ALTON, Ill. and NEW YORK – Simmons Hanly Conroy, one of the nation’s largest mass torts firms, is pleased to announce that the firm’s Named Partner Jayne Conroy has been appointed to the Plaintiffs’ Executive Committee (PEC) for the Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune litigation in the U.S. District Court of the Eastern District of North Carolina.
The litigation involves plaintiffs who say contaminated water at Camp Lejeune caused their bladder cancer, kidney cancer, lymphoma and numerous serious injuries. The cases are In re: Camp Lejeune Water Litigation v. United States of America, case number 7:23-cv-00897.
“I am privileged to be selected for a leadership role in this important litigation impacting military families throughout the country,” Conroy said. “These individuals are seeking a fair resolution and vindication for life-altering sicknesses and injuries, including various types of cancer, all which stem from the water at Camp Lejeune.”
The litigation follows President Biden signing in late 2022 the Honoring Our Promise to Address Comprehensive Toxics (PACT) Act, which created a process for claims involving Camp Lejeune. The Department of Health and Human Services has acknowledged that chemicals found in the base’s water, which was contaminated from 1953 to 1987, cause cancer and other illnesses and may have affected as many as 1 million people.
Conroy oversees Simmons Hanly Conroy’s Complex Litigation Department. Under her leadership, Simmons Hanly Conroy has become one of the country’s largest plaintiff law firms dedicated to helping those injured by corporate wrongdoing. Conroy has helped secure billions of dollars in verdicts and settlements for thousands of individuals, families and communities across the country.
With more than three decades of legal experience, she focuses her practice on helping plaintiffs exclusively in mass torts, class actions, product liability, pharmaceutical and sexual abuse litigation.
Conroy serves or has served on dozens of court-appointed leadership committees in complex legal actions of national scope. Her most recent multidistrict litigation (MDL) appointments include:
- The Plaintiffs’ Steering Committee Leadership in the In re: Social Media Adolescent Addiction/Personal Injury Products Liability Litigation, which alleges social media platforms encourage addictive behavior in adolescents, and
- The Plaintiffs’ Steering Committee for the MDL against McKinsey & Company in the In re: McKinsey & Co Inc National Prescription Opiate Consultant Litigation, Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation, which alleges McKinsey knowingly engineered marketing tactics that caused an avalanche of opioid addiction.
Conroy also serves as co-lead of the National Prescription Opiate Multidistrict Litigation in the Northern District of Ohio, and as co-lead and interim class counsel representing plaintiffs in the case against Norfolk Southern, the company responsible for the Feb. 3, 2023 East Palestine, Ohio train derailment.
Among Conroy’s national legal industry awards and recognitions are the Champion of Justice Lifetime Achievement Award from Public Justice, a legal advocacy organization; the National Law Journal’s 2023 Elite Women of the Plaintiffs’ Bar (Elite Trial Lawyers Awards); Law360’s Titans of the Plaintiffs’ Bar; the American Association for Justice’s Lifetime Achievement Award; induction into the National Trial Lawyers Association’s Trial Lawyer Hall of Fame; and election as a member of the exclusive American Law Institute.
