Profile: Sheila L Birnbaum

Product Liability

Biography: Product Liability

As head of Skadden's complex mass tort and insurance group, Sheila L Birnbaum practises primarily in the areas of products liability, toxic torts and insurance coverage litigation. She won reversal of a US$145 million punitive damages award in State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company v Campbell, in which the US Supreme Court set important due process limits on punitive damages. And she recently persuaded the Illinois Supreme Court to reverse a US$1.2 billion class action judgment in Avery v State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company.

Ms Birnbaum has been national counsel or lead defence counsel for numerous Fortune 500 companies in some of the largest and most complicated tort cases in the country. She is also national coordinating counsel for several other major corporations in the areas of drugs, medical devices, building products, heavy machinery, cordless telephones and chemical substances.

She is co-author of the Practitioner's Guide to Litigating Insurance Coverage Actions, and has been a products liability columnist for the National Law Journal.

Ms Birnbaum received the Margaret Brent Women Lawyers of Achievement Award from the ABA. She was selected by The National Law Journal as one of the 100 most outstanding members of the legal profession, and was recently profiled as one of the three outstanding lawyers of the year. She has been named by Fortune as one of the 50 most powerful women in American business, and by Crain's New York Business as one of the 75 most influential women in business. Before joining Skadden, Ms Birnbaum taught products liability at Fordham and New York University law schools.

Other Practice Areas

Additional Practice Areas