First Annual Class Action Case Law and Practices Review Conference Participant Biographies

• Magistrate Judge, U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey
• April 2009-Present

Christine Azar is a Director with responsibility for building business with US-based law firms and companies. Since joining Burford, she has focused on originating business in large commercial matters including antitrust and securities matters. She is a champion for women in the legal industry and has taken on a significant role in promoting and championing Burford’s Equity Project initiative, aimed at closing the gender gap in law. Prior to joining Burford, Ms. Azar was the partner in charge of Labaton Sucharow’s Wilmington office and has been recognized as a leading litigator by numerous organizations. She spent the early part of her legal career at Grant & Eisenhofer and Blank Rome. Most recently, she led business development efforts at various legal services companies. Ms. Azar graduated from Notre Dame Law School and has an undergraduate degree from James Madison University.

Fred Baker is a veteran litigator with strong roots in complex litigation. Mr. Baker has worked on a broad range of environmental, medical costs recovery, consumer and products liability cases and holds numerous leadership roles within the firm. Mr. Baker represents individuals, institutional investors, and governmental entities in a wide variety of cases. He leads the firm’s tobacco litigation, and was a member of the legal team that litigated the groundbreaking tobacco litigation on behalf of several State Attorneys General. He has also participated in the litigation of individual tobacco cases, entity tobacco cases, and a tobacco class action. 

Professor Lynn Baker holds the Frederick M. Baron Chair in Law at the University of Texas School of Law in Austin. Her scholarly and teaching interests include mass tort litigation, professional responsibility issues involving aggregate litigation and group settlements, attorneys' fees, and "mega-settlements.” She has been a court-appointed Allocation Special Master in mass tort settlements, and lawyers often call on her to serve as consultant or expert witness on matters of legal ethics, mass tort settlements, settlement fund allocations, and attorneys' fees.

John Beisner is the leader of Skadden Arp’s Mass Torts, Insurance and Consumer Litigation Group. His practice focuses on the defense of class actions, mass tort matters, and other complex civil litigation in both trial and appellate courts. Over the past 40 years, Mr. Beisner has defended major U.S. and international corporations in more than 600 class actions. In the mass tort arena, he has handled numerous matters before the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation and has been involved in over 30 multidistrict litigation proceedings, typically in a lead counsel role. Mr. Beisner is a frequent writer and lecturer on class action and complex litigation issues. In 2013, he received the Burton Award for Legal Achievement, which recognizes excellence in legal scholarship. He is listed in the top tier (Star Individual) in Chambers USA: America’s Leading Lawyers for Business in the area of products liability.

Sheila L. Birnbaum is co-chair of Dechert’s product liability and mass torts practice and focuses on complex product liability, mass torts and insurance litigation. She is one of the country’s preeminent product liability defense lawyers, having served as national counsel or lead defense counsel for numerous Fortune 500 companies in some of the largest and most complex tort cases in the United States. She has also argued many influential appeals in appellate courts across the United States, including the U.S. Supreme Court.

• Judge, U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky
• Nominated by George W. Bush on September 4, 2001, to a seat vacated by Henry R. Wilhoit, Jr. Confirmed by the Senate on October 23, 2001, and received commission on October 24, 2001. Served as chief judge, 2012-2019.

A 30-year banking veteran, Francesca Castagnola was a founding officer of the Bank’s San Diego Division. Her portfolio includes law firms, claims administrators and related legal services companies. She has sizable expertise in simple to complex escrow and fiduciary banking services. Through the Settlement Services Group, Ms. Castagnola focuses on the entire life cycle of large legal settlements, from escrow through distribution and residual balances for class action, mass-tort and bankruptcy cases.

• Judge, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois
• Nominated by George W. Bush on July 18, 2007, to a seat vacated by Charles P. Kocoras.
• Confirmed by the Senate on November 13, 2007, and received commission on December 5, 2007.

