Good morning, everybody. It’s Monday, Nov. 11 and I’m Litigation Daily editor and columnist Ross Todd. You can reach me at [email protected].

Welcome to another edition of our Litigation Leaders series, featuring the litigation practice leaders at some of the biggest and most innovative law firms in the country. 

Meet J. Mark Jones, the litigation group leader at Nelson Mullins, who has been with the firm for three-and-a-half decades. Jones, who is based in Columbia, South Carolina, has served as nationwide coordinating counsel in litigation involving pharmaceuticals, consumer and mechanical products and technology. 

Lit Daily: Tell us a little about yourself—perhaps even a thing or two your partners would be surprised to learn about you.

Mark Jones: I have been practicing law at Nelson Mullins for 35 years after clerking for a federal trial court judge. Most of my partners know me as national coordinating counsel in complex, multi-state products litigation. I think many of my partners would be surprised to know that I have a passion for rock climbing, which I find at once challenging, exhilarating, and yet somehow relaxing—at least to my mind. As for a little bit about me and this stage of my career, I would say that managing others on a large scale is a very different challenge than just practicing law, which I love, but I came to find real meaning in my role as group leader because it gives me joy to advance the careers of others and help them grow their practices.

You sit in Columbia, South Carolina, and I gather that’s where the firm’s national pharmaceutical litigation practice and Encompass e-discovery practice originated. Can you share a little bit about the backstory of those practices?

We have represented pharmaceutical companies for many decades, and our initial opportunities came to our former iconic trial attorneys, but our role defending pharmaceutical companies exploded when the firm was hired as national coordinating counsel and national trial counsel in major multi-state litigations. We are now blessed to have a very deep and diverse bench of national coordinating and trial counsel defending pharmaceutical and medical device companies in some of the largest litigations in the country.

This practice also helped us develop our e-discovery practice, Encompass. I remember speaking to a group of state and federal court judges on the topic and the looks on their faces as I explained that a single thumb drive might contain so much data that if you printed it out, it would fill a transfer truck. An associate on our team at the time, John Martin, took to heart our message that associates should develop a central marketing focus or brand that could help them attract business internally and externally. I remember it like it was yesterday, the day John walked into my office and told me he would like to make electronic discovery his marketing focus. We all welcomed the opportunity to support John’s aspiration to develop an electronic discovery practice, but we could never have imagined at the time that John would build, with the help of his very diverse team, what many consider the top electronic discovery practice of its kind in the country. It is a testament to what an associate can ultimately achieve with determination, creativity and drive.

How big is the firm’s litigation team and where are most of your litigators concentrated geographically?

We have approximately 530 litigators spread across 34 offices from Los Angeles to Boston and from New York to Miami. Our biggest litigation presence is on the east coast with large groups of litigators in Atlanta, Baltimore, Boston, Columbia, Orlando and Miami, but we have a growing litigation presence in Cleveland, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Houston, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, Nashville and San Diego.

I see your name come up in lots of stories about the firm’s expansion. How much of your role as the litigation group leader involves lateral recruitment? With your leadership duties, do you still have time to practice?

Recruiting and integrating lateral attorneys is one of my primary roles as litigation group leader. While many lateral candidates approach us, we have been very intentional about identifying lateral candidates to build our bench depth in existing practice areas and to add new practice areas to service our clients. It takes a lot of time to identify, recruit and integrate new attorneys, but it's critical to our ability to service our clients and attract new ones, so I make this a priority. While I sometimes wonder how, I still maintain my practice despite the time commitment of group leadership. This is only possible, however, because I have incredibly talented partners supporting me on the practice side, and I have seven phenomenal assistant group leaders to assist with the management of our group.

What do you see as hallmarks of Nelson Mullins litigators? What makes you different?

We strongly value our reputation as a firm that fights very hard for clients but does so with a high degree of professionalism, integrity and collegiality. We are often selected as members of virtual trial teams with other national firms not only for our substantive experience and talent but also because of our ability to work collaboratively with other firms, which is always in the clients’ interest. One of the assets that distinguish us is that we have a very deep and diverse bench of national-level, first-chair trial attorneys who can try high-stakes cases in dangerous places. We committed ourselves years ago to having a deep and diverse bench of trial attorneys who can help clients assemble “dream teams” with substantive knowledge and experience as well as racial, gender and age diversity. We also have a very deep and diverse bench of science attorneys who support our trial teams in cases with complex medical, scientific or technical issues, including attorneys who have medical or specialized engineering degrees. In fact, members of our science team are often hired independently of our trial attorneys to support trial attorneys in other firms, and again this is in part due to our emphasis on collaboration.

In what three areas of litigation do you have the deepest bench? (I know it's hard, but please name just three.)

Our largest and best known national litigation practices are (1) our product liability practice, which includes pharmaceuticals, medical devices, mechanical products of all types, including automobiles and heavy equipment, and consumer products of all types, including appliances and power tools; (2) our toxic tort practice, including litigation over asbestos, talc, herbicides, so-called “forever chemicals” and other chemicals of all types; and (3) our national electronic discovery practice lead by our Encompass Division, which is a full-service e-discovery operation that provides advice and counseling to clients, large-scale document collection and review in numerous languages, and even large-scale data storage. We do, however, have a very substantial number of commercial litigators across the platform handling disputes involving contracts, securities, sophisticated employment and labor matters, intellectual property, antitrust, data privacy and healthcare fraud, among others.

What were two or three of the firm’s biggest in-court wins in the past year, and can you cite tactics that exemplify your firm’s approach to success?

Out of the many defense verdicts and dozens of other trial, appellate and arbitration wins in 2024, I would highlight the following to demonstrate the depth, diversity and geographic reach of our trial bench. Mike Brown in our Baltimore office and Shawtina Lewis in our Los Angeles office teamed up to secure a defense verdict in Alameda County, California, for a major auto manufacturer, and this was one of many defense verdicts we secured for numerous automobile manufacturers so far this year. Kate Skagerberg in our Nashville office secured a defense verdict in an asbestos case in the North District of Illinois, and this was one of many toxic tort defense verdicts we secured for toxic tort clients so far this year. And lastly, John Lewis and Sarah Bunch in our Cleveland office secured a major defense verdict for a medical device manufacturer in New Jersey. I think that hallmarks of our trial teams are a strong command of the science, medicine and engineering issues involved in our cases, the relatability of our trial attorneys and the diversity of our trial teams.

What does the firm's coming trial calendar look like?

We have an extraordinarily busy trial calendar for the remainder of 2024 and throughout 2025, with dozens of trials scheduled involving pharmaceuticals, medical devices, automobiles, herbicides, lithium batteries, as well as business disputes of all types. We knew that when courts reopened after COVID that thousands of cases would be pushed onto trial dockets. Therefore, we concentrated during COVID on hiring top trial attorneys and science attorneys who would be able to try those cases for our clients, and that strategy has paid off extremely well for our clients and for us.

Is there anything else that you would like to tell me about the firm and practice?

I appreciate the opportunity to share with you a little bit about our litigation group. I am intensely proud of the work we have done to grow and diversify over the past decade. I would just emphasize that we have never grown for growth’s sake. We have grown to enhance our existing practices and to add new practices that benefit our clients. Our goal is to provide our clients with the strongest, deepest and most diverse benches of attorneys we can provide them in our chosen practice areas. That formula has been wildly successful for us, and we are looking to build on it with a new three-year strategic plan that we are working on now.

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