Jill C. Owens

Jill Owens is a partner in the firm’s New York City office. In her more than two decades of practice, Jill has handled complex commercial litigation in federal and state courts nationwide.

She concentrates her practice in the areas of class action defense, products liability, FINRA arbitration, directors and officers liability, and insurance coverage litigation. Jill has appeared on behalf of a range of clients including Fortune 500 companies, small businesses, and individuals.

Jill has litigated numerous class actions nationwide in all phases, including class discovery, class certification, successful appeal of class certification determinations, and through class notice. She has made law at the federal appellate level concerning application of the Class Action Fairness Act. In addition, she has achieved favorable settlements of putative class actions as individual actions and has been an architect of creative class-wide settlements.

In one example of Jill’s class action experience, she obtained favorable settlement of a federal putative class action involving a contaminated food product on behalf of a gourmet food product producer and a Fortune 100 retailer.

Jill also has extensive litigation experience representing major national and international companies in transportation, mass tort, and individual products liability actions involving cigarettes, and prescription products including birth control, diet drugs, and opthalmic solution.

Transportation clients frequently call on Jill to conduct rapid response investigations of trucking accidents, and she recently served on a New York State Bar Association Auto and Truck Claims, Accidents, and Litigation panel where she addressed ethical issues arising in automotive and trucking claims.

Following law school, Jill was law clerk to the Honorable Anne E. Thompson of the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey for two years. Jill also gained valuable experience as special counsel with New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) Division of Enforcement, where she conducted investigations of and litigated disciplinary matters involving regulated entities and registered representatives alleged to have violated NYSE Rules and other governing laws.

Professional Affiliations:

• New York State Bar Association: Member, House of Delegates
• Federal and Commercial Committee NYS Bar Association: Member
• Westchester County Bar Association: Member; Women and the Law Committee
• Westchester Women’s Bar Association: Member
• Dartmouth Lawyers Association: Member, 2004 to present

Education:

• Harvard Law School, J.D., 1988
• Dartmouth College, A.B., 1985