Stephanie Parker

Stephanie E. Parker co-leads the Firm’s Business & Tort Litigation Practice and oversees the product liability litigation practice. She has extensive experience trying and leading “bet the company” litigation, especially product liability and mass tort cases.

She led the team that achieved the record-breaking patent infringement verdict for Idenix Pharmaceuticals (subsidiary of Merck & Co.), the largest infringement verdict in U.S. history. After a two-week trial, the jury ordered Gilead Sciences to pay $2.54 billion in damages. Stephanie was named “Litigator of the Week” by The AmLaw Litigation Daily for Idenix’s patent victory.

Stephanie has served clients in the tobacco, chemical, gasoline, pharmaceutical, medical device, and automotive industries. She also has significant other litigation experience, ranging from banking to white-collar criminal matters to the First Amendment.

For more than 10 years, Stephanie has served as lead trial counsel for R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company in smoking and health-related jury trials. Currently, she is lead counsel for R.J. Reynolds in its Engle progeny litigation in Florida, which involves more than 9,000 plaintiffs.

In this role, she has tried every bellwether trial in the Engle litigation: she was the lead defense lawyer in Reynolds’ first state court trial, which resulted in the first ever Engle  defense verdict for the industry; she was the lead defense lawyer in the first Engle federal court case, which also resulted in a defense verdict; and she has made many significant legal arguments on behalf of Reynolds.

EDUCATION:

• Vanderbilt University (J.D. 1984);
• Wesleyan College (A.B. with honors in Philosophy 1981)

BAR ADMISSIONS : Georgia and Florida

CLERKSHIPS :

• Law Clerk to Judge Wilbur D. Owens Jr.,
• U.S. District Court, Middle District of Georgia (1984-1986)

EXPERIENCE:

• R.J. Reynolds wins complete defense verdict in Hochreiter wrongful death lawsuit
• R.J. Reynolds wins complete defense verdict in Morales personal injury suit
• Drug manufacturer defends against public nuisance and related tort and statutory claims in prescription opiate MDL and state court proceedings
• R.J. Reynolds wins complete defense verdict in Damiano personal injury lawsuit
• R. J. Reynolds obtains order dismissing 1,250 “Engle progeny” lawsuits and sanctioning plaintiffs’ attorneys
• Merck files petition for certiorari in product liability litigation surrounding osteoporosis drug Fosamax
• Idenix wins $2.54 billion jury verdict in Gilead patent dispute involving hepatitis C drugs
• R.J. Reynolds wins new trial in “Engle progeny” lawsuit