HarrisMartin's Talcum Powder Litigation Conference: Onward and Upward! Speaker Profiles

Leigh O’Dell practices in Beasley Allen Law Firm’s Mass Torts Section, where she is helping lead litigation related to talcum powder products. Much of Leigh’s recent work has involved women’s health-related issues including work on transvaginal mesh and Gardasil litigation.

She is proud to have an impact on the lives of women who were or are professionals, wives, mothers, daughters, sisters, friends and who deserve so much more than the pain, suffering and even death sentences often handed to them because of the reckless actions of certain pharmaceutical and other corporate actors.

Michelle A. Parfitt is a Senior Partner with the law firm of Ashcraft & Gerel, LLP. Over the past thirty-eight years of her professional career, Ms. Parfitt has sought to distinguish herself as a champion of individual rights as well as a leader before the bar in the area of mass torts specializing in pharmaceutical and product liability cases. She currently heads the Mass Tort practice section of Ashcraft & Gerel, LLP and has had the privilege of representing thousands of individuals in various state and federal courts across the country who have filed suit against pharmaceutical and medical device manufacturers.

After graduating from law school in 1991, Ted returned to his hometown of Prattville, Alabama, where he joined the general practice law firm of Howell, Sarto & Howell. In 1995, Ted moved his growing personal injury practice to Birmingham, Alabama, where he became a partner in the plaintiffs’ litigation firm of Davenport, Lavette & Meadows, P.C.

In 2001, Ted accepted an of counsel position at Beasley Allen. He became a principal at Beasley Allen in 2002. Since then, he’s amassed verdicts and settlements totaling in excess of $1.4 billion.

R. Allen Smith, Jr. founded the Smith Law Firm, PLLC in 2007. Allen initiated the first talcum powder and ovarian cancer case against Johnson & Johnson, and filed and successfully tried the first case to verdict in South Dakota Federal Court in 2013. Since 2013, Allen has tried nine additional talc and ovarian cancer cases against Johnson & Johnson, obtaining verdicts totaling nearly one billion dollars.

During his nearly 40 years as a litigator, James Green has argued before the U.S. Supreme Court, served as an active lecturer and author for both local and national Continuing Legal Education programs, and developed a substantial national practice with Ashcraft & Gerel that has led to hundreds of exceptional verdicts and settlements for his clients.