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Recommended
Highly Recommended
Lightfoot Franklin & White
Lightfoot, Franklin & White is a respected trial and litigation boutique, best known for its deep bench of experienced trial lawyers and its ability to handle high-stakes, complex disputes. The firm has a strong record in defending clients across product liability, white-collar defense, commercial litigation, and healthcare, often stepping in on the eve of trial to secure favorable outcomes.
Trial-tested lawyers Lana Olson and John Johnson defended DuPont de Nemours and its related entities in environmental litigation brought by the Water Works and Sewer Board of the City of Gadsden, which alleged PFAS contamination of its raw water intake. The claims mirrored those from a prior lawsuit filed and settled in 2016, but the new complaint omitted any reference to the earlier case. Lightfoot successfully argued that the claims were time-barred, as the alleged injury was known no later than 2016. The Alabama Supreme Court rejected the plaintiffs' arguments that more recent regulatory changes or different PFAS compounds created new injuries. It also found no basis for claims under continuing tort or abatable nuisance theories. The Court also dismissed claims against a co-defendant for lack of specific personal jurisdiction, holding that foreseeability alone could not establish jurisdiction under Alabama law. Olson continues to be highlighted as one of Benchmark’s Top 250 Women in Litigation. Adam Peck is no stranger to the courtroom and has been devoted to trial work for more than 30 years. Peck is lead defense counsel for Teal Sales Inc., a Washington state-based family-owned business that designs machinery for the wood processing industry, in a high-stakes product liability lawsuit that concluded with a defense verdict in the client’s favor. The case involved a plaintiff seeking $7.3 million in damages after sustaining a catastrophic upper extremity injury while working at an Alabama mill in 2021. The plaintiff alleged the trim waste conveyor belt was negligently designed and lacked a necessary barrier guard, which he claimed contributed to his injuries. Enrique Gimenez served as lead defense counsel for U-Haul in a product liability trial in Miami-Dade County, Florida, successfully defending against claims that the company had failed to adequately repair and maintain the brake system on one of its vehicles, allegedly contributing to a crash that caused severe injuries. The Lightfoot team countered these claims by presenting testimony from both fact witnesses and experts to highlight U-Haul’s comprehensive maintenance and inspection policies. They argued that the crash resulted from the rental vehicle driver’s inattention, not from any negligence by the company. After a four-day trial, the jury deliberated for less than 90 minutes before returning a full defense verdict in favor of U-Haul. Seasoned litigator Lee Hollis represents The Boppy Company in a wrongful death product liability case involving the Boppy Newborn Lounger (NBL). The lawsuit was brought by the mother of a 29-day-old infant who died while placed in the NBL in bed between the parents as they slept. The plaintiff alleges that the design and manufacture of the lounger contributed to the infant’s death, despite the product being marketed for “awake time” use and intended only for supervised environments when parents need a safe resting place for their baby. The firm was retained by the excess insurance carrier shortly before the close of fact discovery and quickly assumed control of the defense in a case already deep in litigation. Fact and expert discovery have since concluded, and Daubert motions and motions for summary judgment are currently pending, with a trial scheduled for October 2025. Trusted advocate R. Ashby Pate served as lead plaintiffs' counsel for the City of Birmingham in a high-profile energy performance contract dispute with Trane U.S. Inc., a Fortune 500 company and national vendor. The case, filed in 2022, centered on allegations that Trane failed to deliver on promised energy savings of over $102 million from upgrades to 119 city facilities. Following the close of discovery, Pate successfully secured a favorable $21.3 million settlement for the City of Birmingham, comprised of both cash and free services. High-stakes litigator J. Chandler Bailey represents General Motors in a wrongful death product liability case involving a 2021 GMC Yukon and claims of crashworthiness defects. The plaintiffs were returning from a family vacation when their vehicle was struck head-on by a car that crossed a six-lane highway median, then struck again from behind by a trailing vehicle. The Yukon rolled and caught fire, with all occupants surviving except one daughter. While the remaining family members suffered minimal injuries, they filed suit against GM alleging design defects. The firm secured early procedural wins and successfully moved the case to Wilbarger County, a more appropriate and neutral venue, after defeating inflated warranty-based venue arguments.
DiCello Levitt was founded in 2017 as a new kind of law firm—one that is organized around the basic premise that everyone at the firm is a vital team member with a voice and talents that add value in any situation. Boasting best-in-class teams across a wide array of practice areas, DiCello Levitt cultivates a diverse roster of skilled litigators to advance the cause of justice for individuals, businesses, and government clients through class action, business-to-business, public client, whistleblower, personal injury, civil rights, and mass tort litigation.
The firm’s attorneys are highly respected for their ability to litigate and win cases, resulting in billions of dollars in recoveries for their clients and other class members. They are regularly appointed to leadership positions in headline-grabbing, high-stakes cases, including groundbreaking climate change litigation, some of the largest environmental contamination cases of our time, landmark privacy and data breach cases, some of the most significant private antitrust litigation over the past several decades, and numerous historic product liability multidistrict litigations.
