Mass Tort News LegalCast

Mike Partain serves as an advocate for those poisoned from contaminated water on the Camp Lejeune Marine base. Mike received exposure to Lejeune's contaminated water in-utero and as a baby which resulted in him developing male breast cancer at the age of 39. Since 2007, Mike has served as a community representative for those exposed to chemically contaminated water at Camp Lejeune. Since then, Mik...

Mike Partain serves as an advocate for those poisoned from contaminated water on the Camp Lejeune Marine base. Mike received exposure to Lejeune's contaminated water in-utero and as a baby which resulted in him developing male breast cancer at the age of 39. Since 2007, Mike has served as a community representative for those exposed to chemically contaminated water at Camp Lejeune. Since then, Mik...

Levin Papantonio Associate attorney Sara Papantonio serves as point for the firm's involvement in mass tort litigation for Necrotising enterocolitis (NEC) contamination in baby formula.   Sara graduated from Stetson University College of Law in 2020 and served as a member of the Stetson Trial team, ranked #1 nationally. Sara earned the title of Regional Champion and National Finalist at the 2020 N...

Luff Law founding partner Patrick Luff currently serves as plaintiff leadership in MDL 2436 regarding the effects of prenatal exposure to acetaminophen, MDL 3026 for NEC contaminated baby formula, and MDL 3037 regarding recalled baby formula by Abbott Laboratories. Patrick maintains national recognition for his instrumental role in winning multi-million dollar victories for plaintiffs having previ...

Amy Fogle serves as CEO of Milestone, a nationwide financial settlement service for plaintiffs and trial lawyers. Milestone specifically focuses on serving in mass tort QSF administration, attorney fee deferral, and plaintiff settlement planning. Amy holds nearly 15 years of experience in wealth management, bringing expertise from previous companies including Nottingham Advisors, Citi, and JP Morg...

David Seide serves as Senior Counsel at Government Accountability Project (GAP), a non-profit supporting government whistleblowers, where he specializes in immigration issues. David began his career in 1983 after earning a JD from NYU Law in the federal court system as a clerk to Hon. Morris E. Lasker. David soon rose to the position of Assistant US Attorney, serving as a White Collar and Securiti...

Jerry Ensminger served as a drill instructor in the U.S. Marine Corps for nearly 25 years. In 1983, Jerry's six-year-old daughter, Janey, received a leukemia diagnosis. After over two grizzly years, including spinal taps and marrow transplants, Janey passed away at the age of nine. In 1997, Jerry learned the possible cause of his daughter's leukemia, in-utero exposure to contaminated drinking wate...

Leigh O'Dell serves as Co-Lead Plaintiff Counsel in MDL 2738 against Johnson & Johnson. The litigation centers on J&J's marketing and distributing talcum powder and the powder's link to the development of ovarian cancer in users. According to Beasley Allen, nearly 35,000 plaintiffs remain pending in the MDL and five plaintiff settlements totalling in $2.9 billion. Leigh also represents plaintiffs...

Lynda Shely serves as the founding partner of the ethics law firm, Shely Law. Lynda consults on legal ethics to firms operating in Arizona and the District of Columbia on topics including advertising, fee agreements, billing, conflicts of interest, and staff training, to name a few. Shely Law also offers specialized risk management assessments and training on how to implement in-firm CLE programs....

Jacqueline "Jackie" Garrick currently serves as Founder and President of the Non-Profit, Whistleblowers of America (WoA). Jackie founded WoA in 2017 after seeing first-hand how destructive whistleblowing can be one's career, personal life, and emotional stability. WoA offers resources and community to whistleblowers across America, spreading awareness, training, and advocacy in whistleblowing.  Ja...

Shayna E. Sacks serves as Partner in the Napoli Shkolnik PLLC Pharmaceutical litigation department. Sacks litigates across America, but primarily focuses on the North East, maintaining Bar admissions in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut. Sacks currently serves as docket leadership in the In re: McKinsey & Co., Inc. National Prescription Opiate Consultant Litigation and on the Plaintiff's Steer...

Kristina Baehr serves as founding partner of Just Well Law where she "represents sick people against the companies that made them sick," according to the firm. Kristina holds experience representing both plaintiffs and defendants in class actions and mass torts. She represented big companies in serial patent infringement cases for nearly a decade. Notable cases include the Medical University of So...

Jan Jacobowitz serves as owner and founder of the ethics consulting group, Legal Ethics Advisor, and Director of the Professional Responsibility & Ethics Program (PREP) at the University of Miami's School of Law (UM Law). Jan holds decades of experience teaching and practicing law, equipping her to advise on ethics and risk management in law, specifically with conflicts of interest, advertising, a...

