Profile: William R Sampson

Product Liability

Biography: Product Liability

Bill Sampson is a partner at Shook Hardy & Bacon. He has tried more than 80 jury trials in military, federal and state courts, and has taught more than 100 programmes on trial practice, litigation strategy and legal writing for professional associations, law schools and law firms. He is listed in The Best Lawyers in America, Chambers USA - America's Leading Lawyers for Business, The International Who's Who of Business Lawyers, Benchmark - American's Leading Litigation Firms and Lawyers, and Who's Who in American Law. Mr Sampson is recognised as a "Super Lawyer" for business litigation.

Mr Sampson has defended product liability claims in state and federal courts throughout the country, both as coordinating counsel for industry-wide claims and in high visibility individual actions. He is admitted to practise before the state courts of Kansas and Missouri, the US District Courts for the District of Kansas and the Western District of Missouri and the US Courts of Appeal for the eighth and tenth circuits.

Mr Sampson is a member of DRI, which he served as national president between 2003 and 2004. He is a member of and previously served on the national board of directors for the American Board of Trial Advocates. He is a member of the International Association of Defense Counsel, served on the faculty of its trial academy, and is a member of the Association of Defense Trial Attorneys. He is a Fellow of the American Bar Foundation. He is the current president of the National Foundation for Judicial Excellence.

A distinguished graduate of the University of Kansas School of Law, Mr Sampson is the author of Kansas Trial Handbook, published in 1997 by West Group and supplemented or revised annually since then.