Howard Erichson teaches Civil Procedure, Complex Litigation, Professional Responsibility, and Torts. His research explores the U.S. litigation process, particularly the problem of resolving mass disputes. He is the past chair of the Civil Procedure Section of the Association of American Law Schools and was an Advisor to the American Law Institute’s Principles of the Law of Aggregate Litigation. He is the author of the book Inside Civil Procedure, co-author of Complex Litigation; Cases & Materials on Advanced Civil Procedure, and co-author of a forthcoming casebook on Civil Procedure. His articles have appeared in the Cornell Law Review, Duke Law Journal, Michigan Law Review, University of Pennsylvania Law Review, and many other leading publications. Professor Erichson graduated from Harvard University and from New York University School of Law, where he was Editor in Chief of the Law Review. After law school, he clerked for the New Jersey Supreme Court and for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, and he practiced as a litigator with Cleary Gottlieb Steen and Hamilton in New York City. In 1995, he joined the faculty of Seton Hall Law School, where he was elected Professor of the Year and was named the John J. Gibbons Professor of Law. He joined the Fordham Law School faculty as Professor of Law in 2008, and was elected Teacher of the Year in 2012.

Professor Brian Fitzpatrick teaches at Vanderbilt Law School, where he serves as the Milton R. Underwood Chair in Free Enterprise. His courses include Civil Procedure, Complex Litigation, and Federal Courts. Professor Fitzpatrick graduated first in his class from Harvard Law School and clerked for Justice Antonin Scalia on the U.S. Supreme Court. He then went on to practice commercial and appellate litigation at Sidley Austin, serve on U.S. Senator John Cornyn’s staff, and research at New York University School of Law before joining Vanderbilt’s law faculty.

• Judge, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas
• Nominated by Ronald Reagan on January 29, 1986, to a seat vacated by Robert M. Hill. Confirmed by the Senate on March 18, 1986, and received commission on March 19, 1986. Served as chief judge, 2007-2014. Assumed senior status on September 22, 2018.

• Judge, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York
• Nominated by Barack Obama on June 7, 2011, to a seat vacated by Alvin K. Hellerstein. Confirmed by the Senate on February 17, 2012, and received commission on February 17, 2012.

Paul Geller, managing partner of Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd LLP’s Boca Raton, Florida office, is a founding partner of the Firm, a member of its Executive and Management Committees, and head of the Firm’s Consumer Practice Group. Mr. Geller’s 27 years of litigation experience is broad, and he has handled cases in each of the Firm’s practice areas. Notably, before devoting his practice to the representation of consumers and investors, he defended companies in high-stakes class action litigation, providing him an invaluable perspective. Mr. Geller has tried bench and jury trials on both the plaintiffs’ and defendants’ sides, and has argued before numerous state, federal, and appellate courts throughout the country.

Daniel Girard has over 30 years of experience in leadership roles in class actions.  He has served as lead attorney in a range of cases, including class actions arising under the securities, commodities, antitrust, predatory lending, telecommunications, privacy, and civil rights laws. Mr. Girard is a member of the U.S. Judicial Conference Standing Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedure and the Council of the American Law Institute. He served on the Advisory Committee on Civil Rules from 2004-2010, and on the Advisory Board of the Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System from 2007-16.

Christopher M. Guth is Senior Counsel for Bayer U.S. Chris manages and directs strategy in mass-tort product liability litigation, internal and external investigations, and counsels on compliance and risk management. Prior to Bayer, Mr. Guth practiced as a litigator in the Philadelphia office of Blank Rome LLP as member of the Life Sciences, Corporate Litigation, and Gaming & Digital Media teams. He is a graduate of the Duke University School of Law.

Michael Hausfeld, widely recognized for his leadership on antitrust matters and his groundbreaking cases in human rights law, is the Chairman of Hausfeld and is based in Washington, DC. Mr. Hausfeld has a long record of successful litigation in the antitrust field, on behalf of individuals and classes, in cases involving monopolization, tie-ins, exclusive dealing, and price-fixing. He is involved in ongoing investigations of antitrust cases abroad and pioneering efforts to enforce competition laws globally.

• Judge, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York
• Nominated by William J. Clinton on April 26, 1994, to a seat vacated by Shirley Wohl Kram. Confirmed by the Senate on August 9, 1994, and received commission on August 10, 1994

Adam Levitt is a founding partner of DiCello Levitt and Managing Partner of its Chicago office, where he heads the firm’s product liability and public client practice groups. His experience is broad, and he has handled cases in each of the firm's practice areas.  With close to 30 years’ experience leading nationwide commercial and class action lawsuits, and having recovered billions of dollars in pre- and post-verdict settlements for his clients and class members, Mr. Levitt is one of the nation’s leading advocates for plaintiffs in commercial, class action, and mass tort litigation, particularly in financial services, consumer protection, automotive defect, agricultural, antitrust, and securities litigation. He is an elected member of the American Law Institute and the Economic Club of Chicago and has been named one of the 500 Leading Lawyers in America by Lawdragon.

