2013 DRI Products Liability Conference

Since 2010, I have made it a priority to attend the Defense Research Institute's Products Liability Conference.  This year's conference is being held April 3-5, 2013, in the Washington, D.C. area at Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center in National Harbor, Maryland.  As this is the time of the year when the cherry blossoms bloom in the Washington D.C. area, the theme of this year's conference is "Make Your Products Liability Practice Bloom." 

This conference is always outstanding.  I try to attend it each year because (1) the programming keeps me updated from a practice standpoint, and (2) now that I have attended for a few years, there are more and more "familiar faces" for networking purposes. 

In addition, I am in my second year serving as the Agricultural, Construction, Mining and Industrial Equipment ("ACMIE") Specialized Litigation Group ("SLG") co-chair.  We always have a breakout session at this conference, and there are some great topics and speakers this year.  Members Kurt Meaders (Sedgwick LLP) and Jaime Myers (Caterpillar Inc.) will present a program entitled "Shifting Gears on the Opposition's Experts--Deposition, Daubert, and Trial."  This presentation will focus on strategy for dealing with plaintiff's experts at the discovery, dispositive motion, and trial stages.  Emily Muceus (Deere & Company) and Robert Walker (Gallagher Walker Bianco & Plastaras) will present a program entitled "From the Trenches: Trial Strategies in High Exposure, Bad Venue ACMIE Cases."  As its title suggests, this program is designed to arm our members with trial tactics that can assist in defending the toughest ACMIE cases at trial.  Finally, we will do our annual "Top 10" ACMIE cases, which will be presented by Christopher Robinson (Frost Brown Todd, LLC).  Our SLG program is planned for April 3, 2013 from 3:30 to 5:30 p.m.

If you have not already registered, I would urge you to plan to attend this conference and participate in our SLG meeting.  All of the information about the conference and registration can be found at this link, and I hope you will make plans to attend.