Partner and Co-Chair, Public Policy Group, Shook Hardy & Bacon LLP
Mark Behrens co-chairs Shook's Washington, DC-based Public Policy Practice Group and is a leading national expert on civil justice issues with over thirty years of experience. A substantial part of his practice is working to improve the civil litigation environment through state and federal legislation; in the courts through amicus curiae briefs; through legal scholarship and judicial education; and in the court of public opinion.
Mark is actively involved in civil justice reform efforts at the federal and state levels. He has testified before the U.S. Congress and most state legislatures on behalf of business and civil justice organizations. Mark also has an active amicus brief practice specializing in tort liability and civil justice issues. He has authored or co-authored over 150 amicus briefs in cases before the United States Supreme Court and federal and state appellate courts on behalf of business, civil justice, and defense lawyer organizations. In addition, Mark routinely files comments on behalf of business, civil justice, and defense lawyer organizations regarding potential changes to federal and state court rules. He chairs the International Association of Defense Counsel’s (IADC) Civil Justice Response Committee and serves on the Board of Directors of Lawyers for Civil Justice (LCJ).
Mark is a member of the American Law Institute (ALI). He received his J.D. in 1990 from Vanderbilt University Law School, where he was a member of the Vanderbilt Law Review. He received his B.A. in economics from the University of Wisconsin in 1987.
Partner, Briscoe Prows Kao Ivester & Bazel LLP
Tony Francois is experienced in Water and Real Property Law, Land Use and Zoning, Environmental Regulation, Natural Resources Development, Agricultural Law, and Constitutional Law. He has represented homeowners, builders, farmers and ranchers, trade associations, and water districts in administrative, civil, and criminal proceedings before state and federal administrative agencies and state and federal trial and appellate courts. He is a member of the California State Bar and the Northern, Eastern, and Central Districts of California and the Districts of New Mexico and North Dakota, and has litigated cases in federal courts in California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, North and South Dakota, Minnesota, Massachusetts, Maryland, South Carolina, and the District of Columbia, as well as the Sixth, Eighth, Ninth, and Tenth Circuit Courts of Appeals. He has appeared before the Supreme Courts of California, Idaho, Nevada, and the United States.
Prior to attending law school, he served as an infantry officer in the United States Army, and was stationed in the former West Germany during the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Tony was an Attorney at Pacific Legal Foundation from 2012 to 2021. He was a lobbyist for 10 years, first with California Farm Bureau Federation from 2003 to 2007, and then with KP Public Affairs from 2007 to 2012. He was an attorney at McQuaid, Bedford & Van Zandt in San Francisco from 1999 – 2003.
Senior Special Counsel, Securities & Exchange Commission
J.B. Tarter serves as the Senior Special Counsel for the Cybersecurity Program Office at the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission. He has over a decade of government service, having previously held senior appointments in the legal offices of the U.S. Department of Energy, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and the Central Intelligence Agency. Prior to his government service he was an appellate attorney with Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP, where he represented parties before the U.S. Supreme Court and numerous federal Courts of Appeals. J.B. clerked for then-Chief Judge David B. Sentelle of the U.S. Court of Appeals of the District of Columbia Circuit. He has been profiled by Forbes magazine, taught courses on Executive Power in Wartime for the State Bar of Texas, and presented on ethics and professionalism at The Judge Advocate General's Legal Center and School. A long-time member of the Federalist Society, he is a graduate of the College of Southern Idaho, Emory University, and Harvard Law School.
Partner, Hollingsworth LLP, Washington, DC.
Mr. Lasker litigates a wide variety of complex civil matters, with a current focus on toxic torts, environmental litigation, Alien Tort Statute litigation, and pharmaceutical products liability. Mr. Lasker has also represented clients in a variety of civil and criminal government investigation-related matters involving bank regulatory compliance, False Claims Act claims, and alleged price fixing, and he served as lead counsel in successfully defending a foreign client against a Foreign Corrupt Practices claim in a jury trial that was featured in the Legal Times. He represents clients in jury and bench trials, before arbitral panels and administrative courts, and both at trial and on appeal.
