Paul Llewellyn
Paul Llewellyn is Head of the UK Product Liability Practice and practices exclusively in product liability defense work. In the early years of his career his practice involved large scale actions and disease cases on behalf of trade union members. Over the last 10 years he has worked for major corporates and their insurers and leads a team of seven lawyers involved in product liability litigation and regulation, specializing in particular in medical device & pharmaceutical work.
Paul has unique experience in negotiating innovative bespoke ADR agreements, having been responsible for negotiating the Capital Hip Claims Protocol on behalf of 3M and the Trilucent Breast Implant Protocol on behalf of the Inamed Corporation of Santa Barbara. These procedures have helped to resolve thousands of cases, either by the successful rejection of claims or their negotiated settlement, economically and efficiently without recourse to formal legal proceedings.
Paul has been described by his peers as a "tough negotiator", a "driving force" and "prolific".
He is listed in The International Who’s Who of Product Liability Defense Lawyers and recently received from the Washington based Product Liability Advisory Council, an award for his ''special contribution to the success of PLAC's programs & mission.” He is one of only two European members of PLAC.
Paul is the author of a chapter called ‘Class Actions in the EU’, in the 2004, 2005 and 2006 editions of The International Comparative Legal Guide to Product Liability. He has been invited to speak at a medical device conference in Munich in Feb 2007 on ''The clinical efficacy of joint replacement prostheses: legal framework--defect & causation.''
Thoughts on Advertising: Like many lawyers just completing their third decade of legal practice my career has thankfully evolved & I have been fortunate to have worked in an interesting & often controversial series of niche areas including mass torts on behalf of claimants, large scale criminal actions during the 1994/5 national mineworkers strike in the UK & for the last 8 years drug & medical device defence work. Each has had its challenges & particular pleasures but my present work covers the most wide-ranging & intellectually stimulating set of issues I have faced. There is the complexity of the technical & scientific qualities of drugs & devices, their interaction with the human body & the diagnostic & surgical techniques required to make them effective. In each of these fields, as Donald Rumsfeld once memorably said, albeit in a different context, there are thing we know we know, things we know we don't know & things we don't know we don't know. To this shifting cocktail of uncertainties we add another ingredient: the law & all its uncertainties. It would be easy to provide clients with long, detailed treatises which cover all the angles, doubts & difficulties. Our real task is much more difficult: to provide concise & accurate advice that offers business solutions that work.
For a UK lawyer practicing in drug & medical device work there is a huge contrast between the advertising regimes here & in the UK. For example direct to consumer advertising of prescription medicines is not allowed; advertising to doctors is. However, many consumers, particularly those with serious, life threatening or terminal conditions will seek information from other sources & use the information gleaned to press for specific drugs.
The control of advertising of foodstuffs & drinks to children is also becoming a controversial issue. The scale of obesity amongst the population generally & children in particular is prompting the government to contemplate regulation. Today the OFCOM [the Office of Communication, the regulatory body responsible for advertising] has recommended controls on when & how food & drink can be advertised to children. Consumer bodies have complained that the proposals do not go far enough & the food industry has complained that they go too far.
The role & limits to advertising are increasingly controversial, touching upon freedom of speech & information, the protection of the vulnerable & the limits of government intervention.