Swanson, Martin & Bell, LLP is a nationally recognized trial firm, with decades of experience in representing clients in asbestos litigation. Attorneys with the firm have successfully tried asbestos cases to verdict in jurisdictions throughout the United States, including in some of the most challenging forums for asbestos defendants, such as California, Illinois, Maryland, Florida, Georgia, West Virginia, Ohio, New York and Pennsylvania.
Swanson, Martin & Bell, LLP serves in the role of national coordinating counsel, national or regional trial counsel, discovery counsel and national expertise counsel. The firm also serves as local counsel in Illinois, Indiana, Missouri and Wisconsin for many clients. Many Fortune 500 companies look to Swanson, Martin & Bell, LLP’s asbestos expertise to manage and control the particularly catastrophic risks of asbestos litigation.
The firm maintains an extensive library of materials developed and collected in the course of more than twenty years of asbestos litigation, including expert deposition and trial testimony, medical and scientific articles, regulatory information, briefs and motions on key asbestos issues. Swanson, Martin & Bell, LLP attorneys frequently lecture at national conferences and author articles on asbestos defense strategy and litigation management.
Firm attorneys have performed a variety of functions for their clients to help them manage and defend their asbestos litigation, including:
- Preparation and coordination of discovery responses and document production
- Location, selection and training of local counsel
- Development, preparation and presentation of all corporate witnesses at deposition and trial
- Development and presentation of defense experts at deposition and trial
- Research, preparation for and cross-examination of plaintiffs’ local and national experts at deposition and trial
- Coordination of product testing or survey of premises
- Lead trial counsel in cases throughout the United States
- Evaluation of litigation exposure
Firm attorneys have developed an extensive network of contacts with other asbestos defense attorneys throughout the country, enabling firm attorneys to stay abreast of all new developments in litigation. Also, Swanson, Martin & Bell, LLP lawyers enjoy long-time professional relationships with many of the most prominent expert witnesses in asbestos litigation. Many firms, without the same experience and commitment to the litigation, are unable to obtain the service of key local counsel and expert consultants.
Firm attorneys have defended cases involving a wide variety of products, including: gaskets, packing, pumps, valves, brakes, clutches, cranes, fire trucks, tractors, industrial equipment and machinery, automobiles, aircraft, flooring, roofing, siding, joint compounds and plasters, furnaces, boilers, water heaters, large appliances, small appliances, wire and cable, electronics and consumer products.
In addition, firm attorneys have represented a number of premises defendants including owners of power plants, and various chemical and industrial manufacturing facilities.
- Secured defense verdict for client, following a three-week jury trial in Santa Monica, California alleging exposure to asbestos in distributed automobile brakes. Learn more.
- Served as National Coordinating Counsel for numerous national and international companies for over 30 years in product liability and toxic tort matters pending in state and federal courts from coast to coast.
- Successfully argued appeals in the U.S. Courts of Appeal for the 6th and 8th federal circuits, establishing favorable precedent for decades.
- Successfully defended two clients in mass tort litigation assigned by the Federal Multi-District Litigation Panel to MDL 875—E.D. of PA, resulting in dismissal, without payment of approximately 30,000 cases.
- Successfully defended the first case to go to trial against a premises owner in Cook County, Illinois in 2004.
- Protected the interests of a premises owner in a multi-defendant asbestos case in Cook County, Illinois, in which the jury provided a defense verdict on behalf of the firm’s client.Represented manufacturer.
- Represent manufacturers and premises owners in litigation based on alleged exposures to benzene.
