HarrisMartin's Webinar Series: Talcum Powder Litigation: Onward and Upward! Speaker Profiles

Leigh O’Dell practices in Beasley Allen Law Firm’s Mass Torts Section, where she is helping lead litigation related to talcum powder products. Much of Leigh’s recent work has involved women’s health-related issues including work on transvaginal mesh and Gardasil litigation.

She is proud to have an impact on the lives of women who were or are professionals, wives, mothers, daughters, sisters, friends and who deserve so much more than the pain, suffering and even death sentences often handed to them because of the reckless actions of certain pharmaceutical and other corporate actors.

Michelle A. Parfitt is a Senior Partner with the law firm of Ashcraft & Gerel, LLP. Over the past thirty-eight years of her professional career, Ms. Parfitt has sought to distinguish herself as a champion of individual rights as well as a leader before the bar in the area of mass torts specializing in pharmaceutical and product liability cases. She currently heads the Mass Tort practice section of Ashcraft & Gerel, LLP and has had the privilege of representing thousands of individuals in various state and federal courts across the country who have filed suit against pharmaceutical and medical device manufacturers.

After graduating from law school in 1991, Ted returned to his hometown of Prattville, Alabama, where he joined the general practice law firm of Howell, Sarto & Howell. In 1995, Ted moved his growing personal injury practice to Birmingham, Alabama, where he became a partner in the plaintiffs’ litigation firm of Davenport, Lavette & Meadows, P.C.

In 2001, Ted accepted an of counsel position at Beasley Allen. He became a principal at Beasley Allen in 2002. Since then, he’s amassed verdicts and settlements totaling in excess of $1.4 billion.

R. Allen Smith, Jr. founded the Smith Law Firm, PLLC in 2007. Allen initiated the first talcum powder and ovarian cancer case against Johnson & Johnson, and filed and successfully tried the first case to verdict in South Dakota Federal Court in 2013. Since 2013, Allen has tried nine additional talc and ovarian cancer cases against Johnson & Johnson, obtaining verdicts totaling nearly one billion dollars.

During his nearly 40 years as a litigator, James Green has argued before the U.S. Supreme Court, served as an active lecturer and author for both local and national Continuing Legal Education programs, and developed a substantial national practice with Ashcraft & Gerel that has led to hundreds of exceptional verdicts and settlements for his clients.

David Molton is a partner in the Firm’s Litigation & Arbitration and Bankruptcy & Corporate Restructuring Practice Groups and is the chair of cross-border, mass tort, and restructuring litigation.

David focuses his practice in complex financial, commercial and mass tort litigation matters in federal, state and bankruptcy courts in the United States, and he represents foreign liquidators, official committees of creditors, unofficial ad hoc committees of creditors and interested parties in financial fraud and mass tort related litigations and bankruptcies in the United States and in foreign jurisdictions.

Jonathan Massey has over three decades of experience representing clients in high-stakes matters involving complex legal questions before trial and appellate courts and regulatory agencies. He clerked for Justice William J. Brennan, Jr. (1989 Term) and Judge Abner J. Mikva of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit (1988-1989).

Rudie R. Soileau, Jr. is a partner at the law firm of Lundy, Lundy, Soileau & South. He is an esteemed litigator with over 30 years of trial experience. Rudie takes pride in the fact that with each of his cases he takes time to know his client, spend time with the family and truly understand the challenge presented. He is dedicated to achieving justice for his clients.

Richard Golomb is managing shareholder and a founding partner of Golomb Spirt Grunfeld, PC. He has more than 35 years of experience representing those who have been catastrophically injured as a result of medical negligence, defective products, dangerous drugs, construction accidents and other personal injury claims. He also represents victims of consumer, banking and mortgage fraud in class actions.

Christopher M. Placitella is a trial lawyer certified by the New Jersey Supreme Court with a nationwide reputation as one of the country’s leading authorities concerning mass torts, class actions, asbestos, defective products and environmental injuries. Chris has served as lead counsel in numerous landmark cases that have changed life in America for the better. Chris has served as President of the New Jersey Association for Justice and in leadership for the American Association for Justice , The National Trial Lawyers Association, Trial Lawyers of New Jersey & the NJ Public Interest Law Center. Chris’s professional integrity and personal commitment to his clients and community have earned him local, regional and national recognition for his service.

Daniel Lapinski has nearly 20 years of litigation experience, with a focus on mass tort and complex litigation in state, federal and appellate courts. Dan represents victims of childhood sexual abuse who seek to hold abusers and abuse enablers accountable in civil court under “window” laws. Newly enacted in many states and pending in others, these laws extend the number of years available for victims to file a childhood sexual abuse claim by opening a statute of limitations window for a finite period of time. Dan also represents former Boy Scouts who suffered abuse with claims against the Boy Scouts of America bankruptcy.

Mr. Berman has had extensive experience in litigating and managing complex litigation. In the early 1980’s he became a member of the discovery, law and trial committees of In re: Asbestos School Litigation, Master File No. 83-0268 (E.D. Pa.). As a member of those committees, he drafted discovery and legal briefs that lead to the successful resolution of the case on behalf of a nationwide class of schools seeking recovery of damages for the costs and expenses they were required to expend to assess the presence of asbestos in school buildings and to remediate under newly enacted rules and regulations of the Environmental Protection Agency, promulgated in the 1970’s. In connection with that litigation, he was one of the architects of approaching class certification issues for a nationwide class by the use of a “50” state analysis of the law, in order to demonstrate the similarity of laws and therefore the manageability of a nationwide class action. The “50” state approach has been followed in other cases.

Christopher V. Tisi is a shareholder with Levin Papantonio Rafferty. For over 30 years, Mr. Tisi has been a nationally recognized trial and appellate lawyer with extensive experience litigating mass tort, pharmaceutical, medical device and major personal injury cases. In that time, Mr. Tisi has established himself as one of the country's top lawyers, selected by his peers, in The Best Lawyers in America, The National Trial Lawyers Top 100 Trial Lawyers as well as inclusion in the publication The Legal 500. He has been awarded an AV rating by Martindale-Hubbell legal directory, the highest rating for competence and ethics issued by that publication. In 2015 he was inducted as a fellow of the International Society of Barristers.

David joined Beasley Allen Law Firm in April 2012. He practices in the firm’s Mass Torts Section and has more than 30 years of experience as a trial lawyer. Currently, David is primarily working on talcum powder cases linked to the development of ovarian cancer and infant formula cases associated with necrotizing enterocolitis in premature newborns.