Kimberly Branscome, co-chair of Paul, Weiss’s Product Liability & Mass Torts practice group, is a nationally renowned trial lawyer and litigation strategist focusing on complex litigation and trials involving product liability, professional liability, environmental and toxic torts, and securities matters. She is one of just a handful of lawyers in the country who are entrusted to both architect overall defense strategy in sprawling, highly complex mass tort litigations and lead the defense in the highest-stakes bellwether trials.
Can you tell us about your background and how you ended up practicing in the mass torts and product liability area?
I always wanted to be a lawyer, but my undergraduate degrees are in biomedical and chemical engineering. Coming out of law school, the two areas that were a natural fit for me were product liability and patent law, and as a junior associate I started out working on both. The turning point was when I had two cases headed to trial on the same schedule, and I had to make a choice between the two practice areas. Although I like the complexity of patent work, product liability had a really interesting human component to it. You have individual plaintiffs with their own stories, their personal medical history and their exposure to a certain product. So the decision to focus on product liability was a combination of my background in science and my interest in these individual histories
Can you describe your practice area?
What I do is not what people historically think of as product liability - someone gets hurt and sues. Mass torts are large-scale, complex litigations that cannot be neatly pulled into class actions and often involve different types of claims arising out of the same basic set of facts.
I largely get hired when companies are facing some kind of existential threat, for example when they’ve had a series of defeats or are facing very substantial liability. My most impactful wins have been for clients in litigations where the path to victory feels uncertain—maybe they are facing a series of difficult verdicts or a very large one. They need to improve their outlook and are looking for a fresh perspective.
Can you describe some of your recent major case wins and what was at stake?
My team and I joined the defense team for Bayer, the parent company of Monsanto, in July 2024. A group of 15 plaintiffs sued in state court in Seattle claiming they were exposed at a local school to polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), an industrial chemical manufactured and sold by Monsanto, which allegedly caused them to experience a wide range of personal injuries. The case was tried in King County, Washington, which is a notoriously difficult jurisdiction for mass tort litigation. After a two-and-a-half-month trial, the jury returned complete defense verdicts on the claims of 11 of the 15 plaintiffs, which represented a huge success for the client. The jury award of $100 million on the remaining claims was just 2% of the approximately $4.1 billion in total requested damages the plaintiffs had sought.
I delivered opening statements and closing arguments and, along with my co-counsel, we conducted 55 direct and cross examinations of witnesses—the most in any of the PCB trials so far. We directed the jury’s attention toward evidence on whether the levels of PCB exposure each of the plaintiffs allegedly experienced were sufficient to cause the specific injuries alleged. The jury’s verdict, concluding that the vast majority of the plaintiffs failed to establish causation, indicates that the strategy was successful.
What drew you to Paul, Weiss and its new office in L.A.?
I was drawn to the quality of the lawyers at Paul Weiss and the firm’s client base, both of which are truly exceptional. The client roster and types of matters the firm handles align well with my practice, which largely deals with matters that are either first impression or present a very significant business threat. That’s what Paul, Weiss does across all legal spaces, so it was a natural fit for me. I also loved the idea of being part of building a new office with a top-of-the- market corporate practice.
How do you hope to grow the mass torts and product liability practice at Paul, Weiss, as well as build upon your own?
Paul, Weiss is a preeminent mass torts law firm and when companies are facing multidistrict litigation or litigation on multiple fronts, whether it’s state or federal, possibly even criminal, we want them to come to Paul, Weiss to advise them, even if we’re not handling each individual case.
Paul, Weiss historically has been involved in large mass tort actions concerning various products and industries, so we were already very active in this space and I hope we can continue to broaden our presence in it. We have such talented lawyers in our group and in the firm as a whole that our overall practice in this space can easily expand, especially as techniques from traditional product liability are increasingly applied in new areas. We’re seeing this kind of expansion into litigations involving climate change, plastics and the tech industry, around social media litigation, for example. We’re also seeing а change in how these cases are being framed, with cases also being brought by attorneys general under legal theories that had been dormant for quite some time. Mass torts is unquestionably an area of litigation that is growing rapidly and Paul, Weiss is ideally positioned to lead the field.
What do you view as the current trends or phenomena in the mass torts and product liability space?
As I mentioned above, we’re seeing the mass torts landscape expand, with techniques from traditional product liability being applied in different areas, such as climate change and social media. We’re seeing new legal theories being explored, such as theories of public nuisance. State attorneys general are bringing more mass torts cases now than in the past, either on their own or alongside private lawsuits. Sometimes, product liability cases may also be brought with an eye toward potential securities litigation down the line. And if federal enforcement starts to wane, certain states may become more active in this space, and we may see creative jurisdictional battles involving states with more restrictive laws.
Can you identify peers you admire in this practice area?
I learned to try cases from observing and working with Mike Brock and Chad Morriss, both tremendous trial lawyers and mentors. Chad taught me not to be afraid to deviate from my outline. He used to take depositions with just a pen and a yellow notepad. To this day I give my closing arguments based on handwritten notes. Mike, who is one of the most talented trial lawyers I have ever seen in court, told me that the best lawyers are the same in front of the jury as they are in everyday life. Juries might make mistakes on the details, but they are remarkably good at sensing authenticity, so you should always be you when you stand up in court. It’s a lesson I have repeated more often than I can count. I am incredibly grateful to both of them for the role they’ve played in making me the lawyer I am today.
