A federal judge in West Palm Beach appointed 26 plaintiffs lawyers, with nearly half of them women, to steer the multidistrict litigation filed over the recalled heartburn medication Zantac, and made an unusual push for leadership mentoring.

U.S. District Judge Robin Rosenberg, who held two days of leadership interviews with 62 attorneys by video last week, emphasized the diversity of the team, which will oversee about 230 lawsuits against the makers and sellers of Zantac.

The team includes four co-lead counsel, 15 members of a plaintiffs steering committee. The judge also created what she called a leadership development committee that will provide "mentorship and experience" to five lawyers who applied to work on the MDL.

MDL committees have been criticized for a lack of diversity since they often are dominated by the same national group of leading plaintiffs firms, and younger attorneys have a hard time cracking the glass ceiling.

"The court hopes that as the litigation moves forward, the leadership team will endeavor to build on the diversity of its team," she wrote in Friday's order. "The court also hopes that all counsel and parties will be mindful in using this MDL to provide an opportunity for a broader array of attorneys to have experiences that position them to take on more senior roles in future MDLs."

The co-leads of the Zantac MDL are Tracy Finken Magnotta of Anapol Weiss in Philadelphia, Robert Gilbert of Kopelowitz Ostrow Ferguson Weiselberg Gilbert in Coral Gables, Michael McGlamry of Pope McGlamry in Atlanta and Adam Pulaski of Pulaski Kherkher in Houston. The judge previously appointed all four to initial tasks in the litigation after the coronavirus epidemic forced her to cancel the first hearing.

The U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation ordered the Zantac lawsuits transferred Feb. 6 to Rosenberg of the Southern District of Florida.

Nine women, including Sarah Westcot of Bursor & Fisher in Miami, make up the majority of the plaintiffs steering committee. Other South Florida attorneys on the commmittee are Ricardo Martinez-Cid of Podhurst Orseck, Mark J. Dearman of Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd in Boca Raton.

The leadership development committee members receiving mentoring are Nicola Larmond-Harvey of Saunders & Walker in Pinellas Park, Paige Boldt of Watts Guerra, Je Yon Jung of May Lightfoot in Washington, Adam Krause of Krause and Kidman in Kansas City, Missouri, and Bradford Lear of Lear Werts in Columbia, Missouri.

The lawsuits, both individual cases alleging personal injuries and class actions brought for economic damages, allege the companies that made and sold Zantac knew its active ingredient, ranitidine, metabolized in the human body to form a carcinogen known as N-nitrosodimethylamine, or NDMA.

The lawsuits follow the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's investigation of NDMA in some blood pressure and heart failure medicines. Last month, the FDA announced it was requesting manufacturers to withdraw all prescription and over-the-counter Zantac from the market, citing concerns about potential carcinogens.

Sanofi-Aventis U.S., based in New Jersey, which recalled over-the-counter Zantac last year, is one of several defendants in the cases. Another defendant, GlaxoSmithKline with a U.S. unit based in Philadelphia, received initial FDA approval to sell the drug in 1983 and recalled its product last year. Also sued were Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals Inc., which has U.S. headquarters in Connecticut and New York's Pfizer Inc. They both sold Zantac.

Plaintiffs lawyers have predicted large numbers of cases over Zantac.

Because of the COVID-19 outbreak, Rosenberg appointed lawyers to interim teams focused on specific tasks like getting an "initial census" of the cases and potential "practices and procedures." Many members of the leadership team also were in on an "April deliverables team."

In Friday's order, Rosenberg said she was impressed with the "insights" and "enthusiasm and fresh perspective" of lawyers appointed to the leadership development committee, which will be co-chaired by Melanie Muhlstock of Parker Waichman in New York and Carmen Scott of Motley Rice in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina.

The judge also named Ashley Keller of Keller Lenkner of Chicago as chair and Fred Longer of Levin, Sedran & Berman of Philadelphia as co-chair of the law and briefing committee, and Daniel Nigh of Levin, Papantonio, Thomas, Mitchell, Rafferty & Proctor in Pensacola as chair of the science and experts committee.

Veteran trial attorneys Mikal Watts of Watts Guerra in San Antonio and Brent Wisner of Baum, Hedlund, Aristei & Goldman in Los Angeles were named co-chairs of the bellwether and trial team.

Rosenberg praised the diversity of the leadership team but also raised concerns to the bar about the demographics of the applicant pool.

"The court was particularly impressed by the number of applicants who have started their own firms, especially the number of female founding partners who applied for roles in this litigation — while also noting that at only 31% female applicants, much work remains to be done to give judges an applicant pool that reflects the diversity of not only our society but our profession, particularly at the senior levels of leadership," she wrote. "So too, the court noted that only a small subset of the applicants identified as non-Caucasian, and that no attorneys identified as LGBTQ or disabled, underscoring the breadth of these continuing challenges."

Read the order: