Katharine R. Latimer

Working with the Firm more than 30 years, Katharine R. Latimer earned national recognition for her exceptional defense of complex litigation matters in federal and state courts in our clients’ most high-profile litigation. She currently serves on the Legal Policy Advisory Board of the Washington Legal Foundation, the nation’s premier public-interest law firm and policy center committed to advancing America’s free-enterprise system.

Ms. Latimer's practice emphasized science and strategy in the defense of pharmaceutical and medical device product liability and toxic tort suits. She was a principal architect of the extraordinary effort which won the national Parlodel® litigation --“the first significant products liability causation debate of the 21st century” (see Science and Litigation: Products Liability in Theory and Practice, T. Kiely (2002)) -- and pushed Daubert to the front of all serial litigation defense. She appeared in dozens of courts and defended cases brought by thousands of plaintiffs, helping our clients to pivotal, precedent-setting wins through a myriad of dispositive motions, lengthy evidentiary hearings, trials, and appeals, including a rare Daubert-based appellate win following a months-long mass tort trial, Schudel v. General Electric Co. (1997). She retired after leading the celebrated defense of the expansive Aredia® and Zometa® litigation that had been coordinated in two multidistrict litigations and a New Jersey mass tort, first securing back-to-back trial wins in the initial bellwether cases Bessemer v. Novartis Pharm. Corp. (2010) and Meng v. Novartis Pharm. Corp. (2013). The National Law Journal profiled three of her many notable victories as top defense wins of the year: Warren v. Sandoz Pharm. Corp. (1998); Glastetter v. Novartis Pharm. Corp. (2001); Crowson v. Davol, Inc. (2005).

Ms. Latimer’s work for clients including General Electric, General Motors, Novartis Pharmaceuticals, Velsicol Chemical, Avon, and other corporate members of highly regulated industries featured successful defenses of suits involving prescription and over-the-counter drugs, medical devices, cosmetics, welding rods, pesticides and herbicides, and manufacturing-use chemical compounds. She found ways to win while facing the gamut of liability theories, including fraud, conspiracy, and other intentional torts.

Law360 (Product Liability) tapped Ms. Latimer for its inaugural Board of Editors, she was the original Consulting Editor and a member of the Advisory Board for Expert Evidence Reporter (BNA), she was an editorial board member for Mealey’s Litigation Reports: Toxic Torts, and she served on Lexis/Mealey’s first Toxic Tort Defense Advisory Council. A regular speaker at seminars and conferences, Ms. Latimer was long recognized as a Litigation Star in Product Liability, U.S. (Benchmark Litigation), a Life Sciences Star (LMG Life Sciences), and an AV Preeminent® Lawyer (Martindale-Hubbell™, Standard Edition and Judicial Edition), and she earned years of seriatim listings in Super Lawyers for Washington, DC, as well as Who's Who in America, Who's Who in American Law, and Who's Who in the East.

Prior to joining the Firm, Ms. Latimer was judicial clerk to the Hon. Johanna L. Fitzpatrick of the Nineteenth Judicial Circuit of Virginia (subsequently Chief Judge of the Virginia Court of Appeals).

Publications

Games People Play: Supreme Court Can Put a Stop to an Obvious CAFA Workaround.

Avoiding the Sideshow: One Trial Judge's Textbook Application of Daubert to Exclude Dubious Testimony

Washington Legal Foundation publishes "A Framework for Toxic Tort Litigation," by Joe Hollingsworth.