Lead Poisoning Litigation: Science, Regulation, and Trial Strategy

Erik D. Olson, Director | Natural Resources Defense Council

Erik D. Olson is the Senior Strategic Director for Health at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), where he leads health-focused initiatives, including campaigns on drinking water protection and toxics in products and the environment. With 40 years of experience working at the intersection of public policy and consumer advocacy, he is a senior strategist and advocate whose career spans nonprofit leadership, federal regulatory practice, and the United States Senate. His work has contributed to the first major overhaul of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s food safety laws in more than 70 years, as well as revamped laws protecting the nation’s drinking water from contamination and its food supply from pesticides.

• Education & Credentials

Mr. Olson earned an A.B. from Columbia University, Columbia College, with an independent major in Environmental Biology and Policy, graduating on the Dean’s List. He received his J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law, where he was inducted into the Order of the Coif legal honors society and served as editor of the school’s environmental law journal.

• Recognition & Leadership

Mr. Olson serves as Senior Strategic Director for Health at NRDC, having previously served as Director of NRDC’s Advocacy Center and Public Health program. His leadership has been recognized in his appointments to a board position on the Keystone Center and a board position on Protected Harvest, as well as his service on the Supporters of Agricultural Research Foundation.

• Professional Involvement

Mr. Olson is a member of the National Drinking Water Advisory Council, an advisory body to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. He is also a member of the Board of Directors of the Keystone Center, a member of the Board of Directors of Protected Harvest, and is affiliated with the Supporters of Agricultural Research Foundation. He has authored or co-authored numerous reports and peer-reviewed publications on drinking water, food safety, and toxic chemicals.

• Experience

Mr. Olson currently serves as Senior Strategic Director for Health at NRDC, a role he has held since rejoining the organization in 2013. He earlier served for fifteen years as a senior attorney at NRDC and as the director of its Advocacy Center and Public Health program before leaving to serve as General Counsel and Deputy Staff Director for the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works. Following his Senate service, he oversaw food safety and other food-related work at The Pew Charitable Trusts. Before his initial tenure at NRDC, he served as a Staff Attorney in the Office of General Counsel of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, working in the Water Division and Waste Division on regulatory review, client counseling, and litigation, including briefing and arguments on drinking water, underground injection, hazardous waste, and the Clean Water Act.

Dr. Janet Phoenix, M.D., M.P.H | Milken Institute School of Public Health

Dr. Janet Phoenix is an Assistant Research Professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management at the George Washington University Milken Institute School of Public Health. Her work bridges environmental health, health policy, and health reform, with a sustained focus on lead poisoning prevention, environmental asthma triggers, and community-based public health interventions. She has designed and led national programs, federally funded information services, and community-based participatory research, and is an established media spokesperson on lead poisoning prevention and related environmental health issues.

• Education & Credentials

Dr. Phoenix received her B.A. in Anthropology from the University of Colorado in Denver. She earned her M.D. from Howard University in 1989, followed by a Master of Public Health from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore in 1990. She subsequently completed a master’s degree in clinical and Translational Sciences at George Washington University.

• Recognition & Leadership

Dr. Phoenix was the recipient of a 2008 Health Policy Fellowship from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, during which she spent her fellowship year working on health care reform efforts in the United States Senate. She also served as Director of Health Education for the Alliance to End Childhood Lead Poisoning, a national advocacy organization now known as the Alliance for Healthy Housing. Her work includes an award-winning national media campaign on lead poisoning prevention developed in collaboration with Children’s Television Workshop, featuring the Muppets Elmo and Oscar.

• Professional Involvement

Dr. Phoenix served on two federal advisory committees: the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Lead Poisoning Advisory Committee and the Environmental Protection Agency’s Children’s Health Protection Advisory Committee. She has also consulted internationally for the United States Agency for International Development and the Environmental Protection Agency on efforts to eliminate the use of leaded gasoline. As a media spokesperson, she has been interviewed on Good Morning America, CNBC, and Voice of America, as well as numerous print outlets.

• Experience

Dr. Phoenix designed and implemented a home visiting program for developmentally disabled children to identify environmental asthma triggers and environmental hazards and to educate families on risk reduction strategies. She directed a community-based participatory research project in the District of Columbia that engaged faith-based organizations in partnership with local health and environmental governmental agencies, and managed the National Lead Information Center, a federally funded hotline and clearinghouse. She designed three national media campaigns on lead poisoning prevention, including a Spanish-language campaign for Telemundo, Univision, and Galavision. She has also written curriculums on environmental lead poisoning, environmental triggers of asthma, breast cancer, and AIDS. Her listed areas of expertise are Environmental and Occupational Health, Health Policy, and Health Reform.

