G. Brian Jackson served as a panelist for the Multidistrict Litigation (MDL) Conference. The conference was jointly sponsored by The Federalist Society, Lawyers for Civil Justice and Kirkland & Ellis LLP, and was held on Thursday, Oct. 19 at Kirkland & Ellis LLP in Washington D.C.
Brian served on the luncheon panel discussion “Trying Cases and Settlement.”
MDL accounts for nearly half of all civil cases in federal courts. Although MDLs were designed to be efficient mechanisms for “coordinated or consolidated pretrial proceedings,” in many instances they have become one-sided forums known for lacking the basic protections afforded to all other cases by the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP), the Federal Rules of Evidence and appellate review. Experts from the Federalist Society and Lawyers for Civil Justice will discuss the challenges with MDLs and the policy ideas that could solve them, including the Fairness in Class Action Litigation Act of 2017 (FICALA) and Lawyers for Civil Justice’s proposal for amending the FRCP.
Brian is the Assistant Practice Group Leader of our Pharmaceutical, Medical Device and Healthcare Group. He has 25 years of experience representing clients in drug and medical device litigation, healthcare litigation, and mass torts. His experience includes serving as national coordinating counsel, national science counsel, and trial counsel in drug and medical device cases. He is currently serving as Co-Lead Counsel in federal multidistrict litigation for a leading medical device manufacturer. He had extensive responsibilities in the Tylenol MDL and related state litigation, including serving as trial counsel in the past three years in a case tried in Atlantic City, NJ that resulted in a defense verdict that CVN named one of its “Top 10 Defense Verdicts of 2015,” and in a case tried in the United States District Court for the Central District of California that resulted in a favorable outcome.
Brian is recognized by The Best Lawyers in Americaâ, Mid-South Super Lawyersâ, and is AV-Rated by Martindale Hubbell. He has been named as one of Nashville’s 101 Top Lawyers by the Nashville Post and Best in Bar by the Nashville Business Journal. He earned his J.D. from Vanderbilt University, where he was Associate Editor of the Vanderbilt Law Review. He obtained his B.A., cum laude, from Sewanee: The University of the South.
