HarrisMartin's Opioid Litigation Conference Speaker Profiles

An emerging leader within the plaintiffs’ bar, Lexi J. Hazam represents clients in mass tort cases and qui tam actions, as well as complex class actions.

Lexi represents hip replacement patients in the DePuy ASR, DePuy Pinnacle metal-on-metal, and Stryker Rejuvenate hip implant injury lawsuits, representing over 300 clients and working with leading regulatory experts. Lexi has been appointed by the court overseeing the nationwide Abilify gambling injuries MDL litigation to the Plaintiffs Executive Committee and the Science and Expert Sub-Committee for the case, and was also appointed by the court overseeing the nationwide Benicar MDL litigation to the Plaintiffs’ Steering Committee therein, and serves as Co-Chair of the Benicar MDL Plaintiffs’ Science and Experts Committee. She has also spoken at several conferences on Benicar injuries and Benicar lawsuits.

Lexi has spoken at two conferences for plaintiffs’ counsel on the DePuy litigation. She has also spoken on mass torts topics at the Women En Mass conference for women in mass torts, the annual CAOC conference, and the California Lawyer’s Product Liability Roundtable.

As a named shareholder of Simmons Hanly Conroy, Ms. Conroy is an experienced litigator who has developed a superb national reputation as a skilled strategist, trial lawyer and negotiator over her thirty year career. For many years, Ms. Conroy acted as national trial and coordinating defense counsel to a multi-national corporation and several of its subsidiaries. In recent years, she has represented plaintiffs exclusively in a wide variety of products liability matters.

Ms. Conroy’s practice currently focuses on various complex civil cases, including a high profile sex abuse case against multiple Catholic institutions and litigation against Volkswagen on behalf of several thousand plaintiffs who were affected by the German automaker’s recent emissions scandal.

Ms. Conroy has a track record for standing up for the rights of individuals and families harmed by corporate wrongdoing. She has recovered millions in verdicts and settlements for those injured by unsafe consumer products, including victims of 9/11, families impacted by Toyota’s recent unintended acceleration malfunction, and thousands of young women who suffered heart attacks and other cardiovascular injuries as a result of taking Yaz, a heavily marketed birth control manufactured by the Bayer corporation. She currently represents multiple individuals who were injured by DePuy artificial hips and pelvic repair system materials.

Shelly Sanford attended the University of Texas at Austin where she received a degree in journalism before attending St. Mary’s University School of Law. During her time at law school, Ms. Sanford was the President of the St. Thomas Moore Society and attended UT Law School while she completed a judicial internship with the Hon. Raul Gonzales on the Supreme Court of Texas.

After law school, Ms. Sanford worked as an associate attorney at Bernsen, Jamail & Goodson in Austin, and then at the O’Quinn Law Firm in Houston, Texas. In 2001, she joined the partnership of Goforth Lewis Sanford LLP before founding her own law firm, Shelly A. Sanford PLLC in 2007.

Ms. Sanford evaluates and handles cases involving commercial disputes, complex arbitration proceedings, real estate development losses and delays, finance and mortgage industry disputes, medical devices, dangerous pharmaceutical products, serious injuries or death, and mass actions.