Mary E. Alexander, Founder | Mary Alexander & Associates, P.C

Mary E. Alexander is widely recognized as one of San Francisco’s top personal injury attorneys, having established her reputation in the legal community after obtaining some of the largest and highest-profile verdicts and settlements in the state of California over the course of her career. She has earned a national reputation for her work protecting consumer rights, and her dedication to her clients has won her numerous awards from attorneys, clients, legal publications, and others. A scientist before she studied law, Ms. Alexander leverages her technical background in every matter she takes on, and is well known for her ability to explain complicated theories to juries and for using high-tech courtroom exhibits that help make difficult points easy to comprehend. She has also taken on cases other lawyers won’t or can’t, such as child sex abuse cases, and has assisted clients from all walks of life.

• Education & Credentials

Ms. Alexander is a graduate of Santa Clara University School of Law. She was admitted to the California Bar in 1982, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in 1982, the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona in 1986, and the Supreme Court of the United States in 2015. In 2003, she received a Doctor of Law Degree from Santa Clara School of Law upon giving the commencement speech at the graduation of the Class of 2003.

• Recognition & Leadership

Ms. Alexander is a Past-President of both the Association of Trial Lawyers of America (now the American Association for Justice) and Consumer Attorneys of California. Her honors include being named a Top 100 Attorney in California by the Daily Journal in 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2022; one of the San Francisco Bay Area’s “Top 10 Trial Attorneys” by the San Francisco Chronicle; a Northern California Super Lawyer every year since 2006; the 2014 Trial Lawyer of the Year by Public Justice; the 2014 Trial Lawyer of the Year by the San Francisco Trial Lawyers Association for the Lead Paint Verdict; the 2019 CAOC’s Consumer Attorney of the Year; the 2019 National Law Journal’s Plaintiff Trailblazer Award; the 2021 Lawdragon Hall of Fame; the 2012 Trial Lawyer Hall of Fame from the California State Bar Litigation Section; the 1996 Marie Lambert Award from AAJ; and Best Lawyers in America recognition in 2018 and 2023. She also served as Past Editor-in-Chief of Forum, a publication of the Consumer Attorneys of California.

• Professional Involvement

Ms. Alexander served as President of the American Association for Justice in 2003 and as President of the Consumer Attorneys of California in 1996, after holding successive leadership roles in both organizations including Vice President, Treasurer, Secretary, and Parliamentarian. She has served as President of the Roscoe Pound Institute, President of the National Crimes Victims Association, and as a Board Member of the Bar Association of San Francisco (2004–2007), the National Center for State Courts (2004–Present), Public Justice (1995–1999), the Western Trial Lawyers Association, and the San Francisco Trial Lawyers Association (1984–1999). She is a member of the ABA Standing Committee on Medical Professional Liability, an ABOTA Foundation Senior Life Fellow, a Foundation of the American Board of Trial Advocates Life Fellow, and a member of the AAJ Leaders’ Forum, the College of Master Advocates and Barristers (Senior Counsel), the Association of Plaintiff Interstate Trucking Lawyers of America, California Women Lawyers, the American Bar Association, and the Santa Clara University School of Law Board of Visitors. In 2022, she served as a National ABOTA American Civil Trial Roundtable Co-Facilitator.

• Experience

Ms. Alexander’s practice focuses on plaintiff-side personal injury work. She has built a record of success both before juries and at the negotiation table, and her lobbying work for consumer rights is matched by her success on behalf of her clients. She was a lead attorney working to negotiate a $305 million settlement on behalf of ten California counties against several paint companies involved in the nearly 20-year California lead paint lawsuit, a case she worked on for its entirety and which included a $1.15 billion bench verdict. Other notable results include a $45 million verdict for a San Mateo client rendered quadriplegic by a red-light-running driver; a $21.4 million jury verdict for the families of two brothers who died of cancer from benzene exposure; a $13.3 million verdict in Hall v. Yosemite Park and Curry Company involving faulty bicycle brakes that resulted in quadriplegia; a $5.5 million settlement for a long-haul trucker run over while inspecting his rig; a $4 million settlement in a San Francisco Municipal Railway accident (Landsverk v. CCSFA); and a $4 million settlement in Ruszak v. State Farm.

