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John Eddie Williams Jr. is a pharmaceutical injury and mass tort attorney and founding partner of Williams Hart based in Houston. [1]
| The topic of this article may not meet Wikipedia's notability guideline for biographies .(October 2021) |
John Eddie Williams Jr. is a pharmaceutical injury and mass tort attorney and founding partner of Williams Hart based in Houston. [1]
Williams attended Baylor University and graduated cum laude in 1976. He earned his law degree from Baylor University School of Law in 1978, serving as editor-in-chief of The Baylor Law Review and graduating first in his class. [2]
Williams helped to found Williams Hart, a national litigation firm specializing in mass torts and pharmaceutical litigation, in 1983.
Williams served as counselor for the state of Texas in the landmark case brought against Big Tobacco in 1995. [3] The case eventually resulted in a $17.3 billion settlement, at that point the largest legal settlement in American history. [4]
In 2000, Williams represented the family of a worker who had been killed in a June 1999 explosion at the Phillips Petroleum Co. chemical plant in Houston, Texas. The jury in the case eventually decided to grant the family $117 million in damages. [5]
Williams has been involved in some of the largest pharmaceutical injury verdicts and settlements in the United States in recent years, as well as litigation for victims of asbestos exposure and mesothelioma.
In recognition of his success in the legal field, Williams was recognized by Baylor University Law School as the 2002 Baylor Lawyer of the Year. [6] Additionally, he was named Baylor University's Alumnus of the Year for 2012–13. [7]
John Eddie and his wife Sheridan live in Houston. They have played a prominent role in a wide range of philanthropic efforts in the community, including substantial donations to the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center [8] and the Houston Chronicle's Goodfellows program. [9] Additionally, the field at Baylor University's new football stadium will be named John Eddie Williams Field in recognition of Williams' substantial donations to the program. [10] John Eddie owns a ranch named Rio Vista Ranch near Del Rio, Texas. The ranch is 18,000 acres (73 km2) and features multiple homes, a private airport and well as a wide range of game to hunt. John Eddie also owns a large yacht named the Lady Sheridan. John Eddie and Sheridan renewed the vows on board the Lady Sheridan in 2013, on the French Riviera.
Bevo is the live mascot of the athletic programs at the University of Texas at Austin. Bevo is a Texas Longhorn steer with burnt orange and white coloring from which the university derived its color scheme. The profile of the Longhorn's head and horns gives rise to the school's hand symbol and saying: "Hook 'em Horns". The most recent Bevo, Bevo XV, was introduced to Texas football fans on September 4, 2016. His predecessor, Bevo XIV, died of cancer on October 16, 2015. Bevo XV is owned by Betty and John Baker's Sunrise Ranch in Liberty Hill, Texas; Sunrise Ranch also owned Bevo XV's predecessors Bevo XIII and Bevo XIV.
The following is an alphabetical list of articles related to the U.S. state of Texas.
In law, a settlement is a resolution between disputing parties about a legal case, reached either before or after court action begins. A collective settlement is a settlement of multiple similar legal cases. The term also has other meanings in the context of law. Structured settlements provide for future periodic payments, instead of a one time cash payment.
Stanley Marsh 3 was an American artist, businessman, philanthropist, and prankster from Amarillo, Texas. He is perhaps best known for having been the sponsor of the Cadillac Ranch, an unusual public art exhibit off historic Route 66, now Interstate 40, west of Amarillo.
Pasadena High School is the first established high school in Pasadena, Texas, located along Texas State Highway 225. It serves grades 9th through 12 and is part of the Pasadena Independent School District. The principal is Mrs. Laura Gomez. Pasadena High School's mascot is an eagle named "Baldy". The school colors are green and white.
John Maurice O'Quinn was a Texas trial lawyer and founding partner of The O'Quinn Law Firm. His firm made its business handling plaintiff's litigation, including representing clients suing breast implant manufacturers, medical facilities, and tobacco companies. In 2009, O'Quinn, along with his passenger, died in a single car crash in Houston, Texas.
Joseph Dahr Jamail Jr. was an American attorney and billionaire. The wealthiest practicing attorney in America, he was frequently referred to as the "King of Torts".
Donny Ray Willett is a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. He was previously appointed by Texas Governor Rick Perry to serve as a justice of the Supreme Court of Texas on August 24, 2005, when former Justice Priscilla Owen created a vacancy on that court by joining the Fifth Circuit.
