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New York OfficeThree Bryant Park, 1095 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY, United States of America 10036-6797
Rachel B. Passaretti-Wu is a partner in Dechert’s product liability and mass torts practice and focuses on complex product liability and mass torts litigation. She serves critical roles on numerous national counsel teams and has held leadership positions in MDLs and science teams in some of the most complex tort cases in the United States. Her practice also includes years of experience defending environmental toxic torts and class actions. Ms. Passaretti-Wu also draws on her knowledge and expertise in connection with relevant transactional work, regularly advising clients through various aspects of pre-investment and assisting on corporate deals.
Ms. Passaretti-Wu has taken part in several high-profile pharmaceutical and environmental toxic tort litigations, managing all stages of a dispute from pre-trial proceedings to appeals, as well as complex mass tort and class action settlements. She regularly helps clients navigate appropriate crisis management related responses.
She is integral in the formulation of nationwide strategies and coordinates the defense of complex litigations. Ms. Passaretti-Wu manages the day-to-day defense and strategy of numerous putative class actions, as well as thousands of cases through various stages of litigation. She coordinates these litigations to ensure consistency at a national level, but more importantly to structure global strategic planning to maximize beneficial results for her clients.
Ms. Passaretti-Wu is passionate about the intersection of law and science; and regularly participates in, and leads, science teams, which are critical to the core defenses at issue in the cases she defends. In 2024, Who’s Who Legal: Life Sciences recognized her as a Recommended Individual for Product Liability. In 2020, she was recognized as a recipient of Profiles in Diversity Journal’s Women Worth Watching in STEM Award, which was established to celebrate women leaders who break barriers in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. Ms. Passaretti-Wu has been listed as a Product Liability Defence expert by Who’s Who Legal. She has also been listed as a 2018 New York Super Lawyer, having previously been recognized as a Rising Star in 2012.
Ms. Passaretti-Wu is a member of Dechert's nationally recognized team of product liability and mass tort lawyers, ranked Band 1 for Nationwide Product Liability & Mass Torts: The Elite by Chambers USA, named in 2018 and 2019 as Practice Group of the Year for Product Liability by Law360, and Litigation Department of the Year for Product Liability by New York Law Journal in 2019, 2020, and 2021. In 2022, she was recognized by Legal 500 US in the area of Product Liability, Mass Tort and Class Actions.
Prior to joining Dechert, Ms. Passaretti-Wu was of counsel at Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan and counsel at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom.
Client Feedback
“I work closely with Rachel Passaretti-Wu. I enjoy her working style. She is calm and knowledgeable. She gets great results.” – The Legal 500 US, 2022
Rachel Passaretti-Wu is “among the most strategic, thoughtful and skilled lawyers” in product liability practice. She “clearly conveys complex legal issues in an easy to digest manner” and is “exceedingly strong on legal and factual issues.” – Who's Who Legal, 2021
- Saint-Gobain Corporation in an action by 247 UK residents and their estates who seek damages as a result of the 2017 fire at Grenfell Tower, a high-rise apartment building in London. In March 2020, Saint-Gobain secured an order of dismissal due to its lack of involvement in the fire or products at issue.
- Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics as national and trial counsel in a high-profile environmental toxic tort litigation. Currently defending individual and class action complaints involving medical monitoring and property damages claims in New York, New Hampshire, and Vermont.
- Pfizer as national coordinating and trial counsel in numerous large product liability and consumer fraud litigations, including most recently, separate MDLs involving antidepressant and cholesterol-lowering medications in which our lawyers secured MDL-wide summary judgment based on successful Daubert motions. In both cases, the Daubert and summary judgment rulings were affirmed on appeal and resulted in the complete dismissal of all of the lawsuits within these MDLs.
- GlaxoSmithKline as lead national counsel in an ongoing MDL in the Southern District of Florida and state courts concerning Zantac, an antacid medication, and alleged carcinogenicity.
- Endo International and subsidiaries in secured complete dismissal of more than 2,000 products liability and personal injury claims in an MDL alleging cardiac injuries and death from prescription medications containing propoxyphene. Ms. Passaretti-Wu held a seat on the Defendants’ Steering Committee in connection with that litigation.
- Pharmaceutical and biotechnology company as U.S. national counsel regarding any product liability issues relating to its COVID-19 vaccine.
- Amgen in a significant victory when a federal district court dismissed with prejudice an entire MDL on a motion to dismiss. Plaintiffs were third-party payors who sought to recover payments for alleged improper off-label prescriptions of anemia medications. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed.
- Driving Diversity in Law & Leadership Conference — New York, NY (May 12, 2022)
- Lexology Getting the Deal Through: Product Liability 2023 — (September 27, 2023)
- Science Days in Mass Torts Driving Diversity in Law & Leadership
- Conference In-House Defense Quarterly (Summer 2019)
- Drug Cos. May Find Real-World Evidence Cuts Both Ways — Law360 (April 15, 2020)
- Litigation Department of the Year, Products Liability/Mass Torts: Dechert — New York Law Journal (October 22, 2020)
- Veil-Piercing Defense Lessons From Kumho Tire Case — Law360 (October 28, 2020)
- New York’s Green Amendment: How Guidance from Other States Can Shape the Development of New York’s Newest Constitutional Right — The Real Estate Finance Journal (2022)
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- State University of New York at Binghamton, B.A., 1998, summa cum laude
- New York University School of Law, J.D., 2001
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- New York
- Supreme Court of the United States
- United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York
- United States District Court for the Southern District of New York
- United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit
- United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
- United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
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- New York City Bar Association, Environmental Law Committee – Affiliate Member
- New York City Bar Association, Product Liability Committee