NEW YORK – Simmons Hanly Conroy, one of the nation’s largest law firms focused on consumer protection and mass tort actions, is pleased to announce that Firm Shareholder Paul J. Hanly, Jr., was a featured speaker at the American Association for Justice (AAJ) Opioid Litigation Seminar held Sept. 13-14, 2017, in Washington, D.C.
The conference helped to educate attendees on the role that pharmaceutical companies have played in the opioids prescription epidemic that has resulted in the overdose deaths of tens of thousands of people. The event also addressed the medical community’s response to the epidemic, pending lawsuits and underlying legal theories, and what attorneys can do to help clients and communities that have become victims of the opioid epidemic.
Hanly’s presentation, “Taking on the Opioid Epidemic,” covered 2006 litigation that he and Simmons Hanly Conroy Shareholder Jayne Conroy successfully resolved against Purdue Pharma LLP and Abbot Laboratories, Inc. The lawsuits alleged that 5,000 clients’ addictions to OxyContin were the result of the manufacturer’s fraudulent marketing campaign that claimed the drug was not as addictive as alternative drugs. In his presentation, Hanly also addressed the evolution of the national opioids epidemic up through the current wave of lawsuits against opioid manufacturers.
Hanly serves as lead counsel for numerous counties and municipalities around the country – including eight counties in New York and the city of Waterbury, Conn. – that have filed lawsuits over the opioids epidemic since August of last year. The suits seek to hold pharmaceutical companies and physicians accountable for the fraudulent marketing of prescription opioid painkillers that has led to increased crime and delinquency in the affected communities.
For more than 30 years, Hanly has litigated, managed and tried numerous complex jury cases throughout the United States in virtually all areas of civil litigation. He has played a leading role in the settlement of thousands of pharmaceutical cases, resulting in recoveries for Simmons Hanly Conroy’s clients in excess of $300 million. Both Hanly and Conroy have held numerous court-appointed leadership roles of national scope in litigation against pharmaceutical companies brought by consumers harmed by dangerous drugs.
The mission of the conference presenter, AAJ, is to promote a fair and effective justice system, and to support the work of attorneys in their efforts to ensure that any person who is injured by the misconduct or negligence of others can obtain justice in America’s courtrooms, even when taking on the most powerful interests.
