For more than 20 years, Joe has specialized in preparing and trying toxic tort, product liability, intellectual property and commercial cases throughout the United States. His caseload largely consists of matters that involve chemicals, petrochemicals, biotechnology, industrial, commercial and consumer products, and pharmaceuticals. Joe is Chair of the firm’s Toxic Tort Department and a member of the firm’s Partner Board.
In toxic tort cases, Joe represents many of the country’s leading petrochemical and chemical companies in single plaintiff, mass tort and class actions. He is routinely selected by clients in these industries to lead multiple-defendant joint defense groups in the nation’s most difficult jurisdictions, including Cook, St. Clair and Madison counties in Illinois and in the City of St. Louis. Further, Joe serves as national coordinating counsel and regional trial counsel for a number of chemical, petrochemical and product manufacturers and technology companies. He has significant experience in mass tort cases, including class actions, involving allegations of groundwater contamination and air emissions as well as class actions involving consumer products.
Joe also handles a variety of commercial litigation and intellectual property cases for manufacturers of biotechnology, chemicals and consumer products. For more than a decade, he acted as lead trial counsel in patent infringement cases involving complex and emerging technologies that asserted, inter alia, the unauthorized use of patented biotechnology. Joe has secured numerous jury verdicts on behalf of his agribusiness client in these cases. Multiple appeals from these successful trials to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit and U.S. Supreme Court have then resulted in the creation of favorable law regarding novel and emerging areas of biotechnology, including important new precedents in the areas of patent licensing, antitrust, patent misuse and patent damages methodologies.
He is an active speaker on topics relating to trial tactics, product liability and toxic tort litigation and pretrial discovery techniques and participates in industry associations such as Defense Research Institute and the agribusiness group, the American Seed Trade Association.