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Bobby Woo focuses on product liability defense, including medical devices, pharmaceuticals and other consumer products. He also serves as Deputy Team Leader for the firm’s Pharmaceutical/Medical Device Litigation Team, which Legal 500 recognized in 2020 and 2021 as one of the top five such practices in the country. Voted by his peers as one of the Best Lawyers in America in 2021, Bobby has extensive experience in defending life sciences manufacturers in individual, mass tort, and multi-district litigation.
With more than 25 years of experience in state and federal courts, Bobby has represented pharmaceutical and medical device manufacturers in some of the largest mass torts in the last quarter century.
In the late 1990s, Bobby was part of the King & Spalding team that represented 3M in the silicone breast implant litigation, defending the company in dozens of lawsuits relating to breast implants manufactured by 3M’s wholly-owned subsidiary McGhan Medical Corporation. In the early 2000s, he participated in the earliest years of the opioid mass tort. From 2001 to 2005, Bobby was part of the team that served as national coordinating co-counsel for Purdue Pharma in product liability litigation involving the pain medication OxyContin®. In that phase of the litigation, Purdue obtained more than 400 dismissals, including over 30 orders granting summary judgment, and defeated 15 putative class actions. Afterward, Bobby represented GlaxoSmithKline as part of the company's national coordinating counsel in product liability litigation involving the antidepressant Paxil®. Bobby served as lead counsel for defendants in case conferences and special master hearings for the Paxil® pregnancy cases in the Pennsylvania Mass Tort Program, which at the time had been designated as the number one “Judicial Hellhole” in the country for two years running by the American Tort Reform Foundation.
Currently, Bobby is part of a team defending Coloplast in more than 300 filed cases in its female pelvic mesh litigation. He represents the company in multi-district litigation, in post-MDL transferor courts, and in individual lawsuits. He is also part of a King & Spalding team that is representing the major pharmaceutical manufacturer Janssen in more than 700 cases pending in MDL and MTP litigation. These cases involve Elmiron®, a medication used to treat interstitial cystitis that was recently alleged to cause certain eye injuries.
In 2021, Bobby was voted by his peers as one of the Best Lawyers in America (Best Lawyers, 2021). Bobby has also been recognized by Legal 500 (2010–2011) for Product Liability/Mass Tort defense in pharmaceutical and medical device cases. He has also received recognition in Georgia Super Lawyers magazine (2005–2007, 2009).
Bobby is active in pro bono representation, and in 2000 he received the H. Sol Clark Award, the highest pro bono award given by the State Bar of Georgia to an individual. Bobby received this award for his work in securing equal benefits under the Temporary Aid for Need Families program for legal immigrants. He is a former board member of the Georgia Asylum and Immigration Network, and he continues to represent immigrants seeking asylum in the United States.
Bobby is active in the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association, which awarded him the Daniel K. Inouye Trailblazer Award, NAPABA’s highest honor, in 2002. Bobby also received the inaugural Judge Alvin T. Wong Pioneer Award from the Georgia Asian Pacific American Bar Association for his leadership in the Georgia APA legal community. He is a past co-President of GAPABA and the current Vice President of the GAPABA Law Foundation. Within our firm, Bobby has served on the Diversity and Hiring Committees, is the immediate-past Hiring Partner for the Atlanta office, and is on the Associates Committee for the Trial and Global Disputes practice area. He is currently one of two partner liaisons for the firm’s Asian Affinity Group.
Bobby has appeared on panels addressing issues such as the attorney-client privilege, expert witnesses and scientific evidence, diversity, professionalism, and civil procedure. For more than 15 years, he has been responsible for training the firm’s new attorneys on efficient legal research and time management techniques. He is also one of the lawyers in charge of the firm’s Life Sciences Roundtable series, a monthly webinar series featuring topics of interest to healthcare, pharmaceutical, and medical device manufacturers, and also is the editor-in-chief of the firm’s annual Life Sciences CLE catalog.
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