Biography: Product Liability Defence

Victor Schwartz is a partner in the Washington office of the Kansas City-based law firm of Shook Hardy & Bacon LLP, and chairs its public policy group. The focus of the practice is to integrate litigation, government affairs and public relations. Mr Schwartz has an active appellate practice, and advises product manufacturers on liability prevention, litigation, and public relations issues.

Mr Schwartz was a professor and dean at the University Of Cincinnati College Of Law prior to entering the full-time practice of law. He currently serves on the college's board of visitors.

He served as chairman of the federal inter-agency task force on product liability at the Department of Commerce, and received the Secretary of Commerce's Award for Professional Excellence. He helped draft the Uniform Product Liability Act and the Risk Retention Act.

For more than two decades, Mr Schwartz has been co-author of the most widely used torts casebook in the United States, Prosser, Wade and Schwartz's Torts (12th edition 2010). He also is author of the leading text, Comparative Negligence.

Mr Schwartz is a member of the American Law Institute (ALI) and served on the advisory committee to the restatement (third) of torts: products liability and apportionment of liability projects. He continues to serve on the advisory committee to the restatement (third) of torts: liability for physical and emotional harm. He was inducted as a life member of the ALI in 1997.

As co-chair of The American Legislative Exchange Council's civil justice task force, a bi-partisan group of state legislators, Mr Schwartz helped create The Jury Patriotism Act, The Trespasser Responsibility Act, The Private Attorney Sunshine Act, The Appeal Bond Fairness Act and numerous other Model State laws. Over 150 have been enacted in by state legislatures during Mr Schwartz's tenure as the task force co-chair. His law review articles have addressed virtually every major public policy area of modern tort law.

Mr Schwartz serves as general counsel to the American Tort Reform Association, co-chairs the civil justice task force of the American Legislative Exchange Council. He also serves on the board of directors of the Searle Center at George Mason University School of Law.

Sought by print and broadcast media, Mr Schwartz is frequently quoted in The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post and The New York Times. He has appeared on Oprah, 60 Minutes and network news programmes. He and his public policy group colleagues were the recipients of the Phillip Burton Award for Outstanding Legal Scholarship. Mr Schwartz was awarded the Jeffersonian Award by the American Legislative Exchange Council, a group of more than 2,000 state legislators. In light of his accomplishments, The Legal Times of Washington recently named Mr Schwartz one of Washington's Top 30 'Visionary' lawyers from over the past 30 years, The National Law Journal named him, for the third time, as one of the 100 most influential attorneys in the United States, and Washingtonian magazine has twice named him one of the top government relations specialists in the nation's capital.

Mr Schwartz obtained his BA summa cum laude from Boston University and JD magna cum laude from Columbia Law School. He is a member of the bars of New York, Ohio and the District of Columbia.