Profile: Victor E Schwartz

Product Liability

Biography: Product Liability

Victor Schwartz chairs the public policy group at Shook, Hardy & Bacon. He co-authors the nation's leading torts casebook, Prosser, Wade & Schwartz's Torts (11th ed 2005), and authors Comparative Negligence, the principal text on the subject. Mr Schwartz's amicus briefs and articles on key public policy issues have been cited in decisions by the Supreme Court of the United States and state supreme courts.

Mr Schwartz is former dean of the University of Cincinnati College of Law and currently serves on its board of visitors. During his academic career, Mr Schwartz litigated cases on behalf of plaintiffs and secured the first punitive damages award in the Midwest against a manufacturer of a defective product. Mr Schwartz chaired the federal government's Inter-Agency Task Force on Product Liability and the Department of Commerce's Inter-Agency Task Force on Insurance and Accident Compensation. He was awarded the Secretary of Commerce's Medal of Excellence for his service.

Today, Mr Schwartz serves as general counsel to the American Tort Reform Association and co-chairs the American Legislative Exchange Council's (ALEC) Civil Justice Task Force. He was a recipient of The Jeffersonian Award, ALEC's highest honour bestowed on persons in the private sector.

Mr Schwartz is the only defence attorney in the United States to serve on the advisory committees of all three of the American Law Institute's restatement (third) of torts projects: products liability, apportionment of liability, and general principles.

He is a member of the board of overseers of Northwestern Law School's Searle Center on Law Regulation and Economic Growth.

He has been named by The National Law Journal as one of the 100 most influential lawyers in the US and by Washingtonian magazine as one of the top lawyers and lobbyists in Washington, DC.

In 2008, on the occasion of its 30th anniversary, the Legal Times of Washington named Mr Schwartz one of Washington DC's 30 greatest "visionary" lawyers from over the past three decades.