Ellen Relkin

PARTNER and PRACTICE GROUP CHAIR

Biography

Ms. Relkin, whose practice focuses on medical device and pharmaceutical product liability, as well as toxic tort matters, has represented thousands of plaintiffs injured by defective medical products with a recent focus on the generation of failed metal-on-metal and modular hip implants.

She serves in leadership capacities appointed by courts as the Co-Lead Counsel of the In Re: DePuy ASR Multi-District Litigation (MDL) and the Lead and Liaison Counsel for the New Jersey In Re: Stryker Rejuvenate & ABG II Modular Hip Implant Litigation as well as a member of the Plaintiff Steering Committee in the In Re: Xarelto Product Liability Litigation and the Executive Committee of In Re: Invokana (Canagliflozin) Products Liability Litigation.

She had served on the court-appointed Executive Committee of the MDL involving the birth control patch Ortho Evra, and as the Plaintiffs’ Liaison counsel in the New Jersey consolidated litigation involving the oral contraceptives Yaz, Yasmin and Ocella, as well as on the Court Appointed Plainitffs’ Steering Committee of the In Re: Biomet Hip Implant Litigation.

In April 2006, she was part of the trial team that secured a $13.5 million verdict in McDarby v. Merckin a failure-to-warn case involving the medication Vioxx and the risk for heart attack, and she successfully defended the compensatory damage verdict on appeal.

Ms. Relkin, who is Certified by the New Jersey Supreme Court as a Civil Trial Attorney, is an elected member of the American Law Institute as well as the Summit Council. She is an active member of the American Association for Justice (past chair of its Toxic, Environmental, and Pharmaceutical Torts section); the New Jersey Trial Lawyers Association, where she serves on the Board of Governors; the New Jersey and New York Bar Associations and the American Bar Association, where she was co-chair of the Pharmaceutical and Medical Device Subcommittee of the ABA Section of Litigation Mass Torts Committee. She is also President of the Roscoe Pound Civil Justice Institute and serves on the Board of Visitors of the University of California at Irvine. She is a frequent lecturer nationally at continuing legal education programs.

She has published law review articles in the Cardozo Law Review and the Dickinson Journal of Environmental Law and Policy, the Chapter on Failure to Warn in Pharmaceutical and Medical Device Mass Tort Litigation in the  treatise New Jersey Mass Torts and Class Action (2015) published by the New Jersey Institute for Continuing Legal Education and numerous other legal publications. In addition, Ms. Relkin serves on the board of advisors for the BNA Product Safety and Liability Reporter, The Toxics Law Reporter, and the MDEX Daubert Reporter.

She has been consistently named as a ”Super Lawyer” in both New York and New Jersey for the past several years and has been AV rated by Martindale Hubble for more than two decades. 

Her litigation areas include: metal-on-metal and modular hips including Stryker Rejuvenate and AGB II modular stems, the Stryker Accolade, Citation and Meridian stems,  DePuy ASR and Pinnacle,  Wright Conserve metal-on-metal hips, and the Wright ProFemur modular hip. She also represents women injured by the medications Xarelto, Invokana, as well as women who had Power Morcellators used during laparoscopic hysterectomies.

Ellen Relkin can be reached directly by email at [email protected] and by phone at 212-558-5715.

Key Verdicts

  • 13.5 Million (2006; W&L secures verdict in N.J. Vioxx trial)
  • 1 Billion (2014; Global Resolution Reached in Lawsuits over Stryker Rejuvenate and ABG II Failed Hips)

Honors

  • Grade of AV® Preeminent™ (she scored 5.0 out of a possible 5.0 total points when evaluated by Martindale Hubbel’s rigorous peer-review methodology)
  • Super Lawyer Metro New York and New Jersey
  • Top Women Attorneys In Metro New York, The New York Times, March 2016. Selected by peer recognition and professional achievement.

