W. Mark Lanier

HOUSTON - A prominent plaintiff-side civil litigator, W. Mark Lanier founded The Lanier Law Firm in 1990 and has grown it to 60-plus attorneys with offices in Texas, New York and Los Angeles. The shop specializes in asbestos exposure, business fraud, serious personal injury, product liability and pharmaceutical cases.

Lanier says he has attained close to $20 billion in verdicts during his career, including a $4.69 billion award in St. Louis, Missouri, in 2018 for 22 women and their families over ovarian cancer allegedly caused by their use of asbestos-tainted Johnson & Johnson talcum powder.

A devout Christian, he is also the founder of the Christian Trial Lawyers Association and the Lanier Theological Library. He teaches a weekly 700-plus-member Sunday school class focused on Biblical literacy at Champion Forest Baptist Church in Houston.

"I've always had a foot in both worlds," Lanier said of religion and the law. "Faith questions are about ultimate truths in the world, and my Christian worldview informs my courtroom work. They are natural handmaidens, each seeking truth."

He's recently published two books on religion that join a number of others on the topic he's produced. "I think I write more books than briefs these days," he said.

In August 2022, Lanier was lead trial counsel for two Ohio counties when the jurist overseeing two bellwether opioid trials ordered a $650.6 million judgment against CVS Health Corp., Walgreen Co. and Walmart Inc. for their roles in failing to control the oversupply of prescription opioids. County of Lake v. Purdue Pharma L.P. et al., 1:18-op-45032 (N.D. Ohio, filed Jan. 11, 2018); County of Trumbull v. Purdue Pharma L.P. et al., 1:18-op-45079 (N.D. Ohio, filed Jan. 18, 2018).

The outcome was significant because the trial was the first involving pharmacies, the first to be decided by a jury and the first trial in the massive multidistrict litigation to reach a verdict.

The jury found that sales of prescription opioids by the pharmacy chains contributed to a public nuisance, validating the core legal theory undergirding thousands of similar suits.

"Lenin called religion the opiate of the masses," Lanier said, linking faith and the facts of addiction. "There is a lot of pain in this world that is readily exploitable by opiates and regrettably by false religions too. If you exploit pain, you are piling horror on horror and making everything worse. The two, opiates and religion, are very tightly wound together -- not that I would ever preach to a jury."

Lanier's current major case accuses Google LLC and Facebook Inc. of unlawfully stifling competition and harming consumers and other companies through their online advertising practices. He represents Texas and several other plaintiff states, plus Puerto Rico. The matter is in discovery. In re: Google Digital Advertising Antitrust Litigation, 1:21-md-03010 (S.D. N.Y., filed Aug. 12, 2021).

"We're seeking documents and preparing for trial, and that's when I get to do my thing," Lanier said. "This case is worth billions of dollars.