On Friday, March 24, the Southwestern Law Review and Southwestern’s Panish Civil Justice Program invite you to attend an in-person symposium on Concluding the Restatement (Third) of Torts, co-sponsored by the American Law Institute. The symposium will take place at Southwestern Law School in its historic landmark Bullocks Wilshire building in Los Angeles.

Professor Christopher Robinette and I have been organizing the symposium, and we are excited about the remarkable gathering of nationally leading tort litigation scholars, practitioners, and judges at the symposium. Among the esteemed speakers are four Reporters and fourteen Advisers for the Restatement, three of the top ten most cited torts faculty in the U.S., and one of the top ten most cited civil procedure faculty in the U.S. Speakers also include the leading proponent of tort reform in the U.S., and the leading scholar of feminist legal theory in tort law in the U.S. The symposium will open with remarks by Justice Goodwin Liu, Associate Justice of the California Supreme Court and Member of the Council of the American Law Institute, and Judge Kevin Brazile, Member of the Judicial Council of California and former Presiding Judge of the Superior Court of California for Los Angeles County, will speak on the final panel of the day. The keynote luncheon address will be delivered by Brian Panish, Founding Partner of Panish Shea Boyle Ravipudi LLP, who was named one of the Top 10 Super Lawyers in Southern California for 2023, who recently served as lead plaintiffs’ trial counsel in securing a $1.8 billion settlement in the Porter Ranch/Aliso Canyon Gas Well Blowout Litigation, and who represents the family of the cinematographer fatally shot by Alec Baldwin on the movie set of “Rust.”

Participants in the symposium include the following:

  • Mark Behrens, Co-Chair, Public Policy Group and Partner, Shook, Hardy & Bacon L.L.P.;
  • Judge Kevin Brazile, Judge of the Superior Court of Los Angeles County, Member of the Judicial Council of California, and Former Presiding Judge of the Superior Court of Los Angeles County;
  • Martha Chamallas, Robert J. Lynn Chair in Law, Ohio State University Moritz College of Law;
  • Darby Dickerson, President, Dean, and Professor of Law, Southwestern Law School;
  • James Fischer, Professor of Law, Southwestern Law School;
  • Nora Freeman Engstrom, Ernest W. McFarland Professor of Law and Co-Director of the Deborah Rhode Center on the Legal Profession, Stanford Law School;
  • Mark Geistfeld, Sheila Lubetsky Birnbaum Professor of Civil Litigation, New York University School of Law;
  • Michael Green, Mel and Pam Visiting Professor of Law, Washington University in St. Louis School of Law;
  • Mark Hall, Fred and Elizabeth Turnage Professor of Law and Director of the Health Law and Policy Program, Wake Forest University School of Law;
  • Deborah Hensler, Judge John W. Ford Professor of Dispute Resolution, Stanford Law School;
  • Keith Hylton, William Fairfield Warren Distinguished Professor of Law, Boston University School of Law;
  • Richard Jolly, Associate Professor of Law, Southwestern Law School;
  • Gregory Keating, William T. Dales Professor of Law and Philosophy, University of Southern California Gould School of Law;
  • Nina A. Kohn, David M. Levy L’48 Professor of Law and Faculty Director of Online Education, Syracuse University College of Law;
  • Justice Goodwin Liu, Associate Justice, California Supreme Court;
  • Brian Panish, Founding Partner, Panish Shea Boyle Ravipudi LLP;
  • Philip G. Peters, Jr., Ruth J. Hulston Professor Emeritus of Law, University of Missouri School of Law;
  • Christopher Robinette, Professor of Law, Southwestern Law School;
  • Victor Schwartz, Co-Chair, Public Policy Group and Partner, Shook, Hardy & Bacon L.L.P.;
  • Anthony Sebok, Professor of Law, Yeshiva University Cardozo School of Law;
  • Catherine Sharkey, Segal Family Professor Regulatory Law and Policy, New York University School of Law;
  • Kenneth Simons, Chancellor’s Professor of Law, University of California, Irvine School of Law;
  • Byron Stier, Associate Dean for Strategic Initiatives, Director of Civil Litigation and Advocacy Concentration, and Professor of Law, Southwestern Law School;
  • David Studdert, Senior Associate Vice Provost for Research, Professor of Health Policy and Professor of Law, Stanford Law School; and
  • Adam Zimmerman, Professor of Law and Gerald Rosen Fellow, Loyola Los Angeles Law School.

