Fosamax 8/27

Client Attorney Privileged/Attorney Work Product/At Request of Counsel

1. Trial Aces: King & Spalding's Chilton Davis Varner

   Aug 26, 2015 | Law360

   By Kat Greene
   
   
   ...It's a distinct style that's earned several victories for client Merck in litigation over its Fosamax osteoporosis drug's risk of femur fractures for some users, including the dismissal of more than 600 plaintiffs, and landed her a place among Law360's Trial Aces...

Client Attorney Privileged/Attorney Work Product/At Request of Counsel

1. Trial Aces: King & Spalding's Chilton Davis Varner

   Aug 26, 2015 | Law360

   By Kat Greene

   When companies including Merck & Co. Inc., GlaxoSmithKline PLC andGeneral Motors Co. want to win product liability cases, they could call in an attack dog of an attorney to pull apart their legal foes in front of juries. Instead, they hire King & Spalding LLP's Chilton Davis Varner, described by her colleagues as a "velvet hammer."
   
   In the courtroom, Varner isn't like a television lawyer. She doesn't angrily confront witnesses on cross-examination or shout, "Objection!" Rather, she focuses on delivering information succinctly to juries in a calm voice, never losing her cool or using emotional displays to get a rise out of jurors.
   
   It's a distinct style that's earned several victories for client Merck in litigation over its Fosamax osteoporosis drug's risk of femur fractures for some users, including the dismissal of more than 600 plaintiffs, and landed her a place among Law360's Trial Aces...

   Merck retained Varner in 2010 to defend against multidistrict litigation alleging that Fosamax causes atypical femur fractures, and in June 2013, a judge found that the plaintiff’s claims were preempted under federal law because the U.S. Food and Drug Administration had refused to strengthen the drug's label the year the consumer was injured...

   That style has kept clients calling and successes rolling in. Varner was named one ofLaw360's Product Liability MVPs in November for her work on several cases, including Merck's Fosamax litigation.
   
   Varner has also worked as national coordinating counsel and lead trial counsel for GlaxoSmithKline PLC in product liability litigation involving the company's antidepressant Paxil and national coordinating co-counsel and lead trial counsel for Purdue Pharma LP in product liability litigation over Purdue's pain medication OxyContin.
   
   "She has a lot of style and a lot of grace," Bayman said. "And in an era where ... some people think to be successful, they need to be the attack dog, she's proof that that is not the case, and it is not one-size-fits-all."

   For full story:

   http://www.law360.com/articles/695745/trial-aces-king-spalding-s-chilton-davis-varner
   

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