Marina Schwarz practices in the area of mass torts and products liability litigation, regularly representing corporations on issues arising across a broad spectrum of industries, including pharmaceuticals, chemicals, energy and environmental.
Ms. Schwarz advises clients throughout the United States on complex disputes and litigates high-stakes trial and appellate matters in federal and state courts and before arbitral tribunals. She has appeared in courts handling a wide variety of multi-district litigation matters, including mass torts, class actions, centralized management, fraud, false advertising, negligence, and wrongful death claims.
Ms. Schwarz has represented Pfizer as National counsel in the Zoloft MDL, where hundreds of plaintiffs alleged that maternal use of Zoloft, an antidepressant, caused their children to be born with various birth defects. Dechert convinced the Court early in the litigation that the most efficient approach to the MDL would be to stage general causation ahead of other case specific issues. With that framework, Dechert successfully excluded all of plaintiffs’ general causation testimony and secured summary judgment in the entire MDL. The Third Circuit unanimously affirmed, cementing the resounding victory for Pfizer. Ms. Schwarz represents Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics as national and trial counsel in a high-profile environmental toxic tort litigation, and is currently defending individual and class action complaints involving medical monitoring and property damages claims in New York, New Hampshire and Vermont. In addition, Ms. Schwarz represents an American manufacturer of organic baby and toddler food in nationwide consumer fraud and product liability litigation alleging presence of unsafe levels of heavy metals.
Ms. Schwarz has presented on mass torts and products liability and authored articles on a variety of topics, including climate change and class action litigation, which have been published by The National Forum for Environmental and Toxic Tort Issues (FETTI) and DRI for the Defense.
Ms. Schwarz was honored by The Legal Aid Society at the Pro Bono Publico Awards in 2018.
Prior to joining Dechert, Ms. Schwarz served as a litigation associate in Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan’s New York office.
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