The third bellwether trial over blood thinner Xarelto began this week, but it's missing one thing: Beth Wilkinson.

Wilkinson, of Washington, D.C.'s Wilkinson Walsh + Eskovitz, scored quick defense verdicts for Janssen Pharmaceuticals Inc. and Bayer HealthCare Pharmaceuticals Inc. in the first two Xarelto trials earlier this year.

This time, Janssen, which is part of Johnson & Johnson, is relying on Richard Sarver of Barrasso Usdin Kupperman Freeman & Sarver, who was involved in the first Xarelto trial and is in New Orleans, where all the trials so far have taken place. Bayer is leaning on Lyn Pruitt of Mitchell, Williams, Selig, Gates & Woodyard in Little Rock, Arkansas, who was defense counsel in trials over hormone replacement therapy drug Prempro, and Walter T. Johnson at Watkins & Eager in Jackson, Mississippi, where the third trial began on Monday.