• Judge, U.S. District Court for the District of Kansas
• Nominated by George H.W. Bush on July 24, 1991, to a seat vacated by Dale E. Saffels. Confirmed by the Senate on October 31, 1991, and received commission on November 5, 1991. Served as chief judge, 2001-2007. Assumed senior status on November 2, 2010.

Professor Richard Marcus holds the Coil Chair in Litigation at UC Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco. He is co-author of leading casebooks on Complex Litigation and Civil Procedure. In addition, he is the author of four volumes of the Federal Practice & Procedure treatise (aka Wright & Miller), including the discovery volumes. Since 1996, he has served as Associate Reporter of the Advisory Committee on Civil Rules and has served as principal drafter of amendments to the class action and discovery rules adopted during that time. Before entering teaching, he was a litigator in San Francisco and partner in a law firm there.

Ellen Meriwether has been a litigation partner with the firm Cafferty Clobes Meriwether and Sprengel LLP since its inception in 1992. She concentrates her practice in the area of Antitrust Litigation and has had a leadership role in many of the firm’s most successful actions. She is a Director of the American Antitrust Institute (AAI) and Editorial Board co-chair of ANTITRUST, a publication of the Antitrust Section of the American Bar Association.   

Associate Dean Alan Morrison is the Associate Dean for Public Interest & Public Service at the George Washington University Law School, where he also teaches Civil Procedure and Constitutional Law. Associate Dean Morrison co-founded the Public Citizen Litigation Group and litigated for law reform with the group, arguing 20 cases in the Supreme Court. He previously taught at Harvard, NYU, Stanford, Hawaii, and American University law schools.

Adam M. Moskowitz, the Founder and Managing Partner of The Moskowitz Law Firm is a distinguished trial lawyer who has received national recognition for his courtroom successes, large settlement negotiations, and delivering justice to class action plaintiffs throughout the country. Mr. Moskowitz concentrates his practice now mainly on solely class action matters and obtained one of the largest jury trial verdicts in Miami-Dade County Court.  As Managing Partner, he leads The Moskowitz Law Firm's participation in multi-state and national class cases that involve teams of law firms from around the nation. Mr. Moskowitz has served as Lead Counsel in over 100 national class action cases against some of the largest Defendants in the country. For the past nine years, he originated and served as Co-Lead Counsel in 31 nationwide class actions filed in various courts across the country against the largest banks and insurers on behalf of millions of homeowners for claims of force--placed insurance. These settlements have already provided $5.9 billion dollars in relief to 5.3 million homeowners nationwide. Mr. Moskowitz has also been an Adjunct Professor teaching “Class Action Litigation” at the University of Miami School of Law for the past 26 years. As a staunch supporter of his alma mater, he has always donated his salary back each year to the law school in order to fund student scholarships. Mr. Moskowitz also helped originate and create the University of Miami Class Action and Mass Tort Annual Conference and is a routine speaker at national and international conferences on class actions, including the annual National Conference on Class Actions, organized by the Barreau du Québec in Canada and the Mass Tort Made Perfect Program in Las Vegas. 

• Judge, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio
• Nominated by William J. Clinton on March 9, 1994, to a seat vacated by Alice Moore Batchelder. Confirmed by the Senate on May 6, 1994, and received commission on May 9, 1994. Served as chief judge, 2010-2017.
   

• Judge, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois
• Nominated by William J. Clinton on July 31, 1997, to a seat vacated by William T. Hart. Confirmed by the Senate on October 21, 1998, and received commission on October 22, 1998. Served as chief judge, 2019-present.

• Judge, U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania
• Nominated by George W. Bush on November 3, 2003, to a seat vacated by William H. Yohn. Confirmed by the Senate on June 15, 2004, and received commission on June 16, 2004.

