Top Rated Products Liability Attorney in Cincinnati, OH

Co-chair of Ulmer & Berne’s Litigation Department, chair of the Life Sciences Group, and chair of the Pharmaceutical Group, Joe is one of the nation’s leading advocates in class-action, multidistrict, and mass-tort litigation involving drugs and medical devices. He has served as national defense counsel and held leadership positions in numerous high-impact mass tort litigations, including those involving fentanyl patches, propoxyphene, isotretinoin, metoclopramide, fen/phen, ephedra, ADHD medications, hormone replacement therapy, antidepressants, oral contraceptives, testosterone replacement therapy, and the New England Compounding Pharmacy. Over the last twenty years, the litigation team he oversees has handled tens of thousands of cases, and the vast majority of those cases have been dismissed well before trial with no settlement payment.

In the late 1990s, he conceived the legal argument for holding makers of generic pharmaceuticals immune from failure-to-warn and design-defect suits on a preemption theory ultimately recognized by the U.S. Supreme Court in the landmark PLIVA Inc. v.Mensing and Mutual Pharmaceutical Company v. Bartlett decisions, in which Joe represented PLIVA and Mutual. His advocacy on those issues “transformed the landscape of litigation against the pharmaceutical industry,” The American Lawyer said in naming Joe its Appellate Litigator of the Week, and is characteristic of his pioneering work for pharmaceutical interests.

His unique background—as a pharmacist, a member of the patent bar, an author of peer-reviewed scientific literature, an inventor of medically relevant technologies, and a clinical researcher—gives him a deep understanding of the science behind his clients’ work.