Mr. Lasker has significant experience defending against all matter of legal claims involving FDA- and EPA-regulated products and alleged toxins and environmental contaminants. He has represented clients in pharmaceutical products liability claims involving antipsychotic medications, obstetrical drugs, antifungals, antiepileptics, and cough/cold medicines, and in toxics/environmental matters involving herbicides, asbestos, lead paint, nonionizing radiation, and chemical solvents. He has represented clients in matters arising both in the United States and abroad, and in matters arising under both domestic and international law. Mr. Lasker's practice also includes matters involving sensitive national security issues, and he has represented his clients’ interests in meetings with both U.S. and foreign government officials. He has extensive expertise in developing and implementing sophisticated medical causation and science-based defenses, and he has successfully litigated issues involving Daubert, the federal preemption defense, and natural resource damages claims. He also assists clients in due diligence investigations as relates to environmental and toxics liabilities and through amicus briefing on key legal issues.
Mr. Lasker played a prominent role in helping to establish asbestos defendants’ rights to insurance non-products coverage through a successful amicus effort that secured one of the seminal judicial opinions recognizing the existence of such coverage, litigation efforts resulting in securing several hundreds of millions of dollars in asbestos non-products insurance recoveries, and oral presentations and publications on issues involving non-products coverage. He has also defended personal injury claims in asbestos litigation, advancing medical causation defenses as the asbestos litigation has extended to tertiary and even more remotely-situated corporate defendants.
Mr. Lasker is frequently requested to speak and publish on issues of interest to his clients, and he has been interviewed on such topics in numerous fora, including the AMA's American Medical News, Bloomberg News, the National Law Journal, and thePhiladelphia Inquirer. Mr. Lasker serves on the Board of Editors of LJN's Product Liability Law & Strategy newsletter and he is the Chair of the Toxics & Hazardous Substances Committee of the International Association of Defense Counsel (IADC), an invitation-only professional association for corporate and insurance defense attorneys around the world. He also serves as a member of the Defense Research Institute (DRI).
Associate, Baker McKenzie
Kaitlyn Barry is an Associate at Baker McKenzie. Prior to joining the firm, she served as a trial attorney at the United States Department of Justice's Antitrust Division. She previously clerked for Judge Kurt Engelhardt at the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals and Judge Ron Clark at the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas. Kaitlyn is a 2019 graduate of the University of Houston Law Center. She earned her Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Texas at Austin, where she was an NCAA Division I varsity student-athlete on the Longhorns cross country and track teams.
Founder & President, Jeffries Strategies LLC
E. Stewart Jeffries is the Founder and President of Jeffries Strategies LLC, where he brings over two decades of experience across legal, congressional, and government affairs to solve his clients’ complex policy, legislative, and oversight needs. Prior to founding Jeffries Strategies, Jeffries oversaw Google’s U.S. House and Senate Republican outreach across leadership, committee, and personal offices for the full range of issues facing the tech sector. Jeffries began his tenure at Google as its first Competition Policy Counsel, where he worked to secure a successful conclusion of the Federal Trade Commission’s 2011-13 investigation into the company’s business practices. Earlier in his career, Jeffries served on the U.S. House Judiciary Committee, where he was the Chief Antitrust Counsel for the House Republicans and handled matters across a wide range of industries, including professional sports, telecommunications, airlines, financial services, agriculture, and railroads. Jeffries began his legal career in the New York office of a major international law firm, where he worked on a broad array of antitrust and other business tort matters. He earned his Bachelor of Arts at the University of Virginia, where he double-majored in Government and History. He earned his Juris Doctor at the University of Virginia School of Law.
Partner, Kressin Meador LLC
Mark Meador is a partner at Kressin Meador LLC, a boutique antitrust law firm. He previously served as Deputy Chief Counsel for Antitrust and Competition Policy to Senator Mike Lee, the senior Republican on the Senate Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee. Mark has also worked as an antitrust enforcer at both the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice Antitrust Division, and in private practice at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP. He received his undergraduate degree in philosophy from the University of Chicago, and his law degree from the University of Houston Law Center.
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Mark A. Behrens
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Dear Reader
Dear Reader: We are pleased to present the Winter 2002 issue of Class Action Watch....