Christopher V. Tisi is a partner in the law firm of Ashcraft and Gerel, LLP. He graduated from the State University of New York at Albany, Cum Laude, in 1982 and from Wake Forest School of Law in 1986. He has practiced in all areas of personal injury litigation, but has concentrated on product liability law, pharmaceutical liability and medical malpractice. Mr. Tisi has been admitted to practice law in federal and local courts in the District of Columbia and Maryland. He is a member of the bars of The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, The United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and the United States Supreme Court.

Mr. Tisi has been at the forefront of major pharmaceutical litigation. Recently, Mr Tisi was judicially appointed to the Plaintiffs Steering Committee for the proceedings entitled In Re Vioxx product Liability Litigation, MDL 1657 (E.D.La). In that capacity, Mr. Tisi served as Co-Chair of the Vioxx Plaintiffs Discovery Committee which oversaw all Vioxx-related discovery conducted in the federal courts. In November 2007, the Plaintiff s Steering Committee negotiated a settlement on Vioxx cases totaling 4.85 Billion dollars.

Most recently, Mr. Tisi was appointed to serve as co-chair of the Plaintiffs Discovery Committee for In Re: Gadolinium Based Contrast Agent Litigation, MDL 1909 (N.D.OH). In this role, he is directing master discovery against four (4) manufacturers of MRI contrast dye that caused a debilitating disease called Nephrogenic Systemic Fibrosis (NSF) in patients with kidney impairment.

Previously, Mr. Tisi was appointed to serve as a member of the Discovery and Science Committees for other large pharmaceutical mass tort cases including the following

• In Re: Drug Pharmaceutical Litigation (Fenfluramine/Dexfenfluramine/Phentermine);
• Product Liability Litigation, MDL 1203 (E.D. Pa),

In Re: Rezulin Product Liability Litigation, MDL 1348 (S.D. N.Y.),

In Re: Phenvipropanolamine Product Liability Litigation, MDL 1407 (D. Wash)  In re Zvprexa Products Liability Litigation, MDL 1596 (E.D.N.Y.).

In total, the recoveries for plaintiffs in these cases have exceeded 20 Billion Dollars.

In addition to his Mass Tort experience, Mr. Tisi has achieved significant jury verdicts and settlements on behalf of his clients. In 2003, Mr. Tisi was co-trial counsel in a landmark case in which a jury returned a 2 million dollar ($2,000,000) compensatory and punitive damage award against the manufacturer of Rezulin, a diabetes drug. In addition, Mr. Tisi argued and won an appeal affirming the right of plaintiffs to proceed to trial in a case where his client received a transfusion of AIDS-tainted blood. He has won numerous trials and appeals in a wide variety of cases, including medical malpractice and products liability cases.

Mr. Tisi has frequently lectured to trial lawyers throughout the country on mass tort litigation and general trial practice issues. He has lectured on topics such as the use of scientific and medical evidence in a phamiaceutical case, how to try a failure to warn case, how to rebut defenses in a pharmaceutical case, how to review raw clinical trial data and the ethics of mass tort settlements.

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