Safeguarding Your Products Through Energetic Representation

From Fortune 500 companies to entrepreneurships, Steptoe & Johnson provides clients with unparalleled experience in products liability and mass tort defense.  An impressive and enthusiastic team of trial lawyers is particularly skillful at building factual defenses for highly complex, scientific, and technical matters.  The firm provides clients with a team approach to problem solving and an aggressive focus on case management, which includes strategy development, trial preparation, expert testimony, and jury research. Steptoe & Johnson is one of the few regional defense firms with a specialty group dedicated to products liability. 

Products Liability Sub-Practice Areas:

• Consumer Products
  Product Liability Group lawyers are nationally recognized for their expert preparation and execution of defenses involving a wide variety of consumer products such as firearms, clothing and apparel, food, sporting equipment, electrical devices, appliances, and recreational products.  The firm currently serves as West Virginia counsel for a large national home improvement retailer, and several national fast-food and casual dining restaurants.   
• Heavy Equipment and Machinery
  Lawyers routinely defend suppliers of industrial equipment and tools, and serve as West Virginia counsel for two of the largest heavy equipment and machinery manufacturers in the United States. The firm serves as local counsel for one of the leading recreational vehicle manufacturers in the nation, in addition to handling matters involving cranes, loaders, tractors, excavators, and underground mining equipment. 
• Pharmaceuticals and Medical Devices
  Product Liability Group lawyers are knowledgeable in highly specialized disciplines of biomedical engineering and related sciences.  The group defends manufacturers of surgical devices, instruments, monitors, implants, and prescription drugs.  The group routinely teams with other attorneys within the firm (such as the health care and Professional Liability practice groups) to ensure that every aspect of a client’s business is protected.
• Toxic Torts
  The firm serves as national counsel for the world’s largest manufacturer of induction furnaces in asbestos and silica cases.  Industrial exposure claims rank among the highest tiers of defense litigation handled by the firm. Similarly, Steptoe & Johnson serves as co-national counsel for the 5th largest paint and coatings company. 

Representative Experience:

• Represented international paint and coatings manufacturer in an alleged benzene induced non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma case filed in Marshall County, West Virginia.  Obtained a defense verdict on behalf of the client after a two-week trial.
• Serve as National Counsel for world’s largest manufacturer of induction furnaces in asbestos cases throughout the United States and responsible for coordinating all aspects of discovery, settlement and trial.
• Spearheaded effort in West Virginia silica cases to investigate companies conducting medical screenings and obtaining dismissals on behalf of several clients in hundreds of personal injury cases.

Active Leadership and Lobbying Efforts

• Steptoe & Johnson includes among its members former chairpersons of the State’s democratic and republican parties and provides lobbying services to its clients on a daily basis. Products Liability Group members are active in state and national defense organizations, including West Virginia Defense Trial Counsel and Defense Research Institute, among others.
• Attorneys in the group are frequent lecturers at national and local seminars on product liability issues including asbestos, silica and benzene litigation,  medical devices, fire origin and cause, subrogation, and spoliation of evidence. 

Commitment to Client Services

• Serial and mass litigation, such as silica, benzene, and asbestos, is managed vigorously through the maintenance of client documents, expert deposition, and regulation repositories, cost/benefit matrices to track settlements and compare trends, and intranet Web sites.
• Technological capabilities include a number of litigation-based software programs and databases used to manage documents, discovery, and data. For large cases, the firm’s IT department is consulted to customize the right technology module to support the process with an emphasis on controlling transactional costs.