Ellen T. Noteware

Biography

Ms. Noteware has successfully represented investors, retirement plan participants, employees, consumers, and direct purchasers of prescription drug products in a variety of class action cases. She currently chairs the firm’s Pro Bono Committee.

Ms. Noteware served on the trial team for Cook v. Rockwell Int’l Corp. No. 90-181 (D. Colo.) and received, along with the entire trial team, the “Trial Lawyer of the Year” award in 2009 from the Public Justice Foundation for their work on the case, which resulted in a jury verdict of $554 million in February 2006, after a four-month trial, on behalf of thousands of property owners near the former Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant located outside Denver, Colorado. The jury verdict was then the largest in Colorado history and was the first time a jury has awarded damages to property owners living near one of the nation’s nuclear weapons sites. In 2008, after extensive post-trial motions, the District Court entered a $926 million judgment for the plaintiffs. The jury verdict in the case was vacated on appeal in 2010. In 2015, on a second trip to the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals, Plaintiffs secured a victory with the case being sent back to the district court. In 2016, the parties reached a $375 million settlement, which received final approval in 2017.

Ms. Noteware also has played a leading role in numerous antitrust cases representing direct purchasers of prescription drugs. Many of these cases have alleged that pharmaceutical manufacturers have wrongfully kept less expensive generic drugs off the market, in violation of the antitrust laws. Many of these cases have resulted in substantial cash settlements, including In re: Namenda Direct Purchaser Antitrust Litigation, (S.D.N.Y.) ($750 million settlement – largest single-defendant settlement ever for a case alleging delayed generic competition); In re Loestrin 24 Fe Antitrust Litigation, (D.R.I.) ($120 million settlement 3 weeks before trial was set to begin); In re Ovcon Antitrust Litigation, (D.D.C.) ($22 million settlement); In re Tricor Direct Purchaser Antitrust Litigation, (D. Del.) ($250 million settlement); Meijer, Inc. v. Abbott Laboratories, (N.D. Cal.) (Norvir) ($52 million); and In re Celebrex, No. 14-cv-00361 (E.D. Va.) ($95 million).

Ms. Noteware is also extensively involved in litigating breach of fiduciary duty class action cases under the Employee Retirement Income Securities Act (“ERISA”). Her ERISA settlements include: In re Nortel Networks Corp. ERISA Litigation (M.D. Tenn.) ($21 million settlement); In re Lucent Technologies, Inc. ERISA Litigation (D.N.J.) ($69 million settlement); In re SPX Corporation ERISA Litigation (W.D.N.C.) ($3.6 million settlement); Short v. Brown University, (D.R.I.) ($3.5M settlement plus requirement that independent adviser for ERISA plans be retained); Dougherty v. The University of Chicago, No. 1:17-cv-03736 (N.D. Ill.) ($6.5M settlement); and Nicolas v. The Trustees of Princeton University, No. 3:17-cv-03695 (D.N.J.) (settlement announced).

Ms. Noteware is a graduate of Cornell University (B.S. 1989) and the University of Wisconsin-Madison Law School (J.D. cum laude 1993) where she won the Daniel H. Grady Prize for the highest grade point average in her class, served as Managing Editor of the Law Review, and earned Order of the Coif honors. She is currently a member of the Pennsylvania, New York, and District of Columbia bars.