HarrisMartin's Complex Litigation Conference Speaker Profiles

Mark is widely recognized as one of the nation’s top trial lawyers. His peers and the media consider him among the country’s leading legal minds. In its coverage of his stunning verdict in the nation’s first Vioxx trial, The New York Times described him as “one of the top civil trial lawyers in America…” Under his leadership, U.S. News and World Report has named The Lanier Law Firm to its list of Best Law Firms. Further, U.S. News and World Report’s Best Lawyers has named Mark Lanier to its Best Lawyers in America list for nine consecutive years. The National Law Journal has twice named him one of the nation’s Top 10 Trial Attorneys, as well as naming him as one of the 100 Most Influential Lawyers in America. In 2010, The National Law Journal named Mark as one of the most Influential Attorneys of the Decade.

Richard has been involved in over 25 multidistrict litigation proceedings, often serving in leadership capacities. The New York Times described him as one of the “big players” in the legal community. The Wall Street Journal featured Richard for his role in the Toyota Litigation, referring to him as having “national notoriety” and as a “big gun” amongst attorneys who were in competition for leadership roles. They also noted he hosts “must-attend” legal seminars on the “hot cases” of the moment. Business Week has referred to him as “a dean of the Louisiana tort bar”, USA Today featured him as a member of the “Legal Elite” and the New Orleans Times Picayune has described him as “an authority on class actions”. Most recently Richard authored a chapter on Multidistrict litigation for a treatise published by the American Bar Association.

On June 1, 2010, Kenneth Winston Starr, J.D., became the 14th president of Baylor University. Judge Starr was elected unanimously by the Baylor Board of Regents on Feb. 12, 2010, following a search process that included representatives from all parts of the Baylor family.

Starr has had a distinguished career in academia, the law and public service. Prior to coming to Baylor, he served for six years as the Duane and Kelly Roberts Dean and Professor of Law at Pepperdine, where he taught current constitutional issues and civil procedure. He has also been of counsel to the law firm of Kirkland & Ellis LLP, where he was a partner from 1993 to 2004, specializing in appellate work, antitrust, federal courts, federal jurisdiction and constitutional law.

Starr has argued 36 cases before the U.S. Supreme Court, including 25 cases during his service as Solicitor General of the United States from 1989-93. He also served as United States Circuit Judge for the District of Columbia Circuit from 1983 to 1989, as law clerk to Chief Justice Warren E. Burger from 1975 to 1977 and as law clerk to Fifth Circuit Judge David W. Dyer from 1973 to 1974. Starr was appointed to serve as Independent Counsel for five investigations, including Whitewater, from 1994 to 1999.

Starr previously taught constitutional law as an adjunct professor at New York University School of Law and was a distinguished visiting professor at George Mason University School of Law and Chapman Law School. After graduating from San Antonio's Sam Houston High School, he earned his B.A. from George Washington University in 1968, his M.A. from Brown University in 1969 and his J.D. degree from Duke University Law School in 1973. He is admitted to practice in California, the District of Columbia, Virginia and the U.S. Supreme Court.

He is the author of more than 25 publications, and his book, First Among Equals: The Supreme Court in American Life, published in 2002, was praised by U.S. Circuit Judge David B. Sentelle as "eminently readable and informative...not just the best treatment to-date of the Court after (Chief Justice Earl) Warren, it is likely to have that distinction for a long, long time."

He has received a multitude of honors and awards, including the J. Reuben Clark Law Society 2005 Distinguished Service Award, the 2004 Capital Book Award, the Jefferson Cup award from the FBI, the Edmund Randolph Award for Outstanding Service in the Department of Justice and the Attorney General's Award for Distinguished Service.

Starr was born on July 21, 1946, in Vernon, Texas, and was raised in San Antonio. He and his wife Alice have three children and six grandchildren. The Starrs made their home in Malibu, Calif., from 2004 to 2010, and lived in McLean, Va., from 1978 to 2004. He has volunteered many hours teaching in the inner city and assisting disadvantaged students with summer internships, after-school programs and guidance for financing a college education.

As the Principal with the internationally known trial lawyer firm of Geragos & Geragos, Mark Geragos cemented his national reputation as a trial lawyer a dozen years ago with back-to-back State and Federal Court jury trial acquittals for renowned Whitewater figure Susan McDougal, later securing a presidential pardon for Ms. McDougal for a conviction sustained prior to his representation of her.

During the last decade, Geragos has won two consecutive dismissals of murder charges against clients by proving flawed eyewitness identification. One of those clients later won a $1.7 million settlement when the Geragos firm sued the City of Glendale for their false arrest of that client. In another twelve-week murder trial where the victim was the defendant's four-year-old daughter, Geragos was the lead lawyer where the jury did not convict his client. He convinced a San Mateo Superior Court Judge to grant probation in a weapons and drug case brought against Victor Willis, former Village People frontman, and was the attorney who successfully represented Chris Brown last year.

Geragos won dismissal of prostitution charges against James Bond movie director Lee Tamahori; dismissal of all felony charges - including kidnapping and torture - for Hung Bao Zhong, the recognized exiled leader of China's shadow government with an estimated 38 million followers worldwide; dismissal of murder charges for the third time for a USC co-ed charged with murder in the death of her fetus; and dismissal of a decades-old murder charge against Japanese national Kazuyoshi Miura, a case christened the "Japanese O.J. Case" by Japanese media.

Geragos was one of the lead lawyers in a pair of groundbreaking Federal Class Action Lawsuits against New York Life Insurance and AXA Corporation for insurance policies issued in the early 20th century during the genocide of over 1.5 million Armenians by the Ottoman Turk Regime, eventually settling these two cases for more than $37.5 million. He is currently suing the Government of Turkey for reparations arising out of the Armenian Genocide.

Geragos is the only lawyer besides Johnnie Cochran ever named "Lawyer of the Year" in both Criminal and Civil arenas. California Law Business Magazine named Geragos "One of the 100 Most Influential Attorneys in California" three years in a row, and Geragos has repeatedly been voted by his peers as one of Los Angeles' SuperLawyers. His $59 million jury verdict in a trade secrets case against pharmaceutical giant Pfizer Corporation was voted both "Top Ten Verdicts in 2008 in California" by the Daily Journal, as well as "Top Fifty Verdicts in the United States" by the National Law Journal.

Mark Geragos has represented some of the most prominent figures in the world. His client list has included former Congressman Gary Condit, former first brother Roger Clinton, Academy Award-nominated actress Winona Ryder, pop star Michael Jackson, Nicole Ritchie, singer Chris Brown, hip hop stars Nathaniel "Nate Dogg" Hale and Sean "Diddy" Combs (aka Puff Daddy), international arms dealer Sarkis Soghanalian, and the Sarkisyan family, whose seventeen-year-old daughter died when Cigna Corporation refused to authorize a liver transplant. For the last several years, Geragos has represented Barry Bonds' personal trainer, Greg Anderson, in his matter relating to the Federal Investigation into steroid use in Professional Sports.

Geragos has regularly appeared as both guest and legal commentator on the "Today Show," "Good Morning America," "Dateline NBC," "Larry King Live," "Greta Van Susteren's On the Record," "60 minutes," and "48 hours," and has lectured extensively and authored numerous articles and Law Review publications on the subject of Media and the Law.

Mark Geragos attended Haverford College in Pennsylvania as an undergraduate, and later earned his Juris Doctorate from Loyola Law School. He was born in Los Angeles.