, said Andy Bayman, who leads King & Spalding's trial and global disputes practice.
"This is a premier group representing some major clients whom we share," said Bayman, adding the partners also have significant first-chair trial experience. "It would be hard to find a group that would have better synergies with our existing practice than this one. They are trial lawyers, and we are a trial law firm."
Dubin was lead counsel for Johnson & Johnson's defense team in one shared case, Herford v. Johnson & Johnson, with King & Spalding's Alex Calfo and Sharla Frost of Tucker Ellis, that Courthouse View Network named its top defense verdict of 2017.
The case was the first lawsuit in the country to go to trial over claims that the company's talc-based products, including baby powder, contained asbestos that caused the plaintiffs mesothelioma. A Los Angeles jury handed down a defense verdict after a monthlong trial in Los Angeles Superior Court. Johnson & Johnson faces numerous similar asbestos-related cases nationally as well as thousands of separate lawsuits alleging its talcum powder products cause ovarian cancer.
Dubin, who spent 22 years at Orrick, said leaving the firm "was very emotional for me because I'd been there so long." But he called King & Spalding's product liability and mass tort practice a "natural fit" for his team.
"The firm has one of the best mass tort practices in the U.S. with a long and distinguished history of providing cutting-edge trial representation to some of the biggest names in pharma and healthcare," he said.
Dubin, who's been in practice for 24 years, said he started first-chairing product liability trials almost 20 years ago. He and the other Orrick partners, who all have 15 or more years experience, have practiced together for many years. Ewald had spent his 18-year legal career at Orrick, and Fournier had been there 15 years. O'Connor, who has also worked in-house at Merck, had been at Orrick for four years, joining from Weil, Gotshal & Manges.
Dubin said King & Spalding's collaborative culture was important to his team. "We really feel we are going to a place where we can build a great home."
Mass tort defense is one of King & Spalding's core practices and one of its best known. The team from Orrick further strengthens King & Spalding's trial bench in New York, Bayman said, after his firm in 2017 landed a four partner mass tort and products liability team in New York led by John Hooper from Reed Smith.
Bayman said King & Spalding also has mass tort lawyers in its Atlanta headquarters, Chicago, Houston, Austin, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Washington, D.C.
"We've been doing mass tort product liability work since the 1960s," Bayman said, including tobacco, automotive, pharma and medical device cases. "It's one of our largest, best-branded practices."
King & Spalding's latest partner additions are "people we've known and worked with for years, so there's a cultural fit," Bayman said. "We know them, we like them, we work well with them, so the integration should be seamless."
This content has been archived. It is available through our partners, LexisNexis® and Bloomberg Law.
To view this content, please continue to their sites.
Not a Lexis Subscriber?
Subscribe Now
Not a Bloomberg Law Subscriber?
Subscribe Now
NOT FOR REPRINT
© 2024 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.
You Might Like
View AllFrom ‘Deep Sadness’ to Little Concern, Gaetz’s Nomination Draws Sharp Reaction From Lawyers
7 minute readDechert 'Spark Tank' Competition Encourages Firmwide Innovation Focus
Akerman Opens Charlotte Office With Focus on Renewable Energy, Data Center Practices
4 minute readLaw Firms Mentioned
Trending Stories
- 1Immigration Under the Trump Administration: Five Things to Expect in the First 90 Days
- 2'Radical Left Judges'?: Trump Demands GOP Unity Against Biden's Judicial Picks
- 3NY District Attorneys Are Still No Fans of Revamped Misconduct Watchdog
- 4ICC Issues Arrest Warrants for Israel's Prime Minister Over Alleged War Crimes in Gaza
- 5Attorney Responds to Outten & Golden Managing Partner's Letter on Dropped Client
Who Got The Work
Michael G. Bongiorno, Andrew Scott Dulberg and Elizabeth E. Driscoll from Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr have stepped in to represent Symbotic Inc., an A.I.-enabled technology platform that focuses on increasing supply chain efficiency, and other defendants in a pending shareholder derivative lawsuit. The case, filed Oct. 2 in Massachusetts District Court by the Brown Law Firm on behalf of Stephen Austen, accuses certain officers and directors of misleading investors in regard to Symbotic's potential for margin growth by failing to disclose that the company was not equipped to timely deploy its systems or manage expenses through project delays. The case, assigned to U.S. District Judge Nathaniel M. Gorton, is 1:24-cv-12522, Austen v. Cohen et al.
Who Got The Work
Edmund Polubinski and Marie Killmond of Davis Polk & Wardwell have entered appearances for data platform software development company MongoDB and other defendants in a pending shareholder derivative lawsuit. The action, filed Oct. 7 in New York Southern District Court by the Brown Law Firm, accuses the company's directors and/or officers of falsely expressing confidence in the company’s restructuring of its sales incentive plan and downplaying the severity of decreases in its upfront commitments. The case is 1:24-cv-07594, Roy v. Ittycheria et al.
Who Got The Work
Amy O. Bruchs and Kurt F. Ellison of Michael Best & Friedrich have entered appearances for Epic Systems Corp. in a pending employment discrimination lawsuit. The suit was filed Sept. 7 in Wisconsin Western District Court by Levine Eisberner LLC and Siri & Glimstad on behalf of a project manager who claims that he was wrongfully terminated after applying for a religious exemption to the defendant's COVID-19 vaccine mandate. The case, assigned to U.S. Magistrate Judge Anita Marie Boor, is 3:24-cv-00630, Secker, Nathan v. Epic Systems Corporation.
Who Got The Work
David X. Sullivan, Thomas J. Finn and Gregory A. Hall from McCarter & English have entered appearances for Sunrun Installation Services in a pending civil rights lawsuit. The complaint was filed Sept. 4 in Connecticut District Court by attorney Robert M. Berke on behalf of former employee George Edward Steins, who was arrested and charged with employing an unregistered home improvement salesperson. The complaint alleges that had Sunrun informed the Connecticut Department of Consumer Protection that the plaintiff's employment had ended in 2017 and that he no longer held Sunrun's home improvement contractor license, he would not have been hit with charges, which were dismissed in May 2024. The case, assigned to U.S. District Judge Jeffrey A. Meyer, is 3:24-cv-01423, Steins v. Sunrun, Inc. et al.
Who Got The Work
Greenberg Traurig shareholder Joshua L. Raskin has entered an appearance for boohoo.com UK Ltd. in a pending patent infringement lawsuit. The suit, filed Sept. 3 in Texas Eastern District Court by Rozier Hardt McDonough on behalf of Alto Dynamics, asserts five patents related to an online shopping platform. The case, assigned to U.S. District Judge Rodney Gilstrap, is 2:24-cv-00719, Alto Dynamics, LLC v. boohoo.com UK Limited.
Featured Firms
Law Offices of Gary Martin Hays & Associates, P.C.
(470) 294-1674
Law Offices of Mark E. Salomone
(857) 444-6468
Smith & Hassler
(713) 739-1250