Butler Snow LLP

Products, Catastrophic & Product Liability - Practice Group Leader

Righton serves as the Practice Group Leader for the Products, Catastrophic, and Industrial Litigation Practice Group. Skilled in the courtroom and in pre-trial proceedings and litigation management, Righton focuses her practice on trial litigation and strategic counseling in personal injury, product liability, and toxic tort matters. She routinely guides clients through the response to and subsequent litigation resulting from catastrophic incidents.

Righton’s experience includes defending a highway product manufacturer in product liability and personal injury claims, automobile manufacturers against defective product claims, medical device manufacturers, industrial, commercial, and residential control manufacturers in mass tort, and public utilities in both tort and contract disputes. As an example of her experience, she obtained summary judgment for a highway products manufacturer on claims for defective design, defective manufacturing, and failure to warn based on 10-year statute of repose, no duty to warn of an unknown defect, no duty to warn the general public, and no duty to warn sophisticated users (GDOT). Thomas v. Trinity Industries, Inc., et al., United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia (2020). Righton also represents defendants in breach of contract, tort, and constitutional matters.

Righton has experience defending federal multidistrict litigation throughout the United States, with experience in all aspects of fact discovery, including deposing plaintiffs, treating physicians and surgeons, and medical experts; taking and defending expert depositions; drafting and arguing discovery and dispositive motions; and developing, coordinating, and implementing defense strategy.

She is recognized by Lawdragon 500 (Product Liability and Industrial Litigation) and Super Lawyers® and she is active in the Defense Research Institute (DRI), Product Liability Advisory Council (PLAC), the State Bar of Georgia (Chair of the 2016 State Bar of Georgia High School Mock Trial Competition), and Georgia Defense Lawyers Association. She also served as a panelist on “Bias & the Virus: Combating Institutional Discrimination & Disparity,” CenterForce, The Women in Law Summit Series, Virtual Summit Diversity, Inclusion & Self-Care, May 20, 2020.

Righton is from Savannah, Georgia. She obtained her J.D. and B.A., cum laude, from the University of Georgia. She is admitted to practice in Georgia.