Defending against product liability and personal injury claims is a core strength of our firm. We have decades of experience as national counsel defending a wide variety of products in mass tort, personal injury, and other products liability litigation throughout the U.S. We have developed innovative and aggressive approaches to these types of matters, and we often help clients in early, comprehensive prophylactic efforts.
In today’s environment, product liability litigation is rarely the only threat facing our clients. We have a strong track record as national counsel assisting clients through the “perfect storm” of simultaneous lawsuits (including class actions and multidistrict litigation), government investigations, and regulatory actions.
As national coordinating counsel, we perform three critical functions: strategic thinking; case management and administration; and quality assurance and control. We help our client define the realistic objectives for the litigation and fashion a strategy tailored to achieve them. We oversee all aspects of case tracking, case management, and the retrieval of information and documents needed for complete and uniform discovery responses and trial preparation. We establish protocols for the handling of cases by local counsel, oversee their performance, and advise on the selection and preparation of expert witnesses, as well as lead the investigation and deposition of plaintiff experts. The size and experience of our team enables us to simultaneously field multiple trial teams to ensure cases are handled appropriately, regardless of the complexity of the litigation or the jurisdictions involved.
Troutman Pepper Locke advises clients along each step of the product development continuum, from molecule to market. Drawing heavily from our experience defending pharmaceutical, medical device, and vaccine manufacturers – which dates from the earliest mass torts in the 1960s to today’s multidistrict litigation and class actions – we counsel companies on litigation prevention strategies that can be employed throughout the development of your product. We counsel on the litigation risk hidden in your SOPs, document retention policies, adverse event reporting, clinical trial design, or organizational structure.
Our attorneys understand the regulatory framework concerning pre-clinical development, clinical development, and sales and marketing of pharmaceuticals and medical devices. We counsel clients regarding their regulatory obligations, ways to minimize or reduce future litigation risk, potential exposures from acquisitions, business combinations or co-promotion or co-development transactions, and regulatory issues presented by clinical trial development and potential injuries.
Troutman Pepper Locke is at the forefront of achieving innovative settlements in pharmaceutical, medical device, and other mass tort litigation. Our attorneys are experienced settlement strategists and negotiators in a variety of contexts, including mass tort and class action cases, federal investigations, and state attorneys general claims. We have worked closely with leading mediators, court-appointed special settlement masters, economists, claims administrators, and lien-resolution specialists in designing settlement programs that have been lauded as models by the courts.
The experience and strength we have in developing and implementing settlement strategies allow us to assist where we act as lead litigation counsel for the defense or where we are the designated special settlement counsel working with trial counsel. Our experience in developing early claims evaluation and resolution models adds particular value to our ability to counsel clients on an overall settlement strategy.
- Legal 500 United States: Dispute Resolution: Product Liability, Mass Tort and Class Action: Pharmaceuticals and Medical Devices: Defense (2022-2024)