For more than twenty-five years, Peter Prieto has focused his practice on complex commercial litigation, including class actions, and white-collar criminal defense. He has represented clients—both plaintiffs and defendants—in a wide array of civil litigation, including business disputes, healthcare, antitrust, products liability, RICO, legal and accounting malpractice, and class action litigation. Over the last several years, he has focused his defense practice on defending law and accounting firms from claims of professional malpractice. Mr. Prieto has also represented clients in criminal investigations and prosecutions involving public corruption, business, banking and healthcare fraud, aviation, environmental violations, antitrust and money laundering.

• Judge, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York
• Nominated by William J. Clinton on October 11, 1995, to a seat vacated by David N. Edelstein. Confirmed by the Senate on December 29, 1995, and received commission on January 4, 1996. Assumed senior status on December 31, 2010

• Judge, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas
• Nominated by George H.W. Bush on March 20, 1992, to a new seat authorized by 104 Stat. 5089. Confirmed by the Senate on May 12, 1992, and received commission on May 13, 1992. Served as chief judge, 2016-present.

A founding partner of Seeger Weiss, Chris Seeger is widely recognized as a highly innovative and accomplished plaintiff attorney. Since founding the firm in 1999, he has led some of the most complex, groundbreaking, and high-profile litigations in the U.S., at both the state and federal level. Chiefly known for multidistrict mass torts and class actions involving drug injury, toxic injury, and personal injury, Mr. Seeger’s versatile practice also includes product liability; property damage; consumer, insurance, and securities fraud; antitrust; and third-party payer litigation.

Scott Burnett Smith is the founder and chair of Bradley’s Appellate Litigation Practice Group. His practice covers class actions, ERISA litigation, complex litigation, and appeals. Scott has been involved in dozens of nationwide class actions in state and federal courts and has handled over 35 class action appeals. He is also regularly involved as the appellate lawyer embedded with a trial team in complex civil litigation. In that role, he has succeeded in having several multimillion-dollar injury verdicts, including punitive damages, remitted by the trial court or reversed and rendered by the appellate court.

Active in DRI - The Voice of the Defense Bar, Scott is a former national director on DRI’s Board of Directors. He is also the former chair of DRI’s Amicus Committee and former chair of DRI’s Appellate Advocacy Committee. In addition, he has served as chair of the DRI’s national Class Action seminar and writes and speaks regularly on class actions and appellate practice.

Professor Jay Tidmarsh is an expert in complex civil litigation and civil procedure. He teaches Civil Procedure, Complex Civil Litigation, Federal Courts, Torts, and Evidence at Notre Dame Law School. Professor Tidmarsh is the author or co-author of 13 books on civil procedure and complex litigation and has served as Chair of the AALS Section on Civil Procedure. Before joining the Notre Dame faculty, he practiced with the Torts Division of the U.S. Department of Justice. He has visited at Michigan and Harvard Law Schools.

Aaron Van Oort is a legal strategist, class action litigator, and appellate lawyer who co-chairs Faegre Drinker's appellate advocacy group. A former law clerk for Justice Antonin Scalia and a Fellow of the American Academy of Appellate Lawyers, Mr. Van Oort is described by Chambers USA as having “notable prominence and presence in this field." His mission and joy is to be a voice for clients in trial and appellate courts throughout the country.

Steven Weisbrot is a nationally recognized attorney and class action notice expert. He is considered one of the premier thought leaders in the class action notification industry and has authored numerous articles in national legal publications on the use of digital media notice programs, using social media to notify class members, class action claims administration and proper claim form design. Largely accepted as the leading proponent for the use of electronic forms of notice in class action notification, Mr. Weisbrot has provided written and oral testimony to the Rules Committee during the Rule 23 revision process and is co-author of the Digital Media section of Duke Law’s Guidelines and Best Practices-- Implementing 2018 Amendments to Rule 23, He has consulted with and advised some of the largest corporations in the country on their class action notification needs. He has also lectured extensively to many of the largest law firms in the world, as well as hedge fund managers, bar associations and in-house counsel on class action notice and claims procedures.

John A. Yanchunis leads the Class Action Department of the firm. Mr. Yanchunis’ practice— which began after completing a two-year clerkship with United States District Judge Carl O. Bue, Jr., Southern District of Texas—has concentrated on complex litigation and spans over 36 years, including class actions for almost two-thirds of that time.