ELIZABETH RUNYAN GEISE

Elizabeth Geise, head of the Litigation Department in Goodwin Procter's Washington, D.C. office, focuses on litigating and counseling in several areas, primarily products liability, toxic torts, class actions, and insurance coverage disputes. Ms. Geise has practiced before state and federal trial and appellate courts all over the United States.

WORK FOR CLIENTS

Ms. Geise has represented several corporations on a variety of products liability and toxic tort matters, including those arising out of exposure to asbestos and uranium. Her work has involved litigating on toxic tort issues in state and federal courts, as well as strategic planning concerning how corporations should deal with large-scale toxic tort problems, especially those that involve diseases with long latency periods. She has also conducted internal investigations and advised companies on issues related to medical devices.

Ms. Geise has worked for over 10 years as national coordinating counsel for a major building materials manufacturer that is a defendant in thousands of asbestos personal injury lawsuits. In this role, she supervises local counsel throughout the United States and is responsible for the overall defense of the litigation, as well as coordinating and maintaining a consistent litigation strategy on a nationwide basis. In these cases, Ms. Geise manages the discovery, defends or takes depositions, works with experts in many fields, helps develop defense strategy, and participates at trials. In the past five years, Ms. Geise has helped try cases to defense verdicts in state courts in Massachusetts, Illinois, Maryland, Delaware and South Carolina. Also in the field of asbestos litigation, Ms. Geise was part of a team of Goodwin Procter lawyers that represented the Center for Claims Resolution in its efforts to settle the thousands of pending and future personal injury asbestos claims in the Georgine/Amchem nationwide settlement class action. Amchem Products, Inc. v. Windsor, 521 U.S. 591 (1997).

In Lowe v. Continental Insurance Co., Ms. Geise and her colleagues recently obtained partial summary judgment on statute of limitations grounds in a fraud action against several insurers that involved over 10,000 plaintiffs. The case had been pending over seven years in state court in Baltimore. In Rainer v. Union Carbide Corp., 402 F.3d 608 (6th Cir. 2005), Ms. Geise and her colleagues defended General Electric in a medical monitoring class action lawsuit in which plaintiffs claimed injuries due to exposure to plutonium and other transuranic substances from work at a government-owned uranium enrichment plant. After almost five years of discovery and motion practice, the district court granted summary judgment for GE, which was affirmed by the Sixth Circuit followed by the Supreme Court's denial of certiorari.

Ms. Geise has conducted "toxic tort" due diligence on behalf of clients seeking to buy target companies that are vulnerable to such litigation. In this role, she advises clients concerning potential future tort claims, successor liability, insurance coverage, and similar issues.

PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITIES

Ms. Geise is a member of the Defense Research Institute and the American Bar Association. She also served for five years in a pro bono capacity as counsel to the board of trustees of St. Andrew’s Episcopal School in Potomac, Maryland.

MEDIA

John D. Aldock & Elizabeth Runyan Geise, “Preserving (and Even Enhancing) the Client’s Position in the Marketplace” – Strategies for Limiting Product Liability (2007)

Patrick M. Hanlon & Elizabeth Runyan Geise, “Asbestos Reform – Past and Future” – Mealey’s Litigation Report: Asbestos (April 4, 2007)

Developments in the U.S. Asbestos Litigation–2007 – C5 4^th International Asbestos Claims & Liabilities Seminar, January 2008

Creative Approaches to Defending Against Product Identification and Establishing Alternative Exposures – DRI Asbestos Medicine Seminar, November 2008

The Revival of the State of the Art Defense – ALI/ABA Conference, December 2008

Developments in U.S. Asbestos Litigation-2008 – C5 4^th International Asbestos Claims & Liabilities Seminar, January 2009

New Approaches to Defending Against Product Identification Testimony – DRI Asbestos Medicine Seminar, November 2009

Research Techniques for Making the Most of Your Case – DRI Asbestos Medicine Seminar, November 2010

Bankruptcy Trust Claims–Defendant’s Perspective – Perrin Conference, March 2012

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

Ms. Geise was a partner at Shea & Gardner prior to its combination with Goodwin Procter in 2004. Before her work with Shea & Gardner, she clerked for the Honorable Benjamin Kaplan of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court.

BAR AND COURT ADMISSIONS

Ms. Geise is a member of the bars of the District of Columbia (1981) and Maryland (1991). She is also admitted to practice in the U.S. Supreme Court and the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the Third, Sixth, Seventh, and District of Columbia Circuits.

RECOGNITION

While attending law school, Ms. Geise served as a note editor for the Harvard Law Review.