Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner

Class Actions and Mass Torts

Partner - Litigation and Investigations

Bettina serves as co-leader of the firm's Pharmaceutical and Medical Devices Class Action and Mass Tort Team. She was the leader of the firm’s Product Liability Client Service Group from 2006 to 2014. She focuses her practice on the defense of companies facing liability in connection with products in all types of proceedings including consolidated actions, MDL proceedings and class actions. She has extensive experience in pharmaceutical and medical device litigation. She also has defended automotive litigation for the entirety of her career. She has a national practice, defending cases in state and federal courts across the country from New Jersey to California. Her cases routinely involve multi-million dollar risk in some of the most difficult venues in the country, including three well known trial courts in her home area: the City of St. Louis, Missouri and Madison and St. Clair Counties in Illinois.

Bettina is a trial lawyer who has led and co-chaired the defense of companies in venues across the country. She has experience on national and regional counsel teams in both product liability and product-related class actions. She has worked with lawyers throughout the United States and on many cooperative teams with other firms including but not limited to multi-firm trial and defense teams. She is a member of the prestigious Product Liability Advisory Counsel. She has defended product cases for a wide variety of companies in various industries including automotive, pharmaceutical, child-products, medical devices, chemicals, industrial equipment and many consumer products.

Bettina has worked with medical, engineering and other technical experts in many different fields and is experienced at mastering the technical issues involved in developing company defenses. She enjoys the art of preparing company witnesses to adjust to and excel in the litigation arena. She aggressively prepares her cases and develops facts to support Daubert and other legal challenges. She is a problem solver who connects with her clients, learns their products and works vigorously and creatively to extricate them from the dangerous litigation they face.