Seating is limited; registration is available now at the link above. For those interested, the symposium will offer 6 hours of MCLE credit for attendees.

Photo of Byron Stier Byron Stier

Byron Stier is a recognized expert in mass tort litigation.  He has spoken at, or served as moderator for, more than thirty scholarly presentations or panels around the country and the world.  In addition, in conjunction with the Southwestern Law Review, he has…

Byron Stier is a recognized expert in mass tort litigation.  He has spoken at, or served as moderator for, more than thirty scholarly presentations or panels around the country and the world.  In addition, in conjunction with the Southwestern Law Review, he has co-chaired three symposia regarding asbestos litigation; science, technology, and innovation in torts; and the Restatement (Third) of Torts.  His scholarship, which includes more than a dozen articles and book chapters, has been cited by federal and state courts, the American Law Institute, American Bar Association, Federal Judicial Center, and legal treatises. Associate Dean Stier was named Associate Dean for Strategic Initiatives at Southwestern in 2016 and Director of the J.D. Concentration in Civil Litigation and Advocacy in 2020.  He previously served as Associate Dean for Research from 2015 to 2016 and Co-Director of the Summer Law Program in Vancouver from 2013 to 2014.  He was named the 2009 Irving D. and Florence Rosenberg Professor of Law in recognition of his outstanding service, teaching, and scholarship.

Associate Dean Stier has been actively involved in service to professional groups.  He has served as Chair, Chair-Elect, Secretary, Treasurer, and member of the Executive Committee of the Section on Litigation of the Association of American Law Schools.  In addition, he has served as Co-President, Vice President, Speaker Chair, and Board Member of the Harvard Law School Association of Los Angeles, and Member of the Council of the worldwide Harvard Law School Association. Moreover, he has served as Liaison of the ABA Section of International Law to the ABA Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar and as Vice Chair of the International Ethics Committee of the ABA Section of International Law. He has also been named a Fellow of the American Bar Foundation for outstanding dedication to the highest principles of the legal profession and to the welfare of one’s community.

Associate Dean Stier began his legal career in 1996 at Jones Day in New York.  During his five years with the firm, he primarily handled cases involving products liability litigation and served on a lead counsel team representing the tobacco industry in numerous proposed class-action lawsuits across the country.  In 2001, he joined Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP in the firm’s mass torts group, where he coordinated scientific evidence in a federal multidistrict litigation concerning cough-cold medications and appetite suppressants.  He left private practice in 2003 to enter academia as a Freedman Fellow and Lecturer in Law at Temple University Beasley School of Law in Philadelphia.  In 2005, he joined the Southwestern faculty, where he has taught courses on Torts, Mass Tort Litigation, Legal Profession, Global Tort Litigation, Civil Procedure II, and Products Liability.

Associate Dean Stier has been quoted on issues related to mass tort litigation and legal education in major newspaper and news services, including the Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, San Jose Mercury News, Houston Chronicle, Philadelphia Inquirer, Reuters, Forbes, National Law Journal, Los Angeles Daily News, Las Vegas Review-Journal, Legal Intelligencer, and Inside Higher Ed, as well as All Things Considered on National Public Radio (NPR). In addition, he serves as editor of the Mass Tort Litigation Blog, which has received more than 935,000 page views globally since he founded it in 2006 and which includes as co-editors several leading mass tort litigation scholars from across the country.