Stephanie Parker co-leads the Firm’s Business & Tort Litigation Practice and oversees the product liability litigation practice. She has extensive experience trying and leading “bet the company” litigation, especially product liability and mass tort cases. In June 2019, she led the team that won a complete defense verdict in Robinson v. R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company, which was the retrial of a $23.6 billion plaintiff’s verdict (originally tried by another firm). She also led the team that achieved the record-breaking patent infringement verdict for Idenix Pharmaceuticals (subsidiary of Merck & Co.), the largest infringement verdict in U.S. history. After a two-week trial, the jury ordered Gilead Sciences to pay $2.54 billion in damages. Stephanie was named “Litigator of the Week” by The AmLaw Litigation Daily for Idenix’s patent victory.

Stephanie has served clients in the tobacco, chemical, gasoline, pharmaceutical, medical device, and automotive industries. She also has significant other litigation experience, ranging from banking to white collar criminal matters to the First Amendment. For more than 10 years, Stephanie has served as lead trial counsel for R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company in smoking and health-related jury trials. In this role, she has tried every bellwether trial in the Engle litigation: she was the lead defense lawyer in Reynolds’ first state court trial, which resulted in the first ever Engle defense verdict for the industry; she was the lead defense lawyer in the first Engle federal court case, which also resulted in a defense verdict; and she has made many significant legal arguments on behalf of Reynolds.