Thomas P. Giuffra, Partner | Rheingold Giuffra Ruffo Plotkin & Hellman LLP

Thomas P. Giuffra is an internationally recognized trial attorney and partner at Rheingold Giuffra Ruffo Plotkin & Hellman LLP, one of New York’s preeminent plaintiff’s litigation firms. Over a three-decade career, he has focused on representing survivors of sexual abuse and sex trafficking and individuals who have suffered severe, life-altering injuries due to negligence, malpractice, and institutional failure. He has recovered over $250 million on behalf of survivors of sexual abuse and sex trafficking and has tried more than 20 verdicts and numerous settlements in excess of one million dollars.

• Education & Credentials

Mr. Giuffra earned his J.D. from St. John’s University School of Law in 1994, where he was named Best Advocate of the Civil Trial Institute and was a member of Phi Delta Phi and the Trial Advocacy Team. He earned his A.B. from Boston College in 1991 with Departmental Honors in History and received a Trial Advocacy Skills Diploma from the National Institute for Trial Advocacy in 2004. He is admitted in New Jersey, New York, and Utah, as well as the U.S. Supreme Court, the Second and Third Circuits, multiple U.S. District Courts in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut, the U.S. Court of International Trade, and the U.S. Tax Court.

• Recognition & Leadership

In 2015, Mr. Giuffra was inducted as an Advocate of the American Board of Trial Advocates the organization’s highest rank, requiring lead counsel experience in at least fifty jury trials to verdict. He is also a Fellow of the International Society of Barristers and a Barrister of the Order of Centurions, reserved for attorneys who have tried 100 or more jury trials to verdict. He has had one of the largest verdicts in New York State every year from 2008 to 2018 per the New York Law Journal, which has also selected ten of his verdicts for its Verdict Hall of Fame. Additional honors include Senior Fellow of the Litigation Counsel of America, Best Lawyers in America, Lawdragon 500 Leading Plaintiff Consumer Lawyers, Top 100 New York Metro Super Lawyers, and Life Fellow of the American Bar Foundation. He has served as Associate Justice of the Village of Scarsdale since 2024.

• Professional Involvement

Mr. Giuffra has served on the Board of Directors of the New York State Trial Lawyers Association since 2006 and joined the St. John’s University School of Law Alumni Association Board in 2018. He is a member of the NY State Magistrates Association, the Trial Law Institute, the Diversity Law Institute, the New York City Bar Association Medical Malpractice Committee, the American Association for Justice, the New York State and American Bar Associations, the Maritime Law Association of the United States, and the Brooklyn Bar Association. He has appeared as a legal commentator on Primetime Justice and Court TV Live and was featured in the Dutch documentary Claiming Justice.

• Experience

Mr. Giuffra leads the firm’s Sexual Abuse and Civil Litigation Department, representing survivors of sexual abuse, assault, and trafficking in civil cases against powerful individuals and the institutions that enable them, including survivors of Harvey Weinstein, Sean “P. Diddy” Combs, Dr. Darius Paduch, and Dr. Robert Hadden, as well as clergy abuse, Diocese of Syracuse litigation, and institutional abuse in schools, daycare facilities, and foster care. His practice also covers catastrophic injury and toxic tort litigation, including lead paint poisoning, traumatic brain and birth injuries, medical malpractice, construction accidents, product liability, premises liability, and maritime accidents. Notable results include a $58 million verdict — the largest lead paint verdict in New York State history — a $21 million verdict for three children with brain damage from lead poisoning, an $11 million lead poisoning verdict, a $20 million infant traumatic brain injury verdict, a $14 million sex trafficking settlement, and a $4.194 million verdict for failure to diagnose lung cancer.

SESSION 1 – Toxicology, Health Effects, and Regulatory Frameworks | 1:00pm – 2:00pm

Attendees are grounded in lead toxicology, exposure pathways, and lifelong health impacts, then guided through the EPA, HUD, OSHA, and CDC frameworks attorneys use to prove duty, breach, and notice in lead poisoning cases.

BREAK | 2:00pm – 2:10pm

SESSION 2 – Legal Theories, Causation, Damages, and Trial Strategy | 2:10pm – 3:10pm

This session covers premises liability, negligence per se, and public nuisance theories, then walks through expert selection, damages models, common defenses, and trial themes, including the 2025 EPA rule changes and revised CDC reference value.