June 2022
HOUSTON – Mark Lanier, founder of The Lanier Law Firm, has been named as this year’s recipient of the Keith Givens Visionary Award from The National Law Journal and American Lawyer Media. The award honors a member of the bar who has shown extraordinary creativity in bringing the legal industry together, developing new opportunities for business growth, and supporting the professional development of attorneys across the nation.
Mr. Lanier will formally receive the honor at the organization’s Elite Trial Lawyers event on July 14 in New York City. The firm is also a finalist for the Governmental Representation Award, given in recognition of performance in significant cases on behalf of states, counties, municipalities, and similar agencies.
Cumulatively, Mr. Lanier has garnered almost $20 billion in verdicts during his highly acclaimed career.
In November 2021, Mr. Lanier was lead counsel in a federal jury trial that found national retail pharmacies Walmart, CVS and Walgreens responsible for fueling the opioid epidemic in Trumbull and Lake counties in northeast Ohio. A bench trial to determine the associated financial damages in the case was held in May 2022, with a ruling by the court expected this summer.
Earlier this year the firm played a key role in reaching a $1.85 billion settlement with opioid manufacturers and distributors on behalf of the state of Texas, and in 2019 gained a pre-trial $260 million settlement with the nation’s three biggest drug distributors and a major drugmaker on behalf of two other Ohio counties in the opioid multidistrict litigation.
In 2021, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a $2.1 billion judgment gained by Mr. Lanier and the firm against Johnson & Johnson for its role in causing the ovarian cancer of 21 women who used the company’s talc-based body powder for decades, unaware of the known risks of asbestos in the products.
That accomplishment followed the firm’s success in three federal jury trials in which a total of nearly $2 billion was awarded against J&J and its Pinnacle division based on claims from multiple people who suffered serious medical complications caused by the company’s defective hip implant devices.
In addition to this latest honor, Mr. Lanier has been named as one of the Most Influential Attorneys of the Decade by the National Law Journal; as one of the 25 Greatest Lawyers of the Past Quarter Century by Texas Lawyer; and is a recipient of the American Association of Justice’s Lifetime Achievement Award.