Kenneth Parsigian > Latham & Watkins LLP > Boston, United States > Lawyer Profile

The ‘extremely talented and experienced’ team at Latham & Watkins LLP is ‘capable of providing first-class advice across a wide variety of product liability matters’. The firm has, however, undoubtedly gained most acclaim for its market-leading work in the tobacco sector, where it is appreciated for being ‘super knowledgeable about the law and the science’. In this context, it continues to represent Philip Morris in a raft of major domestic and international cases, including defending it in multiple individual smoking and health cases in Massachusetts. A ‘brilliant trial lawyer’ and a ‘master strategist‘, Boston-based Kenneth Parsigian is pivotal to the firm’s work for Philip Morris particularly in a domestic setting. ‘Highly adept at dealing with experts and technical subjects’, Washington DC-based Christine Rolph is also a vital member of the team and continues to excel in her role for Philip Morris in international litigation brought against the company. ‘A jack of all trades’, the ‘thoughtful and responsive’ Boston-based Gwyn Williams co-heads the overarching team alongside Parsigian, and as well as also assisting on tobacco-related work is noted for her expertise defending corporates in consumer class actions, where she is ‘excellent at co-ordinating a large team’. 

Forming a part of the firm’s overarching product liability, mass tort and consumer class action group, which is led from Boston by Gwyn Williams and Kenneth Parsigian, Latham & Watkins LLP‘s toxic tort offering is praised for its ‘very good handle on complex legal and technical issues’, as well as its ability ‘think very strategically’. The ‘practical-minded’ team also a enjoys a synergistic relationship with the broader environmental offering, enabling it to draw from highly specific substantive expertise, as well as lawyers benefiting from significant regulatory knowledge, of great relevance to the toxic torts which regularly arise in the sector. A member of the environmental group, New York-based Kegan Brown is ‘extremely motivated, driven and highly intelligent’, and is particularly adept at managing toxic tort matters proceeding on multiple fronts. Mary Rose Alexander  in Chicago regularly defends clients in multi-plaintiff actions in federal and state courts involving alleged exposure to chemicals, lead, metals and solvents.