Butler Snow LLP is pleased to announce that attorney Kari L. Sutherland has once again been named a member of the Top 250 Women in Litigation for 2024 by Benchmark Litigation. Sutherland has been recognized on this list since 2016.
“We are proud of Kari and her latest achievement,” said Christopher R. Maddux, chair of Butler Snow. “Her inclusion as one of Benchmark Litigation’s Top 250 Women in Litigation highlights her exceptional skill. She continues to be a recognized leader in our field providing exceptional service to our clients.”
This year marks the thirteenth edition of Benchmark Litigation’s Top 250 Women in Litigation. The 2024 list involved months of investigation into individual litigators’ professional activities as well as client feedback surveys and one-on-one interviews, and has culminated in the selection of the most distinguished women in the world of litigation.
Since its inception in 2008, Benchmark Litigation has been the only publication on the market to focus exclusively on litigation in the U.S. and strives to provide the most accurate and comprehensive information in the industry.
Sutherland is a trial attorney and focuses her practice on pharmaceutical and medical device product liability litigation. She represents clients in significant personal injury actions in courtrooms across the country. In 2022, she served as lead trial counsel for Johnson & Johnson in the District of Arizona and won a unanimous defense verdict after a jury trial involving decommercialized pelvic mesh products. Later in 2022, she again served as lead trial counsel for J&J in the District of Arkansas and won a unanimous defense verdict in another pelvic mesh case. Between those two trial wins, she served as trial counsel in the Southern District of Mississippi in a balloon implant case involving serious injuries, and again secured a unanimous defense verdict. Her other pharmaceutical product liability defense verdicts include those resulting from trials in California, Illinois and Louisiana.
Sutherland’s additional experience includes managing national counsel teams consisting of firms across the nation in two of the largest product litigations in history. Among other memberships, she is a Senior Fellow of the Litigation Counsel of America and a member of the Trial Attorneys of America. She also invests in younger lawyers with significant professional development work.
Sutherland is a former Special Agent with the United States Secret Service. She received a 2017 Burton Award and a 2018 Mississippi Defense Lawyers Association “The Quarterly” Editorial Award for her written work. She frequently speaks and authors articles on litigation and trial-related topics, including for Butler Snow’s Pro Te: Solutio and publications such as Law360.
Sutherland obtained her J.D., with special distinction, from Mississippi College and B.S., cum laude, from the University of Alabama. She is admitted to the State Bars of Mississippi, Tennessee and Montana.
