As tort litigation against corporate and institutional defendants escalates in volume, intensity and potential exposure, clients have required increasingly sophisticated defenses. King & Spalding’s Product Liability Group has extensive regional and national experience in developing those defenses, working with a wide variety of clients in the following fields:
- Airline
- Automotive
- Building products
- Chemical
- Food and beverage
- Healthcare products
- Heavy equipment
- Pesticides
- Pharmaceutical
- Medical device
- Over-the-counter consumer products
- Telecommunications
- Tobacco
The most distinctive feature of King & Spalding's Product Liability Practice is that it couples large-firm litigation support resources with a depth of actual trial experience increasingly uncommon in large firms. Its practitioners try a number of cases each year, predominantly in the southeastern crescent that stretches from Texas to Florida and up the Atlantic coast to Washington, D.C., but also traveling outside that area to places like New York, Kentucky and Utah. The firm has developed a reliable network throughout the country of local counsel and talented expert witnesses. King & Spalding also relies upon its own traveling support staff that is experienced in replicating on-site the technology and resources available in King & Spalding's 13 offices world-wide.
Our Product Liability Group serves as national and regional coordinating counsel for its clients. Because of the extraordinary discovery burdens of modern mass tort litigation, King & Spalding has led the way in developing efficient computer-based litigation support systems, including "paperless" file rooms.
In addition to trying cases, King & Spalding’s Product Liability Practice is frequently asked to conduct audits concerning issues ranging from designs and warnings to document retention. Our firm also is actively involved in advocating changes to better balance the tort law. King & Spalding lawyers have participated in the debate over federal reform of the discovery provisions of the Federal Rules, testified before Congress on federal product liability law, and assisted states with the drafting of tort reform packages.
In addition King & Spalding serves repeatedly as amicus counsel for the Product Liability Advisory Council (“PLAC”), an association of more than 100 major corporations. The Council was formed to submit briefs as friend of the court on pivotal issues of product liability and environmental law. The Practice also represents other clients who submit amicus briefs, such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Motor Vehicle Manufacturers Association.
Because product liability cases are so numerous and hard-fought, they produce a disproportionate number of the important decisions on lawyers client privilege, work product, summary judgment, preemption and evidence. For clients in the pharmaceutical and medical device industries, the Product Liability Practice works closely with the firm's FDA & Life Sciences lawyers, most of whom worked at the Food and Drug Administration before joining the firm. King & Spalding has been particularly successful in handling product liability cases on appeal. Our lawyers are frequently asked to represent clients on appeal following an unsuccessful outcome by other lawyers in the underlying case. Our lawyers have represented clients in all of the U.S. Circuit Courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court, and in most of the state and federal courts across the country.
Professional Organizations
King & Spalding’s product liability lawyers are active members of the following professional organizations:
- American College of Trial Lawyers
- American Inns of Court
- Defense Research Institute
- Georgia Bar Appellate Committee
- Georgia Bar Product Liability Committee
- Georgia Defense Lawyers
- Industrial Defense Library
- International Association of Defense Counsel
- Product Liability Advisory Council
- American Bar Product Liability Committee
- Product Liability Defense Council
- National Center for State Courts