Speaking Engagements

  • 8/6/2020: Program co-chair at the Mass Tort Session New Jersey Association for Justice Boardwalk Seminar 2020. Digital Experience.
  • 7/27/2020: “JUUL and E-cigarettes” at Hot Topics in Mass Tort Litigation. American Association for Justice online seminar.
  • 7/27/2019: “Rethinking Multijurisdictional Coordination of Complex Mass Torts” panel discussion at Pound Civil Justice Institute Aggregate Litigation in State Courts: Preserving Vital Mechanisms forum. San Diego, California.
  • 7/26/2019: “Everything You Want To Know About Mass Torts (But Are Too Afraid To Ask)” at American Association for Justice seminar. San Diego, California.
  • 5/9/2019: “Mass Tort, From the Beginning to the End: New Jersey Mass Tort Update” at Boardwalk Seminar 2019. Sponsored by the New Jersey Association for Justice, Atlantic City, NJ
  • 5/2/2019: “Mastering Mass Tort Settlements” panel at American Bar Association Section of Litigation, New York, New York.
  • 11/16/2018: “New Jersey Law on Expert Evidence: What You Need to Know After the Accutane Decision” at 2018 Mass Torts Seminar. Sponsored by the New Jersey Association for Justice. East Rutherford, New Jersey.
  • 5/16/2018: “Inside the Opium (Legal) Wars.” Annual Meeting, New Jersey State Bar Association. Atlantic City, New Jersey.
  • 5/10/ 2018: New Jersey’s key MDL and MCL cases at Boardwalk Seminar 2018. Sponsored by the New Jersey Association for Justice. Atlantic City, New Jersey.
  • 4/27/2017, “Jurisprudential Legacy of the Honorable Carol Higbee” at Boardwalk Seminar 2017. Sponsored by the New Jersey Association for Justice. Atlantic City, New Jersey.
  • 4/3/2017: “Personal Jurisdiction Issues in Mass Torts.” HB Litigation Conferences’ Mass Torts Judicial Forum, New York City.
  • 2/10/2017: “Emerging Torts.” 2017 Texas Trial Lawyers Association Pharmaceutical & Medical Device Seminar. The Westin Austin at The Domain, Austin, Texas.
  • 8/25/2016: “ADR for Complex Claims: Choosing and Using the Most Effective Resolution Instruments.” LexisNexis Webinar on Medical Device ADR.
  • 4/7/2016: “Mass Tort Plaintiffs’ and Defendants’ Perspectives” at Boardwalk Seminar 2016. Sponsored by the New Jersey Association for Justice.
  • 10/2/2015: Featured speaker at American Bar Association Section of Litigation, Products Liability seminar panel discussion.
  • 9/28/2015 A Street Car Named Desire…Mass torts are like street cars, a new one comes every 10 minutes – the importance of (and factors to consider when) vetting a tort and your cases at Women En Mass in Aspen, Colorado.
  • 3/25/2015:  Xarelto Case Selection and Criteria at the HarrisMartin MDL Conference: Xarelto, Morcellators and Emerging Torts in San Diego. California.
  • 2/18/2015: Failure to Warn in Pharmaceutical and Medical Device Mass Tort Litigation: The PLA and Common Law at The New Jersey Institute for Continuing Legal Education (NJICLE) seminar on Multicounty (Mass Tort) Litigation in New Jersey.
  • 4/2/2014 HarrisMartin’s Mass Tort Litigation Conference session on Settlement v. Trial — Coordination, Conflicts & Committees in New York City.
  • 5/1/2014 Mass Tort Case Law Review at the New Jersey Association for Justice Boardwalk annual convention.
  • 5/1/2014 DePuy Hip and Stryker Rejuvenate litigations at the New Jersey Association for Justice Boardwalk annual convention.
  • 1/28/14: Presented on Mass Tort Litigation in New Jersey along with esteemed jurists and practitioners. The program was sponsored by The N.J. Institute for Continuing Legal Education, a division of the N.J. State Bar Association.
  • 3/11/13: HarrisMartin Mass Tort Litigation Conference with Judge Marina Corodemus (Ret.). See agenda.
  • 9/26/11 Harrismartin’s MDL Conference: Current Issues in Multi District Litigation Practice – Loews Philadelphia Hotel.
  • 6/10: Speaker at Mass Torts Judicial Forum: Joins Tort Judges, Acclaimed Special Master at Conference
  • 6/28/10: Presenter at the Mass Torts Judicial Forum in Philadelphia. Participated in a discussion on expert witness testimony and medical causation proofs in this one-day seminar that includes presentations from a number of leading mass-tort judges and attorneys.

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