What are some of your proudest recent achievements? I started opioid litigation in 2001 representing people who became addicted to Oxycontin. We sued Purdue Pharma before the drug’s label was changed, when the company claimed it was not addictive. I didn’t know how it was going to go—it was a huge risk for the firm—and it has turned into a spectacular 20-year fight. When our case on behalf of patients settled, Purdue Pharma agreed to pay a $600 million fine to settle its criminal charges. On the outside, it looked like a huge victory, but disturbingly, it set a floor for the cost of doing business for other opioid companies, since it represented just a fraction of what they stood to make selling, essentially, heroin. We represented municipalities across the country in suing the opioid industry, and we approached it with a different tactic, through the lens of a public nuisance theory, which was also a risk since we didn’t know how it would prevail. Our case brought tens of billions of dollars in financial recoveries to counties, cities and states, and with every settlement we have injunctive relief that restricts funds to abatement of the opioid epidemic.
I’m proud of work we’re doing in important cases, such as Camp Lejeune water contamination litigation, the catastrophic train derailment and chemical fires in East Palestine, Ohio that settled for $600 million, the Social Media Adolescent Addiction litigation (which is being taken out of the opioid playbook), and our participation in hair relaxer MDL, which is, at its heart, a racism issue, and about injustice in the area of women’s health. The defendants are massively powerful cosmetic companies who have hired legions of the best defense firms in the country, and it’s going to be an enormous fight.
