Keri Arnold > Wilkinson Stekloff > New York, United States > Lawyer Profile

Wilkinson Stekloff
130 West 42nd Street
Suite 1402
New York, NY 10036
NEW YORK
United States

Career

Keri Arnold is a trial attorney with over twenty years’ experience defending companies in product liability, environmental, and complex commercial litigation. She has tried over a dozen cases to verdict, including seven as first-chair trial counsel, on behalf of major pharmaceutical, tobacco, and energy companies. Keri has supervised the management and discovery of mass actions pending in state and federal courts and has extensive experience developing complex medical and scientific evidence for presentation at trial.

Most recently, Keri was a member of the trial team that secured a groundbreaking victory for Microsoft, defeating the FTC’s efforts to enjoin its $68.7 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard and winning the second-biggest merger trial in American history. Following a five-day bench trial, Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley denied the FTC’s motion for preliminary injunction, finding that the FTC failed to make its case that the acquisition would substantially lessen competition in the gaming industry.

Keri also recently represented a major chemical manufacturer in the Aqueous Film-Forming Foams (AFFF) Products Liability Litigation (MDL No. 2873) in the District of South Carolina. The litigation, involving alleged PFAS groundwater contamination from the use of AFFF, is considered the most significant PFAS litigation in the country. Keri was set to serve as a member of the trial team for the manufacturer in the first bellwether trial in the AFFF MDL, which was halted on the eve of trial when the remaining parties announced a settlement to end all water-provider claims brought against the manufacturer. Keri also currently represents Monsanto in litigation arising out of claims that its popular herbicide Roundup causes Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma.

Before joining Wilkinson Stekloff, Keri was a partner at Arnold & Porter, where she specialized in trial work and product liability litigation. Keri is a Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers and has been a Lecturer in Law at Columbia Law School. She has been recognized by Benchmark as a “Litigation Star” and named to their list of the “Top 250 Women in Litigation.” She has also been ranked by Legal 500 for “Product Liability and Mass Tort Defense” and appeared on Lawdragon’s list of the “500 Leading Litigators in America.”

Lawyer Rankings

United States > Dispute resolution > Product liability, mass tort and class action - defense: pharmaceuticals and medical devices

Washington DC-based litigation boutique Wilkinson Stekloff is able to resource high-stakes disputes utilizing a ‘deep bench of top notch legal strategists and trial lawyers with extensive experience in products liability mass tort litigation’. The life sciences sector informs a considerable volume of these matters, with the firm lauded for its ability to simplify the narrative and explain often complicated scientific issues to juries, as well as to effectively cross-examine experts in Daubert hearings. A ‘trial lawyer with impeccable judgement’, Brian Stekloff  has an excellent pedigree in the space, both at a motions stage as well as at trial, where he has secured numerous victories in products liability bellwether trials for well-known pharmaceutical companies. As befits the reputation of ‘one of the top trial lawyers in the country’, Beth Wilkinson is able to turn her hand to a myriad disputes across subject matters, including as it relates to challenging life sciences MDLs. New York-based Keri Arnold who is gaining acclaim as being ‘the real-deal in a rising-star trial lawyers’ excels at trying cases in the life sciences space and also has extensive experience developing complex medical and scientific evidence for presentation at trial. All named practitioners are based in Washington DC, unless otherwise indicated.

United States > Dispute resolution > Product liability, mass tort and class action - defense: toxic tort

‘The team you bring in when you know you can’t avoid trial and you need to win’, Washington DC-based litigation boutique Wilkinson Stekloff continues to gain market visibility, regularly being parachuted in on some of the highest-profile toxic tort matters to help shape strategy ahead of trial, as well as in critical hearings. ‘Tremendously likeable and skilled in court’, name partner Brian Stekloff continues to act as national trial counsel for Monsanto in relation to Roundup litigation, and is noted in general for his ability to simplify often complex scientific concepts to juries. Recognized as ‘one of the finest trial lawyers in the country’, co-founding partner Beth Wilkinson has also been key to the firm’s success, including her work alongside Stekloff and New York-based Keri Arnold, praised as ‘the real-deal as a rising-star trial lawyers’ for 3M on the PFAS MDL.