A toxic tort claim is a specific type of personal injury lawsuit in which the plaintiff claims that exposure to a chemical or dangerous substance caused the plaintiff's injury or disease.
Baylor Law School is the oldest law school in Texas. Baylor Law School is affiliated with Baylor University and located in Waco, Texas. The school has been accredited by the American Bar Association since 1931 and has been a member of the Association of American Law Schools since 1938. The program offers training in all facets of law, including theoretical analysis, practical application, legal writing, advocacy, professional responsibility, and negotiation and counseling skills. Baylor Law School has been nationally ranked a "top-tier" law school by various publications in recent years.
Tort reform refers to changes in the civil justice system in common law countries that aim to reduce the ability of plaintiffs to bring tort litigation or to reduce damages they can receive. Such changes are generally justified under the grounds that litigation is an inefficient means to compensate plaintiffs; that tort law permits frivolous or otherwise undesirable litigation to crowd the court system; or that the fear of litigation can serve to curtail innovation, raise the cost of consumer goods or insurance premiums for suppliers of services, and increase legal costs for businesses. Tort reform has primarily been prominent in common law jurisdictions, where criticism of judge-made rules regarding tort actions manifests in calls for statutory reform by the legislature.
T. John Ward is a retired United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas. He is best known for the large number of patent infringement cases brought before his court in Marshall, Texas.
Theodore H. Frank is an American lawyer, activist, and legal writer, based in Washington, D.C. He is the counsel of record and petitioner in Frank v. Gaos, the first Supreme Court case to deal with the issue of cy pres in class action settlements; he is one of the few Supreme Court attorneys ever to argue his own case. He wrote the vetting report of vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin for the John McCain campaign in the 2008 presidential election. He founded the Center for Class Action Fairness (CCAF) in 2009; it temporarily merged with the Competitive Enterprise Institute in 2015, but as of 2019 CCAF is now part of the new Hamilton Lincoln Law Institute, a free-market nonprofit public-interest law firm founded by Frank and his CCAF colleague Melissa Holyoak. The New York Times calls him the "leading critic of abusive class-action settlements"; the Wall Street Journal has referred to him as "a leading tort-reform advocate" and praised his work exposing dubious practices by plaintiffs' attorneys in class actions.
William Mark Lanier is an American trial lawyer and founder and CEO of the Lanier Law Firm. He has led a number of high profile product litigation suits resulting in billions of dollars in damages, including Johnson & Johnson baby powder and Merck & Co.'s Vioxx drug.
Texas is home of several national sports league franchises among other professional sports, being the second most populated U.S. state. Since the state is located in the South Central United States, most teams are part of the Central / South or West league divisions, with the notable exception of the NFL Dallas Cowboys, which is an NFC East franchise.
Baylor University is a private Baptist Christian research university in Waco, Texas. Baylor was chartered in 1845 by the last Congress of the Republic of Texas. Baylor is the oldest continuously operating university in Texas and one of the first educational institutions west of the Mississippi River in the United States. Located on the banks of the Brazos River next to I-35, between the Dallas–Fort Worth Metroplex and Austin, the university's 1,000-acre (400-hectare) campus is the largest Baptist university in the world. As of fall, 2021, Baylor had a total enrollment of 20,626. It is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very High Research Activity". The university grants undergraduate and graduate degrees, including doctoral and professional degrees.
Edward F. Blizzard is a pharmaceutical injury attorney and a founding partner of Blizzard, McCarthy & Nabers, LLC based in Houston, Texas.
James Rodney Gilstrap is the Chief United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas. He is notable for presiding over more than one quarter of all patent infringement cases filed in the nation and is often referred to by various sources as the country's single "busiest patent judge."
Thomas M. Melsheimer is a trial lawyer and a partner at the international law firm of Winston & Strawn, where he also serves as managing partner of its Dallas office and a member of the firm’s Executive Committee. His trial experience encompasses both civil and criminal litigation. On the civil side, he has tried to verdict cases involving patent infringement, trade secrets, insider trading, antitrust, breach of fiduciary duty, fraud, product liability, and False Claims Act (FCA) violations. On the criminal side, he has tried to verdict cases involving bank fraud, public corruption, copyright infringement, aggravated sexual assault, and kidnapping. His clients include a variety of high-net-worth individuals and notable corporations, including the Dallas Mavericks and owner Mark Cuban, Microsoft, Bank of America, and Texas Instruments. Melsheimer is the co-author of a best-selling book on trial advocacy, On the Jury Trial: Principles and Practices for Effective Advocacy
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