Mike Magner holds decades of experience in news and currently serves as Editor at CQ Legal. Mike maintains special focus on environmental journalism, authoring two books on environmental negligence and abuse: Poisoned Legacy: The Human Cost of BP's Rise to Power  in 2011, and A Trust Betrayed: The Untold Story of Camp Lejeune and the Poisoning of Generations of Marines and Their Families  in 2014....

Adam J. Levitt serves as founding partner at Dicello Levitt and specializes in class actions and complex MDLs, with both commercial and public clients. According to DiCello Levitt, Levitt has aided in recovering almost $20 billion for plaintiffs across areas including consumer protection, automotive defects, biotechnology, security disputes, agricultural products, antitrust, insurance coverage, an...

Patrick A. Salvi II serves as Managing Partner at Salvi, Schostok & Pritchard, specializing in personal injury, medical malpractice and mass tort litigation. Since joining the firm in 2007, Salvi has secured dozens of multi-million dollar settlements for clients, a number of which in record-holding amounts.  Best Lawyers named Patrick as 2022 "Lawyer of the Year" for Medical Malpractice in Chicago...

As a founding partner of Luff Law, Patrick Luff maintains national recognition for his instrumental role in winning multi-million dollar victories for plaintiffs.  Luff famously won a $15.4 million wrongful death judgment and a precedent-setting federal appeal, while also leading the charge in Paraquat Products Liability MDL consolidated. Patrick served as Co-Lead Counsel in the Texas MDL No. 2021...

Paul Bland currently serves as Executive Director of Public Justice, a non-profit litigation organization which works for social and economic justice for plaintiffs. Before earning the title of Executive Director in 2014, Paul served as an attorney on staff for Legal Justice since 1997. Paul has testified before both houses of Congress and in 2019 presented oral arguments to the Supreme court in H...

Sara Papantonio serves as an Associate attorney at Levin Papantonio Rafferty specializing in Mass Tort litigation, specifically relating to Camp Lejeune water contamination. Sara graduated from Stetson University College of Law in 2020 and served as a member of the Stetson Trial team, ranked #1 nationally. Sara earned the title of Regional Champion and National Finalist at the 2020 National Trial...

As founding and managing partner of Andrews Thornton LLC, Anne Andrews specializes in litigating personal injury mass tort cases involving bankruptcy and dangerous pharmaceuticals. Andrews recently started working with the Tort Claimants Creditors' Committee, representing thousands of survivors who were sexually abused during their time in Boy Scouts, inspiring her to co-found the Coalition of Abu...

Keegan Hamilton currently serves as a Sr Reporter and Correspondent for VICE , focusing on organized crime, prisons, and the drug trade. Keegan also hosts two podcasts that also focus on the use and distribution of illicit drugs, Chapo: Kingpin on Trial  and Painkiller: America's Fentanyl Crisis . Keegan has regularly written for other big-name news outlets including Medium , Business Insider , Bu...

Bijan Esfandiari serves as Senior shareholder at Baum Hedlund Aristei & Goldman , litigating cases of pharmaceutical product liability. Bijan discusses his current MDL (No. 3036)  against pharmaceutical company Merck for the production and distribution of Gardasil, an HPV vaccine believed to cause POTS. Esfandiari explains how the defense shames victims of the toxic vaccine into silence by labelin...

SHOW NOTES: Based in Massachusetts, Tucker Merrigan serves as co-founder and co-managing partner of Sweeney Merrigan Law, LLP. Tucker specializes in plaintiff personal injury law, specifically mass torts relating to defective medical devices and opioids. Tucker has received national recognition for his litigation work. From 2018-2021, Super Lawyers recognized him as a Rising Star. The National Tri...

As a partner at DiCello Levitt, Robert "Bobby" DiCello holds decades of experience litigating cases of personal injury, product injury and civil rights abuses. DiCello received national fame for serving as an expert source for ABC News' coverage of the death of George Floyd, the trial of Derek Chauvin, and the subsequent documentary on both. DiCello has received numerous litigious honors, includin...

Lamar Uquhart enlisted in the US Marine Corp in 1981 as a senior in high school and trained as an electrician at Camp Lejeune's Courthouse Bay where he served until his 1982 deployment to Okinawa, Japan. Uquhart spent his next five years of active service shifting between Camp Lejeune, Cherry Point, NC, Okinawa, Japan, and San Diego. Spending his final year in the reserves, Uquhart received an hon...