For more than a decade, Baum Hedlund partner, Karen Barth Menzies, has been involved in litigating claims involving injuries stemming from selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors such as Prozac, Paxil and Zoloft. She represents families of children who have suffered birth defects due to their mothers' use of Paxil during pregnancy. Heading a team of Baum Hedlund attorneys, she has successfully defeated Pfizer's and the FDA's preemption arguments in a number of cases, including Motus v. Pfizer and Witczak v. Pfizer, supra. Ms. Menzies is Lead Counsel for the Plaintiffs' Steering Committee (MDL-1574) Paxil Products Liability Litigation. In addition to her court activities, she has testified about the dangers of SSRIs before the California State Assembly and the Food and Drug Administration's Psychopharmacologic Drugs Advisory Committee and met with members of the House and Senate regarding the risk of antidepressant induced suicidality and preemption issues. Ms. Menzies was named Lawyer of the Year by Lawyer's Weekly, California Lawyer of the Year by California Lawyer magazine and one of The National Law Journal's Top 40 Under 40 for her "extraordinary achievements" and "impressive track record" for "stepping up her fight in the past few years, advocating that pharmaceutical companies should warn about the alleged risks of antidepressant drugs."

Born:

• Dubuque, Iowa, December 8, 1966

Education:

• Colorado State University (B.A., 1989)
• University of California School of Law, Davis, California (J.D., 1995)
• Law Clerk, Colorado Attorney General's Office, Denver, 1993
  
• Legal Intern to Justice Davis, California 3rd District Appellate Court, Sacramento, 1994
• Law Clerk, California Attorney General's Office, Sacramento, 1994
• Legal Intern, Sacramento District Attorney's Office, 1995
  
  

Admissions:

• California, 1995
• U.S. District Court, Central District of California, 1995
• U.S. District Court, Southern District of California, 1999
• U.S. Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit, 1999
• U.S. District Court, Eastern and Western Districts of Arkansas, 2003
• U.S. District Court, Southern District of Illinois, 2003
• U.S. District Court, District of Colorado, 2003
• U.S. Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit, 2005

Member:

• State Bar of California
• Consumer Attorneys of California
• American Bar Association, Litigation Section and Tort Trial & Insurance Practice Section
• Association of Trial Lawyers of America, STEP-Toxic, Environmental and Pharmaceutical Torts Section
• Women's Lawyers Association of Los Angeles
• National Association of Women Lawyers
• George McBurney Complex Litigation Inn of Court
• Member, Lead Counsel, Plaintiffs' Steering Committee, MDL-1574, Paxil Products Liability Litigation

Lectures/Speeches:

• “Successful Handling of Wrongful Death Cases in California,” Lorman Education Services, Los Angeles, CA, August, 2001
• “SSRI Drugs: Suicide, Homicide, Seizures, Dependency, A Scientific Symposium,” Extant Medical Legal Consulting, LLC, Philadelphia, PA, October, 2002
• “Case Management and Electronic Discovery in Pharmaceutical Litigation,” Association of Trial Lawyers of America, Dallas, TX, July, 2003
• “The New Frontier: Emerging Litigation in the Mass Tort Arena: Antidepressants/SSRI’s,“ Mealey’s LexisNexis presents, Wall Street Forum: Mass Tort Litigation Conference, New York, NY, July, 2003
• “The Rising Tide of Pharmaceutical Lawsuits, What the Practitioner Needs to Know About the Future of Psychiatric Drug Litigation,” Safe Harbor’s Third Annual Medical Conference: “Non-Pharmaceutical Approaches to Mental Disorders,” Glendale, CA, June, 2004
• "FDA Oversight of Drug and Medical Devices and Preemption," The American Bar Association Health Law Section and The ABA Center for Continuing Legal Education TeleConference, October, 2004
• “Pharmaceutical Update: Vioxx and SSRIs - SSRIs: The Connection Between Antidepressants, Violence and Suicide,” Association of Trial Lawyers of America TeleConference, October, 2004
• "Federal Preemption – How the U.S. Food & Drug Administration Has Become an Advocate for the Drug Industry Against the Consumers It Has a Duty to Protect" - SSRIs and Collisions Between Medical, Legal and Regulatory Worlds, Presented to the 29th International Congress On Law and Mental Health, Paris, France, July 2-8, 2005 HANDOUT
• "The FDA's Dilemma - Safety Failures, Public Scrutiny and Industry Influence" Topic: What's Wrong at the FDA?, ATLA's Pharmaceutical Seminar, "Trends and Hot Topics in Pharmaceutical Litigation," Las Vegas, NV, September 16-17, 2005
• "Class Actions and MDLs - Hot Topics in Class Actions" - "The Future of Class Action Litigation in America" American Bar Association, Washington, D.C., November 9-11, 2005
• "Antidepressant SSRI-induced Suicide Risks, Public Forum on Antidepressant Drugs: Risks, Benefits and Alternatives," The Recovery System's Clinic, Mill Valley, CA, December 6, 2005
• "Science, Regulation and Litigation Issues Regarding the SSRI-Antidepressants" - "Drug Safety, Best Practices, Litigation Update, Regulatory Developments" Insight Information-ALM, Toronto, Canada, January, 23-25, 2006
• "Best Practices in Plaintiff-oriented Pharmaceutical Litigation - Lessons for Canada" Strategic Panel Discussion and Master Class - "Drug Safety, Best Practices, Litigation Update, Regulatory Developments" Insight Information-ALM, Toronto, Canada, January, 23-25, 2006
• "Protecting the Public: Pharmaceutical and Medical Device Litigation - Panel: Drug Update - Zoloft, Wellbutrin, and other SSRIs" 2006 ATLA Winter Convention, Honolulu, Hawaii, February 18-22, 2006

