Biography • Product Liability Defence

Sherry Knutson is a partner in Sidley Austin LLP's Chicago office. Ms Knutson's practice ranges from multi-plaintiff, multi-jurisdiction litigations to single plaintiff cases. Her mass tort experience includes complex multidistrict and related state litigation, class actions, and national coordination and defence of product liability and toxic tort cases, including Actos, gadolinium-based contrast agents, Yaz, Trasylol, Celebrex/bextra, Baycol and latex gloves. She also has served as lead counsel in individual lawsuits involving a variety of personal injury claims.

Ms Knutson has trial experience in product liability and toxic tort cases, including being part of a trial team that obtained a favorable result in a hydrogen sulfide exposure case. In addition, she has extensive experience in all phases of pretrial litigation on the national and local level. She has conducted all forms of pretrial discovery, including fact investigation, discovery requests and responses, depositions of fact and expert witnesses, and defence expert development. She has drafted and argued numerous pretrial motions, including motions to dismiss, summary judgment motions, Daubert motions, and post-trial motions. She also has authored several briefs and petitions filed in appellate courts across the country, and has argued multiple appeals.

Ms Knutson is a member of the American Bar Association and the Defense Research Institute. She clerked for the Honorable N Patrick Crooks, Wisconsin Supreme Court, 1996-1997. Ms Knutson received her JD (with high honors) from the Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago-Kent College of Law in 1996 and her BA (magna cum laude) from Marquette University in 1993. Admissions include: Illinois; Wisconsin; various US Court of Appeals and US District Courts.