Gibson Dunn has recruited a three-partner product liability team in the US from Paul Weiss led by practice co-chair Kimberly Branscome, as the Los Angeles-founded firm continues to expand its litigation bench with high-profile talent.
Branscome has joined alongside Yahonnes Cleary and Jonathan Tam and will serve as co-chair of the firm’s mass torts and product liability practice. The trio bring significant first-chair trial experience and have secured defence verdicts in some of the most-closely watched product liability trials of the past decade for clients including Johnson & Johnson, Bayer and Pfizer. Branscome and Tam are based in Los Angeles while Cleary works out of New York.
“We’ve worked alongside this team on major product liability litigation, so we know firsthand what they bring when the stakes are highest,” said Lauren Goldman, co-chair of Gibson Dunn’s mass torts and product liability practice. “For clients defending major mass tort litigation, trials can shape the entire docket. They need lawyers who can set the strategy, drive the critical legal and expert issues, and persuade the jury. This team brings that combination and together, we offer clients unmatched depth from strategy through trial and appeal.”
The trio are the latest in a string of senior additions to Gibson Dunn’s bench of first chair litigators. The firm – long known for its litigation chops – picked up Wachtell Lipton Rosen & Katz co-chair Bill Savitt and a team of five partners in July, in a move that saw it add expertise in high-stakes disputes in Delaware’s Chancery Court.
That followed a four-partner Sullivan & Cromwell appeals group led by former acting Solicitor General Jeff Wall joining in April, while in 2024 renowned white collar defence lawyer Barry Berke, who had previously served as chief counsel to the US House of Representatives for the second impeachment trial of President Donald Trump, jumped over from Kramer Levin with a four-partner team.
For her part, Branscome joined Paul Weiss in 2024 having co-led Dechert’s products liability and mass torts practice. She has acted as lead trial counsel for multiple corporations in mass tort cases, including Johnson & Johnson in litigation where the plaintiffs alleged the company’s baby powder products contained asbestos and for Bayer in a lawsuit against its subsidiary Monsanto Company in Washington state court involving alleged injuries from PCB exposure.
She has also represented pharmaceutical industry clients including Merck, Pfizer, Hoffmann-La Roche and AstraZeneca in mass tort and multidistrict litigation involving product liability claims related to their prescription medicines.
“Product liability litigation is becoming larger, more complex and higher stakes across jurisdictions, and clients need depth at every stage,” Branscome said. “Gibson Dunn has built an extraordinary litigation platform, with elite trial, appellate, complex litigation and environmental capabilities. Bringing our team onto that platform was a uniquely compelling opportunity.”
The group marks the latest in a slew of high-profile departures from Paul Weiss’s litigation bench that has seen name partners retire, leave for rivals including Paul Hastings, Davis Polk and Linklaters, and strike out to launch their own shop in the wake of the firm’s politically fraught deal with the Trump administration.
Paul Weiss has moved to replenish its senior disputes ranks with hires including Willy Jay from Goodwin Procter in August to head its Supreme Court practice and trial lawyer Andrea Smith in Houston in April from Gibson Dunn, where she had been co-chair of its transnational litigation practice.
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