Lawrie E. Demorest

• National trial counsel (1st chair) for a Fortune 50 major supplier of asbestos. Has served as lead trial counsel on over a dozen such teams in the last three years, taking several cases to jury trial.
• National trial team (1st chair) for a major friction supplier’s asbestos litigation.
• National counsel team for a tissue bank in multijurisdictional human allograft litigation.
• National counsel to a large national REIT in its class action mold litigation. Also litigation counsel for the owner of a large apartment complex in the first multiparty, mold litigation filed in Atlanta.
• Lead counsel in lead paint litigation for a major national retailer, which resulted in its early dismissal from a multiparty action in Mississippi, a dangerous jurisdiction.

Lawrie Demorest is a first chair trial lawyer with over thirty years’ experience which includes leading national trial and litigation teams in mass torts and high-exposure single plaintiff claims. She defends toxic tort, medical device, pharmaceutical and consumer products cases around the country, all of which involve in-depth work with expert witnesses in various fields of science and medicine. Lawrie has tried over 60 cases across the country with a strong success record, leading “virtual” trial teams in a number of the U.S. “judicial hellholes.” Because of her trial experience, and her ability to translate difficult concepts of science and medicine to juries, she has regularly been retained as lead trial counsel shortly before the start of trial.

Lawrie’s representation encompasses prelitigation counseling, crisis management, developing and implementing strategies to shut down pending and potential individual and class actions, managing local counsel and mass trial dockets, and effecting settlements through various forms of alternative dispute resolution and non-litigation solutions.

Lawrie is co-leader of Alston & Bird’s Toxic Torts practice and is listed in The Best Lawyers in America^© in the area of product liability litigation. She is former co-chair of the Board of Directors of the Human Rights Campaign and formerly served on the Board of Directors of the National LGBT Bar Foundation.

Bar Admissions

• Georgia
• Massachusetts

Education

• Emory University (J.D., 1981)
• Franklin & Marshall College (B.A., 1976)