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Kristen Fournier, Co-Chair of the firm's Toxic and Environmental Tort Litigation Team, is an experienced mass tort and product liability litigator who provides state-of-the-art defense strategies to companies facing high profile, high risk matters. She understands that modern litigation is not limited to the four walls of a courtroom, but very often plays out in the court of public opinion and through media, such that successful litigants need a 360 degree strategy to address the full spectrum of litigation risk. She is known for her sophisticated understanding of jury trends and unique ability to craft messages that drive home her client's objectives. Whether serving as national coordinating counsel or trying an individual matter, she leverages her knowledge of human behavior to build long term, litigation-wide strategies that ultimately guide judges and juries to the right conclusion for her clients.
Kristen currently serves in a leadership position in two Multi-District Litigations: Lead Defense Counsel in the Elmiron MDL pending in the District of New Jersey in which nearly two thousand plaintiffs allege that long term use of Janssen Pharmaceuticals’ prescription drug Elmiron results in a signature injury of vision loss; and as a member of the 3 lawyer Defense Liaison Committee in the Acetaminophen MDL pending in the Southern District of New York in which plaintiffs allege that ingestion of Tylenol during pregnancy leads to ADHD and autism in infants. Kristen is also part of the defense team representing TikTok in the Social Media Adolescent Addiction MDL now pending in the Northern District of California.
In addition to her extensive experience with MDLs, Kristen serves as national coordinating counsel in several high profile matters, including for Johnson & Johnson prolific talc docket in which the company faces allegations that its talcum powder products cause fatal cancer; and for the Dow Chemical Company's wholly owned subsidiary, Union Carbide, in relation to its substantial asbestos docket. In each of these matters, she directs case work up and strategy for thousands of cases each year, ensuring that a uniform approach is applied and her clients maintain a consistent defense and achieve desirable results nationwide. She also routinely negotiates multi-million-dollar settlements involving multiple cases and claims.
Finally, Kristen is a first chair trial lawyer who has tried mass tort cases in some of the most difficult jurisdictions across the country, including New York, NY; Baltimore, MD; Philadelphia, PA and New Orleans, LA. She has represented clients in a wide variety of toxic tort and product matters over time, including cases alleging exposures to PFAS, TCE/TCA, vinyl chloride and ethylene oxide.
Kristen is Band 1 ranked in Chambers USA for Nationwide Toxic Tort, and is further ranked in both product liability and mass tort and has been every year since 2016. Clients hail Kristen as a "true service provider" who is "one step ahead of knowing what a client needs" and has a “great gift for long-term strategy. ” They further note she is “a very skilled trial attorney who is strategic, smart and efficient” and "connects well with judges." The Legal 500 U.S. also hails her as “one of the leading lights” of the Firm’s toxic torts practice, “an 'outstanding trial lawyer,' who is 'very talented at developing, implementing and organizing national strategy.'”
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