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Kevin Young is a partner in the law firm of McDermott Will & Emery LLP based in the Firm's Boston office. As a member of the Trial Department, Kevin focuses his practice on complex product liability litigation, including the defense of cases involving a variety of toxic materials, industrial machinery, pharmaceuticals and automotive defects. Kevin has extensive first chair trial experience in mass toxic tort cases and has appellate experience before the Massachusetts Court of Appeals and the First Circuit Court of Appeals.
Kevin was invited to join McDermott as a partner in 1998 to assist in the representation of two of the Firm's clients who were defendants in the fen-phen diet drug litigation. The firm currently represents individual pharmaceutical clients in more than 20,000 individual and multi-party cases in federal courts and in the courts of all fifty states as well as Canada. We have primary responsibility for all aspects of the litigation including trial, expert selection, class action defense and overall coordination and strategy. We coordinate and direct local counsel in all 50 states and have developed and use state-of-the-art information and data systems to manage and coordinate the litigation.
The Firm has achieved significant success in this litigation to date. We have successfully litigated the issue of the admissibility of scientific evidence in courts in various parts of the country, including a widely publicized win in an evidentiary Daubert hearing in Massachusetts resulting in the preclusion of certain expert testimony and ultimate dismissal of our client in a death action. We also prevailed in a Daubert hearing in the federal diet drug litigation which resulted in the preclusion of certain expert testimony on medical causation issues. As a result of this victory, plaintiffs' counsel around the country with diet drug cases are now voluntarily dismissing our clients and other phentermine defendants.
Before joining McDermott, Kevin had thirteen years of experience in defending numerous major manufacturers of asbestos-containing products locally (Massachusetts), regionally (New England) and nationally. He represented these manufacturers against personal injury claims, property damage claims and Massachusetts Chapter 93A claims (as they related to the personal injury and property damage claims). While at McDermott, Kevin has continued in this area of practice by representing Honeywell, North American Refractories Company, Robertson Ceco Corporation and one of the world's largest engineering-construction firms, in connection with asbestos cases pending against them. Kevin also serves as a National Coordinating Counsel in the Asbestos Litigation for Taco, Inc.
In connection with this representation, Kevin represented mining companies, manufacturing companies (spray insulation, pipe and boiler products, brake linings and numerous other asbestos-containing products), distributors, contractors and boiler manufacturers. Just some of the companies which Kevin represented in the asbestos litigation (in all aspects of litigation including trial) were: members of the Asbestos Claims Facility, members of the Center for Claims Resolution, Owens-Illinois Inc., Owens-Corning Fiberglas, Pittsburg Corning Corporation, Celotex Corporation, Carey-Canada, Inc., Asbestospray Corporation, Spraycraft Corporation, U.S. Gypsum Company, National Gypsum Company, Keene Corporation, Turner & Newal Ltd. and Riley Stoker Corporation.
As a result of this experience, Kevin has substantial knowledge concerning insulation products generally and the asbestos-containing products that were marketed in the United States and Canada specifically. His knowledge extends to the various types of insulation products used, their purposes, their chemical, mineralogical and physical properties, the manufacturing and application process, alleged medical risks, as well as the various forms of asbestos used in the products (chrysotile, amosite, crocidolite).
He has also had substantial experience in the automobile product liability defense area. He has over the years represented Chrysler Corporation and Suzuki Corporation in that regard.
Kevin is admitted to the Massachusetts Bar, the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts, First Circuit Court of Appeals and the United States Supreme Court.
Kevin is a member of the Defense Research Institute and several of its committees devoted to his areas of practice.
Education
Boston University School of Law, J.D., 1985
Dartmouth College, A.B., 1977 |