Composing some of the most diverse leadership teams in multidistrict litigation history, DiCello Levitt’s attorneys continually achieve landmark victories across the firm’s practice areas, earning accolades and recognition for their innovative approaches to complex matters and tireless advocacy on behalf of their clients. Built on a strong foundation of integrity and experience and driven by results, DiCello Levitt has helped raise the bar for corporate conduct, governmental responsibility, and civil and human rights, paving the way for a more just and equitable world.
Venture Partners With Clients
DiCello Levitt has forged a reputation for success in complex litigation and arbitration, and the firm delivers results in innovative ways by venturing cases with its clients as partners, aligning its collective interests and enhancing its clients’ management of litigation risk. Because of these close venture partnerships, the firm’s clients are confident that DiCello Levitt will pursue their matters with unmatched tenacity and assess their mission-critical needs as the firm would for its own business. In case analysis and preparation, DiCello Levitt focuses on the end result—a successful settlement or trial verdict. The firm’s singular focus delivers cohesive and compelling thematic and evidentiary foundations. DiCello Levitt doesn’t use a set playbook; rather, its attorneys adapt their broad toolkit to each client’s unique goals and needs. Correspondingly, the firm’s flexible billing arrangements demonstrate its commitment to every client’s particular circumstances, creating opportunities to litigate the most challenging of cases to a successful resolution.
Innovation in Trial Science
Through its trial-first approach, DiCello Levitt crafts practical and effective legal and business solutions for its clients. At the heart of that approach is the DiCello Levitt Trial Center.
The Trial Center is founded on a proprietary, scientific system that reveals the nuances of a jury’s mindset and enables the pursuit of truth with clear insights into what persuades, connects, and wins. The center’s seasoned team leads high-stakes trials for clients, wielding the firm’s advanced strategies to gain an edge over adversaries who cling to traditional trial methods. The Trial Center team also trains lawyers to achieve a higher-level performance in their trial strategies, case preparation, and courtroom presentations.
DiCello Levitt has led more than 500 focus groups in the last ten years, including comprehensive studies about a myriad of issues. The Trial Center’s attorneys are among the nation’s most sought-after trial lawyers because of their knowledge of and experience in the art and science of modern courtroom advocacy. They are frequently called on to teach workshops and speak about the art of courtroom messaging and the neuroscience of communication to help other attorneys develop and shape how they convey critical concepts to judges and juries.
The insights and strategies that DiCello Levitt has developed through the Trial Center have materially enhanced the firm’s productivity and effectiveness. By researching and testing the biases, schemas, and prejudices of thousands of mock jurors, DiCello Levitt attorneys have sculpted their arguments to achieve successful outcomes in litigations concerning AndroGel, General Motors engine defects, and a host of other matters, including an opiate overprescription case, police misconduct litigation, and the largest individual civil rights verdict in U.S. history. This hard work resulted in hundreds of millions of dollars in verdicts and settlements—and that doesn’t even account for the Trial Center’s contributions to victories by other firms across the United States.
Taken as a whole, the Trial Center’s success, support, and research efforts continue to set DiCello Levitt apart as a truly unique and cutting-edge firm.
Steadfast Consumer Advocates
DiCello Levitt has a strong reputation as one of the foremost consumer advocacy firms in the country, having secured more than $20 billion in recoveries since our founding. The firm’s attorneys have successfully led—and are presently leading—many large class actions and other multidistrict litigations, including against industry titans such as Abbott Laboratories, Apple, BNY Mellon, Coca-Cola, Ford, Equifax, General Motors, Google, Honda, Intel, JP Morgan, L’Oréal, Marriott, and Meta, and they represent businesses and investors in litigation and arbitration in multiple courts across the United States and internationally. In addition to their extensive expertise in matters including product liability, financial services, environmental law, biotechnology, and cybersecurity, DiCello Levitt’s attorneys have decades of experience representing plaintiffs in cases involving defective products, unfair competition, insurance fraud, faulty pharmaceuticals and medical devices, and other instances of corporate misconduct.
Areas of Practice
- Agriculture and Biotechnology
- Antitrust and Competition Litigation
- Civil and Human Rights Litigation
- Class Action Litigation
- Commercial Litigation
- Environmental Litigation
- Labor and Employment Litigation
- Mass Tort Litigation
- Personal Injury
- Privacy, Technology, and Cybersecurity
- Product Liability
- Public Client
- Securities and Financial Products Litigation
- Whistleblower Representation
Updated Sep 2024
Lightfoot is a litigation boutique with offices in Birmingham, AL and Houston, TX that represents clients across the country in matters ranging from catastrophic injury and complex, “bet the company” litigation to internal and government investigations, risk management, and compliance.
Lightfoot has continued expanding our relationship with high-profile clients and now serves as national or regional counsel for 14 companies across the country. Lightfoot is proud to have handled matters in 47 states.
