Biography • Product Liability Defence

Bill Sampson is a partner at Shook Hardy & Bacon. He has tried more than 80 jury trials in federal, state, and military courts and tribunals and has been active nationally and internationally in the defence of civil litigation. A frequent teacher, he has presented more than 100 programmes on trial practice, litigation strategy and legal writing for professional associations, law schools and law firms.

Mr Sampson has defended product liability claims in state and federal courts throughout the United States, both as national coordinating counsel for industry-wide claims and in high-visibility individual actions. Mr Sampson recently appeared before the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation and successfully opposed centralisation of nationwide domestic drywall cases. See J Zeveloff, "7 Tips For Maximizing Your Time Before The JPML", Law360, September 2010.

Mr Sampson is a member of DRI, which he served as national president between 2003 and 2004, and is vice chair of DRI's 2013 Corporate Counsel Roundtable. He will chair the event in 2014. 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 was president of the National Foundation for Judicial Excellence and remains on its board. The Best Lawyers in America lists him in four categories: bet the company litigation, commercial litigation, banking and finance litigation, and product liability, and selected him as Kansas City's 'Lawyer of the Year' for product liability litigation. He is listed in Chambers USA - America's Leading Lawyers for Business, The International Who's Who of Business Lawyers, Expert Guides: Guide to the World's Leading Product Liability Lawyers and Benchmark Litigation: The Definitive Guide to America's Leading Litigation Firms & Attorneys. Mr Sampson is also recognised in the 2012 Missouri & Kansas Super Lawyers Business Edition.

Mr Sampson 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 Seventh, Eighth, and Tenth Circuits.

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