Elizabeth J. Cabraser

Cabraser has been involved in some of the largest, most well-known civil lawsuits in the country. The award-winning attorney has served as lead and class counsel in scores of federal class actions, as well as multidistrict and state coordinated proceedings. The Exxon Valdez disaster, along with litigation on breast implants, Fen-Phen diet drugs, Vioxx, cars and the historic Holocaust human rights cases are just a handful of the prominent matters she has handled.

She represents numerous municipalities, counties, other government entities and native American tribes against manufacturers and distributors of opioids in response to the ongoing crisis of opioid addiction nationwide National Prescription Opiate Litigation, 1-17-MD-2804 (N.D. Ohio, consolidated Dec. 12, 2017). Plaintiffs claim that manufacturers of prescription opioids overstated the benefits and grossly misrepresented the risks of long-term use of those drugs, and distributors failed to properly monitor suspicious orders of opiates, all of which contributed to the current opioid epidemic.

Litigation is ongoing, and the first bellwether trial is set for October before U.S. District Judge Dan Polster in Cleveland, Ohio.

“That is the most complex case I have ever been involved in, because of the number of defendants, the length of time the opioid crisis was allowed to rage unabated, because it involves and implicates the health care industry, and because the remedies are going to take at least a generation to fully implement and take effect,” Cabraser said. “This is a nationwide, public health emergency of unprecedented scale. It is responsible for reducing the national life expectancy by two years, according to public health experts.”

Though she concedes it may sound cliché, Cabraser maintains that doing work that matters is what keeps her going after more than 40 years as a litigator.

“For example, the opioids litigation that we’re involved in: What we’re trying to do there is abate a nationwide public nuisance by getting cities, counties, states and tribes that have been impacted the money they need to prevent and treat addiction, to be able to respond to overdose emergencies, and basically restore public health that has been severely damaged by prescription opioids,” she said.

— Jennifer Chung Klam