Renowned mass torts attorney Mikal Watts announced on Monday that he is restructuring his partnership at Watts Guerra, the well-known firm that frequently tackles large mass tort litigation. This decision was made together with his partner Frank Guerra.
Mikal Watts expressed his honor at having worked with Frank Guerra for over two decades. “We have been, are, and always will be, close friends. He is a man and a lawyer I admire very much, and I look forward to the great things he and our other partners will do for our clients,” he said.
Mikal Watts is a renowned figure in mass torts, spearheading high-value, multi-district lawsuits against major corporations. Some of the biggest ongoing torts handled by Watts Guerra include water contamination at the Camp Lejeune Marine base causing cancer, negligence accusations against Hawaiian Electric that caused deadly wildfires in Maui, and Johnson & Jonson’s talcum products linked to cancer. Watts often appears in court and speaks to the media as the face of these cases.
The attorney represents approximately 16,000 J&J talc claimants and is part of a group of lawyers supporting an $8.9 billion proposed settlement.
In 2015, Mikal Watts was among seven individuals charged with fabricating thousands of clients to collect payouts from a BP settlement related to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Watts and four co-defendants were subsequently acquitted.
Last year, Watts spoke at the semi-annual conference Mass Torts Made Perfect, where he highlighted the prevalence of false claims being filed in large mass torts. His firm also conducted an audit and found a significant number of such false leads.
Watts, along with other lawyers, represented plaintiffs in suits against the makers of Tylenol and generic acetaminophen for alleging that when taken by pregnant women, the drug could cause ADHD and Autism Spectrum Disorder in their children.
A Daubert hearing was held, and U.S. District Judge Denise Cote ruled that the evidence was not admissible for it “cherry-picked and misrepresented study results and refused to acknowledge the role of genetics in the etiology of either ASD or ADHD.”
Mikal Watts founded his firm in 2002 and was joined by Francisco Guerra IV in 2009 to establish Watts Guerra. The firm maintains offices in Texas and California.
You can find further details about the restructuring of the firm in the original Bloomberg Law article.