Defendants Seek Disqualification of Beasley Allen, Lawyer from Talc MDL

TRENTON, N.J. — Johnson & Johnson and LTL Management Inc. have moved for an order to show cause why attorney Andy Birchfield and his law firm Beasley Allen should not be disqualified from the talcum powder MDL or removed from the PSC for obtaining privileged and confidential information from their former counsel.

In their Dec. 5 motion filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey, defendants contend that Birchfield and his firm obtained the information from attorney James Conlan, who “spent almost 1,600 hours as counsel for J&J, working hand-in-hand with J&J’s in-house and outside counsel …