For almost twenty years, Kathryn Sacco Jensen has specialized in the defense of complex serial and mass tort litigation, including the defense of personal injury litigation involving pharmaceutical products, biologics, medical devices, personal care products, and alleged workplace exposures. She relishes the opportunity to defend cases from filing through trial and enjoys collaborating as a team to develop cutting edge defense strategies.
Kathryn has defended corporate clients in serial mass tort litigation, statewide coordinated proceedings, individual state and federal court proceedings, and federal multidistrict litigation in venues across the country. Her considerable experience defending against all matter of legal claims with respect to FDA-regulated products includes product liability claims involving obstetrical drugs, contraceptives, gastrointestinal drugs, antiepileptics, ophthalmology, opioid, oncology, and pulmonary drugs, hernia products, and contrast agents for magnetic resonance imaging. She has substantial experience defending cases involving alleged birth injuries. She has also defended a variety of other regulated consumer products including representation of manufacturers of personal care products against a variety of claims, as well as actions of state attorneys general. Kathryn has represented clients in toxic tort/environmental matters involving alleged exposures to asbestos and heavy metals, as well as purported injury claims stemming from a petroleum manufacturing plant fire.
Her broad range of litigation experience includes:
- Co-lead of trial teams in federal and state court
- Overseeing state and federal coordinated proceedings
- Serving as national coordinating counsel
- Preparing corporate witnesses for deposition and trial testimony
- Identifying and working with expert witnesses across many fields
- Conducting and defending fact and expert witness depositions
- Coordinating massive electronic discovery efforts
- Aggressively pursuing and arguing motions practice
- Defending mediations
- Appellate briefing and amicus curiae briefing
Notably, Kathryn was part of the successful trial team to obtain a complete defense verdict in a pharmaceutical personal-injury case for Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation in federal court in Raleigh, North Carolina following a seven-day trial. In addition to leading trial teams in a variety of matters, she has also been instrumental in the successful resolution of many of the firm’s complex cases prior to trial, including significant summary dispositions.
For many years, Kathryn has enjoyed mentoring the firm’s associates, and is a founding member of the ACT Committee, which advances the Firm’s commitment to advancement opportunities, community development, and professional development. She is also involved with firm pro bono activities through her service as a guardian ad litem and coordinator of educational contests and volunteer programs. While at William and Mary School of Law, Ms. Jensen was chosen as an I’Anson scholar, as well as a legal skills teaching assistant and staff member of the Journal of Women and the Law, a student-edited journal focusing on how gender bias in the law impacts women’s lives and society as a whole.
