Arvin Maskin

Heralded by clients as "a legend of the defense bar" and "well-prepared, tenacious and strategic."

Consistently highly sought in the defense of high-stakes, high-profile mass tort and product liability litigations, Arvin Maskin helps clients across a wide range of industries to effectively anticipate, avoid and successfully manage some of the most high profile enterprise risks. He has successfully handled a broad range of domestic and international matters, including the defense, coordination and resolution of product liability, mass tort and consumer fraud class action and MDL litigations, in some cases seeking billions of dollars, involving asbestos, breast implants, food products, industrial chemicals and their by-products, genetic research, lead paint, aircraft, automotive products, electrical and navigation equipment, international industrial accidents, train derailments and tunnel disasters, pharmaceuticals and medical devices, food products and baby formula, as well as counseling relating to industrial, consumer and OTC products, FDA, EPA, NHTSA and Consumer Product Safety Act compliance, product recalls (domestic and international), the False Claims Act, the Alien Tort Statute, Congressional investigations, deceptive trade practice claims brought by state attorneys general, corporate acquisitions, product distribution, marketing and labeling, risk avoidance, insurance, internal investigations, food tampering and acts of international terrorism.

Arvin was a lead counsel and negotiator in connection with World War II forced and slave labor class actions involving eight different nations, and served as lead counsel in the defense and resolution of 33 separate state consumer fraud class actions and an MDL concerning some 170 million automobile and light truck tires. He handled mass tort class actions involving African apartheid-related claims under the Alien Tort Statute, as well as class actions and related consumer fraud and personal injury litigations throughout the country involving the sale of hundreds of thousands of bullet-resistant vests, including related suits brought by the US Department of Justice under the False Claims Act seeking hundreds of millions of dollars and multiple congressional hearings and TV specials. He was also a nationally recognized attorney on punitive damages, class actions and multidistrict litigation, as well as the innovative use of science in the courtroom, and chaired numerous national conferences and counseled multinational corporations on all aspects of corporate enterprise risk management and crisis preparedness. In fact, Arvin has partnered with his clients for years to help create a framework for threat management that is proactive, predictive, preventive – and less reactive. He helps clients identify, evaluate and avoid foreseeable and unforeseeable global threat scenarios, leveraging our firm’s experience and expertise, including all aspects of crisis management.

While with another prominent international law firm and, prior to that, with the US Department of Justice in Washington DC, he was the government’s lead counsel in such seminal matters such as the “Agent Orange” litigation, and has received multiple Department awards and recognitions.

Arvin is a recognized thought leader in all aspects of enterprise risk and crisis management, including strategic communications – and he has also served as a legal commentator for CNN and Fox, as well as Businessweek, The Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times and other journals, and has guest-lectured at Yale, Georgetown, Harvard, Columbia, and NYU, among other institutions throughout the US and around the world.