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At the Spring 2019 Mass Torts Made Perfect at the Wynn Resort in Las Vegas, Susan J. Cole, Jayne Conroy, Eric Kennedy, and Stanley M. Rosenblatt will be inducted into the Hall of Fame. Each of the new Hall of Fame members have devoted their careers to representing their clients to the absolute highest standards, and their stories are as unique as their different approaches towards the legal profession.
Susan J. Cole
Susan Jane Cole graduated from the University of Miami School of Law in 1978 and began practicing law in 1979. Throughout the course of her 40-year career, Susan Cole has relied on her strong belief and understanding of science to help her win some of the toughest cases in modern legal history.
Cole has tried more than eighty asbestos cases in her career on behalf of the manufacturers and distributors of friction, building supply, and pump products all alleged to have contained asbestos. She is recognized as one of the leading asbestos defense counsel in the
Jayne Conroy is an experienced litigator who has developed a superb national reputation as a skilled strategist, trial lawyer and negotiator over her thirty year career. She spent many years working on the corporate side of law, acting as counsel for a major corporation, but in recent years she turned her practice towards consumers and has become
a force for plaintiffs in the courtroom.
Miss Conroy has recovered millions in verdicts and settlements for those injured by unsafe consumer products, including victims of 9/11, families impacted by Toyota’s recent unintended acceleration
Eric Kennedy passed the Ohio bar in 1980 and has been practicing at Weisman Kennedy & Berris for 35 years. He practices in the areas of pharmaceutical and medical device liability, medical malpractice and class actions.
While most of his legal career has been devoted to the representation of individual clients, Eric sat on the National Settlement Committee in the Breast Implant Litigation and was Trial Counsel in the Telectronics pacemaker class action where over 20,000 cases were consolidated into a single federal court. He served as Sub-Class Counsel in the
“I wanted to look these guys in the eye and have them tell me, ‘It’s a coincidence.’”
That’s the mindset that legendary trial lawyer Stanley M. Rosenblatt, along with his wife and law partner Susan, brought to the courtroom when they tried the very first plaintiff’s case against the tobacco industry.
Stanley made it clear in interviews after that historic trial that he was ready for the industry to lie to his face so that he could knock them back down with the facts. It was that spirit and passion that gave us one
country on the issues of medical causation and the science of asbestos and is often called upon on the eve of trial to assist defendants with the cross examination of medical and scientific experts.
Her strong defense and understanding of the science of asbestos led to her becoming the co-chair of the Asbestos Defense Roundtable Annual Seminar.
In addition to her work on asbestos trials, Cole has been the leader in many other product liability, construction defect, wrongful death and medical malpractice trials.
malfunction, and thousands of young women
who suffered heart attacks and other cardiovascular injuries as a result of taking Yaz birth control.
She currently represents multiple individuals who were injured by DePuy artificial hips and pelvic repair system materials.
Ms. Conroy and her law partner Paul Hanly are
also fighting back against the opioid epidemic, and have filed cases on behalf of New York counties that have incurred millions in costs related to the crisis. The lawsuits allege the opioid manufacturers caused the epidemic through deceptive marketing campaigns
$4.8 billion national Diet Drug Settlement. As Lead and Class Counsel in the Sulzer Prosthetic Hip and Knee Litigation, he was instrumental in its resolution for over $1 billion. Eric also represented the Welding Industry in over 15,000 cases which addressed the issue of a medical monitoring class action.
He has also been actively involved as Class Counsel in a variety of actions addressing issues of insurance coverage, fraud and mismanagement. Currently, he is involved in the Depuy ASR Litigation, serving as a member of the Plaintiffs’ Executive Committee and Co-Chair of the Science Committee. He also serves
of the greatest David vs Goliath legal stories of a generation.
Stanley and Susan’s fight against the tobacco industry began in 1991, when they first filed a case against the industry on behalf of nearly 60,000 non-smoking flight attendants who had developed cancers after years of exposure to cigarette smoke. That suit then paved the way for the major lawsuit on behalf of roughly half a million smokers in the state of Florida who claimed that the tobacco industry misled the public about the risks of smoking for decades.
Her appreciation of science is something that she hopes to pass on to future generations, and she spends countless hours each year teaching science to students through her work with the Miami Dade Science Fair.
She is a member of the Florida Bar’s Board of Legal Education and Specialization, National Board of Trial Advocates, the International Association of Defense Counsel, the Defense Research Institute, the American Chemical Society, and American Association for the Advancement of Science, and in 2014, she was named to the Florida Super Lawyers list by Thomson Reuters.
misrepresenting the dangers of long-term prescription opioid use.
Since 2006, she is credited with orchestrating the settlements of thousands of pharmaceutical cases for a total recovery for the firm’s clients that exceeds $800 million. In 2015, The National Law Journal named Ms. Conroy as one of the nation’s Outstanding Women Lawyers, and she has been selected as a Law360 MVP for Product Liability law multiple years in a row.
on the Executive Committee in the Stryker ABG Rejuvenate litigation and the National Prescription Opioid Litigation.
Eric has been recognized in The Best Lawyers
in America publication since 1989; in 2000 was listed by the National Law Journal as one of the “10 Best Trial Lawyers in the State of Ohio”.
In 2009, he was recognized as the “Personal Injury Litigator of the Year” and in 2010 and 2013, “Medical Malpractice Lawyer of the Year”
for Cleveland by the Best Lawyers in America.
That case resulted, at the time, in the single largest punitive damages award in history.
Stanley has been described as an abrasive yet eloquent litigator who has a knack for getting juries on his
side while dismantling the arguments of his courtroom opposition.
The verdicts that he and his wife received in these
tobacco trials not only changed the face of litigation against that one industry, but it helped to bring about
a change in our country’s laws that has since helped citizens breathe a little easier. 29
Jayne Conroy
Eric Kennedy
Stanley M. Rosenblatt