Victor Schwartz

Victor E. Schwartz has been called "the undisputed king of tort reform." He is a partner at the Washington D.C. offices of Shook, Hardy & Bacon LLP, and chairs the law firm's Public Policy Group. In 2007, he was considered one of Washington, D.C.'s 50 top lobbyists. A casebook he co-authors, Prosser, Wade and Schwartz Torts, is the most widely used torts casebooks in the United States.

He is also the author of Comparative Negligence and the Guide to Multistate Litigation.

Schwartz is a member of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). Schwartz is listed on ALEC's Board of Scholars and is co-chair of its Civil Justice Task Force as of 2011. He also previously won the "Jeffersonian Award," ALEC's highest award to private sector members. He has been involved with ALEC for several years.

He is also on the General Counsel to the American Tort Reform Association.

Career
Victor Schwartz has worked to "integrate litigation, government affairs and public relations" in Shook, Hardy & Bacon's D.C. law firm since 2001. In 2011, he lobbied on behalf of Peabody Energy, Eli Lily & Co., and The U.S. Chamber of Commerce. A 2007 ABA Journal article also identified him as a lobbyist for the Animal Health Institute in 2005 and a Public Citizen report listed him as a lobbyist for the General Aviation Manufacturers Association and the Product Liability Coordinating Committee, in 1997.

Other clients of Shook, Hardy & Bacon include, but are not limited to:


 * Philip Morris, now Altria Group
 * Amgen
 * Bristol-Myers Squibb
 * GlaxoSmithKline
 * Sanofi-Aventis
 * Guidant and Wyeth
 * Sprint Nextel and
 * Microsoft

Schwartz is also on the Board of Directors of the Searle Civil Justice Institute at George Mason University School of Law.

Before working at Shook, Hardy & Bacon LLP, Schwartz worked as a lawyer at Crowell & Moring for 21 years. He was Director of the Federal Insurance Administration from 1978-1980 and was a professor and dean at the University of Cincinnati College of Law. According to the U.S. Senate Office of Public Records, he was registered as a lobbyist with Crowell & Moring in at least 1999-2001. He also served as chair of the Federal Inter-Agency Task Force on Product Liability at the Department of Commerce, and the Federal Inter-Agency Council on Insurance under the Ford and Carter Administrations. He was the principal author of the Uniform Product Liability Act and the Federal Risk Retention Act.

Related SourceWatch articles

 * Tort reform
 * Tobacco industry
 * Pharmaceutical industry
 * American Legislative Exchange Council