FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

THE LAWBUSINESS INSIDER

Featured Guest:

Philip L. Chapman
Lum, Drasco & Positan, LLC
www.lumlaw.com 

Kenneth Wexler
Partner, Wexler Toriseva Wallace LLP
www.wtwlaw.us 

Philip L. Chapman is an acclaimed and talented attorney who concentrates in counseling family owned and other closely held businesses in all aspects of business, corporate and real estate law. For many years he has been listed in Best Lawyers in America as one of the best corporate lawyers in the State of New Jersey.  He has been named as a New Jersey Super Lawyer for 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2008. Considered among the best in their profession, Super Lawyers represents the top 5% of the practicing attorneys in New Jersey. The New Jersey Super Lawyers were selected by their peers in an extensive nomination and polling process conducted by Law & Politics and published in a special advertising section in the May 2005 issues of the New Jersey Monthly and New Jersey Super Lawyers magazine. Philip lectures frequently for the New Jersey Institute of Continuing Legal Education (ICLE) and other educational forums on such subjects as such subjects as forming new business entities, buying and selling a business, buying a franchise, second stage financing of closely held Businesses, shareholder and limited company agreements, family businesses, post-employment non-competition agreements, commercial leasing and real estate auction law. He has also lectured to the commercial/industrial real estate brokers on aspects of commercial and industrial leasing. Philip has additionally authored articles for various publications, his most recent articles being Safeguarding the Buyer's Post-Closing Claims for Indemnification in the print issue of The New Jersey Lawyer, and Preparing Your Business for Financing, for the national publication of Renaissance Executive Forums.

Kenneth Wexler, founding partner of Wexler Toriseva Wallace LLP, devotes his practice to helping those whose rights have been denied or who have been victims of the unscrupulous or fraudulent actions of others, most often more powerful entities. Founder of the firm that bears his name, Ken was also a founding partner in the firm of Miller Faucher Cafferty and Wexler, LLP. Prior to that, he was a partner in the Chicago law firm then known as Much Shelist Freed Denenberg Ament & Eiger, P.C. Ken has been in leadership positions in cases with far-ranging subject matters, including brand name manufacturer suppression of competition from generic drugs, fraudulent and deceptive product overcharges, discrimination and harassment, corporate waste and mismanagement, cost recovery for defective medical devices, false advertising, and government fraud. Ken’s practice is devoted to complex class action and commercial litigation.

Ken has served as lead counsel in numerous high profile cases, including the following.

·                     In Re Pharmaceutical Industry Average Wholesale Price Litigation, MDL No. 1456 (D. Mass.) (Early in 2002, WTW initiated a wave of class-actions nationwide against the dominant pharmaceutical manufacturers to stop the fraudulent publication of a fictitious price called Average Wholesale Price, or AWP. Manipulation of AWP by defendants caused federal and state governments, third party payors and consumers to vastly overpay for prescription drugs)

o                  Ken was appointed co-lead counsel and have been actively involved in all aspects of this monumental case.

o                  Trial began against AstraZeneca, Bristol Meyers Squibb, Johnson & Johnson and Schering Plow in November, 2006. Jennifer Connolly, another partner at WTW, has had a prominent role on the trial team.

·                     Nichols v. SmithKline Beecham Corp., Case No. 2:00-CV-06222-JP (E.D. Pa.) (An antitrust case in which plaintiffs alleged that several of Defendants’ patents for paroxetine hydrochloride were improperly listed in the FDA Orange Book and that Defendants’ patent infringement litigation against various generic drug manufacturers was “sham” litigation designed to keep generic versions of Paxil® off the market)
Ken, as one of three co-lead counsel, had to build the Paxil case from the ground up. The Paxil litigation is believed to be one of the first, if not the first, to allege misuse of patents to delay generic competition in a pharmaceutical market brought under Section 2 of the Sherman Act rather than Section 1.
Despite these hurdles, and after extensive discovery and investigation, the case settled for $65 million in cash. The favorable response to this hard-fought settlement was overwhelming ---- over 60,000 consumers filed claims.

·                     Wiginton v. CB Richard Ellis, Inc., Case No. 1:02-CV-06832 (N.D. Ill.) (A nationwide class-action brought by WTW seeking to remedy systemic sexual harassment in the offices of CB Richard Ellis nationwide)

·                     New England Carpenters Health Benefits Fund v. First DataBank, Case No. 1:05-CV-11148 (D.Mass.) (Ken is co-lead counsel in this matter alleging a conspiracy to suddenly increase the published spread between Average Wholesale Prices and Wholesale Acquisition Cost for pharmaceuticals in the 2001-2002 time frame, causing end purchasers to pay billions of dollars extra for needed pharmaceuticals. The case has settled against one defendant and preliminary estimates pin the savings to consumers and third party payors resulting from the settlement at $4 billion. The case is still pending against another alleged co-conspirator in the United States District Court sitting in Boston.)

·                     In re BP Products North America, Inc. Antitrust Litigation, MDL No. 1801 (N.D. IL) (Ken has again been appointed interim co-lead class counsel, representing purchasers of propane who were injured by BP’s alleged unlawful manipulation of the price of propane gas after it cornered the TET propane market in February 2004)

You can listen to these fabulous guests on ABC Radio Networks or by listening now right here.

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Contact: 

Philip L. Chapman
973-403-9000
www.lumlaw.com

 Kenneth Wexler
 312-346-2222
www.wtwlaw.us