Gwyn Williams, a partner in the firm’s Litigation Department, specializes in products liability litigation, consumer class actions, and mass tort claims. Ms. Williams has also handled a variety of cases in the areas of energy and business litigation. She has practiced before state and federal trial and appellate courts and administrative agencies around the country.
WORK FOR CLIENTS
Ms. Williams has extensive experience in the defense of mass tort and product liability claims, and other types of personal injury/wrongful death claims. This experience has encompassed defense of manufacturers of a wide range of pharmaceutical products (including propofol, gabapentin and DES) and medical devices (including stents, orthopedic bone screws, the Dalkon Shield IUD and heart valves). She has represented a major pharmacy chain as national mass tort counsel, defending the issue of pharmacy liability for allegedly defective drugs such as “fen-phen,” OxyContin, Baycol, Propulsid, phenylpropanolamine (PPA), hormone replacement therapy and Vioxx. These cases have involved class action and a variety of products liability issues in state and federal jurisdictions around the country, including in federal multidistrict litigation (MDL). Ms. Williams has also been actively involved in the defense of tobacco litigation, including consumer class actions and aggregated smoking and health claims brought by union health funds and governmental entities. Her consumer class action litigation also includes cases involving a variety of consumer products, work in the consumer financial services sector and experience with a wide variety of state and federal consumer protection statutes.
Ms. Williams served as national counsel for a manufacturing defendant in the welding rod products liability litigation. She represented the company in more than 400 federal and state court cases filed in Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Illinois, Louisiana, Mississippi, Ohio, Texas, Utah and West Virginia. The federal cases were consolidated in a federal MDL, and Ms. Williams was appointed by the court to serve as liaison counsel for a group of manufacturing defendants.
Ms. Williams provides products liability counseling to clients on matters such as the content and dissemination of product warnings, disclaimers of warranties and indemnification strategies. She has also performed products liability risk assessment (including assessments of the magnitude of potential asbestos liability) for private equity firms, operating companies considering acquisitions and pension fund investment advisers.
In addition, Ms. Williams has considerable experience in energy-related litigation, including in the defense of governmental and citizen-suit enforcement actions under the major federal environmental acts, as well as their New York and Massachusetts counterparts. For the northeast region, she and a Goodwin Procter team handles the majority of the litigation arising out of nuclear operations by the huge energy concern, Entergy Nuclear, Inc. Her work includes (i) an amicus curiae brief to the U.S. Supreme Court concerning the EPA’s refusal to regulate greenhouse gases; (ii) litigating on Entergy’s behalf in Vermont state court, concerning Entergy’s nuclear power production facilities and the release of cooling water; (iii) the strategic defense of Entergy’s nuclear facilities facing scrutiny of their cooling water intake structures under §316(b) of the Clean Water Act; and (iv) other litigation on Entergy’s behalf concerning its nuclear facilities’ cooling water intake structures, which are a central component of any nuclear power plant and govern its ability to efficiently generate power.
PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITIES
Ms. Williams is a member of the Boston, Massachusetts and American Bar Associations. At Goodwin Procter, she serves as the co-chair of the firm’s Knowledge Management Steering Committee and heads the Litigation Department’s knowledge management efforts.
MEDIA
Ms. Williams has been a frequent speaker on issues relating to mass torts and consumer class actions. She has also been a contributing author for the 50 State Survey of Consumer Class Action Law, published by the American Bar Association.
BAR AND COURT ADMISSIONS
Ms. Williams is a member of the Massachusetts bar, as well as the bar of the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts. She is admitted to the U.S. Courts of Appeal for the D.C. Circuit, and for the First, Second, Fifth, and Ninth Circuits. Ms. Williams is also admitted to the U.S. Supreme Court. She has appeared pro hac vice in numerous jurisdictions.
RECOGNITION
While in law school, Ms. Williams was a member of the Boston University Law Review.