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In recognition of his leadership role in the state’s ongoing opioid multidistrict litigation (MDL), Simon Greenstone Panatier, P.C., founding partner Jeffrey Simon has been named a 2020 Texas Trailblazer by Texas Lawyer magazine.

Mr. Simon serves as chairman of the Texas Opioid MDL Plaintiffs Steering Committee, which seeks to hold drug manufacturers and supply chain corporations responsible for their roles in creating and prolonging the opioid epidemic in Texas.

“The opioid epidemic grew unchecked for far too long,” said Mr. Simon, who in 2017 filed the state’s first opioid-related lawsuit against drug manufacturers and supply chain distributors on behalf of a governmental body. He currently represents more than 40 Texas counties in opioid litigation.

“The is the largest, deadliest drug epidemic in American history,” he said. “But unlike other American drug epidemics, this one was spawned in boardrooms by Fortune 500 drug companies, not by foreign cartels. This epidemic has cost American taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars, yet the lives lost and families destroyed by this epidemic are far more precious.”

Prior to the coronavirus outbreak, Mr. Simon was selected to be one of the lead attorneys to represent Dallas County in the state’s first opioid trial. That trial has been scheduled for September 2021.

He is a frequent speaker on opioid topics and has served as co-chair of the Opioid Litigation Conference. The seminar, held each of the last three years, brings together leading medical, legal, and law enforcement experts to discuss how to best address and reduce the social and economic devastation of opioid addiction.

The revered toxic tort and pharmaceutical injury litigation attorney is a past president of the Texas Trial Lawyers Association and the Dallas Trial Lawyers Association. He is on the Board of Governors of the American Association for Justice, is a longtime Fellow of the American Board of Trial Advocates, and is a member of the Trial Lawyers for Public Justice.

Simon Greenstone Panatier, P.C., is a nationally recognized trial law firm with a reputation for creative and aggressive representation of clients in a wide variety of mass torts and catastrophic personal injury matters nationwide. For more information, visit http://www.sgptrial.com/.  

Media Contact:  
Rhonda Reddick  
800-559-4534  
rhonda@androvett.com