Author:

• "Biting the Magic Bullet: A Look at the SSRI Litigation" Harris Martin's Columns: Drugs & Supplements. August 2002
• "The Fox in the Chicken Coop" FDA's Recent Intervention in Pharmaceutical Litigation, ATLA Education, 2003
• “The Antidepressant Controversy: The Growth Of A New Area Of Litigation,” Mealey’s Litigation Report Antidepressant Drugs, 2004
• "A Cure Worse Than the Disease - Recent FDA actions and newly disclosed research on the link between antidepressants and suicide – especially among young people – are strengthening plaintiffs’ claims against drug makers" TRIAL, 2005
• "The FDA's Dilemma: Safety Failures, Public Scrutiny, and Industry Influence" ATLA Education, 2005
• "Internet Disclaimers: Do they waive the attorney-client privilege protection?" ABA Conference "The Future of Class Action Litigation in America"
• "Preemption and the FDA -- Politics as Usual" ATLA Annual Conference, February, 2006
• "Preamble To FDA Final Rule: FDA s Latest Effort To Immunize Drug Manufacturers From Tort Liability At The Expense of Consumer Safety" Mealey's Emerging Drugs & Devices, February 2006; Mealey's Litigation Report: Antidepressant Report, February 2006

Honors:

• Listed, Bar Register of Preeminent Lawyers
• Who's Who in America
• Who's Who in American Law
• Who's Who of American Women
• Moot Court Board; National Moot Court and Trial Competitions
• Southern California Super Lawyers – Rising Star, 2004
• Lawyer of the Year, 2004 - Lawyer's Weekly USA
• Southern California Super Lawyer, 2005
• California Lawyer of the Year, 2004 (announced in 2005)
• "40 Under 40" list, The National Law Journal, 2005
• Southern California Super Lawyer, 2006

Pro Bono & Civic Activities:

• Co-counsel for defense in State v. Pittman (S.C.Gen.Sess., NO. 04-GS-12-571, 04-GS-12-572) Zoloft-induced murder case in South Carolina against a boy who was 12 years old at the time.

Governmental Testimony:

• California State Senate Transportation Committee hearing regarding investigation into CalTrans’ oversized truck permits, October 1999
• FDA’s Psychopharmacologic Drugs Advisory Committee and the Pediatric Subcommittee of the Anti-Infective Drugs Advisory Committee hearings regarding the risk of suicide in children and adolescents taking antidepressants, February 2004
• FDA’s Psychopharmacologic Drugs Advisory Committee and the Pediatric Advisory Committee hearings regarding the risk of suicide in children and adolescents taking antidepressants, September 2004
• California State Senate hearing on Antidepressant Drugs and Suicide, regarding antidepressant drugs and suicide, August 4, 2004

Published Cases:

• Prudential Home Mort. Co. v. Superior Court 66 Cal.App.4th 1236 (1998)
• Motus v. Pfizer, Inc. 127 F.Supp.2d 1085 (C.D. Cal. 2000)
• In re Paxil Lit. 218 F.R.D. 242 (C.D. Cal. 2003)
• Cartwright v. Pfizer, Inc. 369 F.Supp.2d 876 (E.D. Tex. 2005)
• Barton v. United States District Court for Central Dist. of Cal. 410 F.3d 1106 (9th Cir. 2005)
• Witczak v. Pfizer, Inc. 377 F.Supp.2d 726 (D. Minn. 2005)

Practice Areas:

• Class Actions
• Complex and Multi-District Litigation
• Consumer Litigation
• Lender Liability
• Personal Injury
• Pharmaceutical Drug Liability
• Product Liability Law
• Wrongful Death Law