Russell D. Paul

Biography

Russell Paul is a Shareholder in the Consumer Protection; Whistleblower, Qui Tam & False Claims Act; Securities & Investor Protection; and Commercial Litigation practice groups. He concentrates his practice on consumer class actions, False Claims Act litigation, securities class actions and derivative suits, and commercial litigation matters.

Mr. Paul has litigated consumer protection and product defect actions in the automotive, pet food, beverage, tax shelter, e-cigarette, and home products industries. Over the last several years, Mr. Paul has been heavily involved in the ongoing litigation against JUUL, having been one of the first attorneys in the country to file a class action against JUUL and its executives for fraudulent marketing practices.

In addition to lobbying Congress about JUUL, Mr. Paul spoke on a panel titled “JUUL and Our Kids: Marketing and Promoting the JUUL Device From ‘Vaporized’ to ‘Make the Switch’” at HarrisMartin’s JUUL, E-Cigarettes & Vaping Conference: Emerging Litigation and Liability Theories in St. Louis, MO (Sept. 18, 2019) and in Philadelphia, PA (Oct. 18, 2019).

He is currently representing millions of consumers in automotive defect class actions around the country against Fiat Chrysler, Ford, General Motors, Honda, Kia Hyundai, Mitsubishi, Nissan, Mercedes-Benz, Subaru, Toyota, and Volkswagen. Within the past several years, he has been appointed to a leadership position in several automotive defect cases, including Francis v. General Motors, LLC, No. 2:19-cv-11044-DML-DRG (E.D. Mich.), ECF No. 40 (appointed as member of Plaintiffs’ Steering Committee); Weston v. Subaru of America, Inc., No. 1:20-cv-05876 (D.N.J.), ECF No. 49 (appointed as Interim Co-Lead Counsel); Miller v. Ford Motor Co., No. 2:20-cv-01796 (E.D. Cal.) ECF No. 60 (appointed to Interim Class Counsel Executive Committee); Powell v. Subaru of America, Inc., No. 1:19-cv-19114 (D.N.J.), ECF No. 26 (appointed as Interim Co-Lead Counsel); and Wood, et al., v. FCA US LLC, 5:20-cv-11054-JEL-APP (E.D. Mich.) (appointed as member of Plaintiffs’ Steering Committee).

He presented at the HarrisMartin conference titled “Emerging Trends in the Prosecution and Defense of Auto Defect Litigation” in Tampa, FL (January 28, 2020) on the panel “This Has Nothing to Do With Emissions: Auto-Defect Mega Cases Spooling Up Now.” 

Mr. Paul has litigated securities class actions against numerous public companies, including Toll Brothers, Tyco International Ltd., Baxter Healthcare Corp., ALSTOM S.A., and Able Laboratories, Inc. He has also litigated derivative actions in various state courts around the country, including in the Delaware Court of Chancery.

In addition, Mr. Paul’s work includes qui tam cases that have returned millions of dollars to the federal government. He has also briefed and argued in federal appellate courts around the country.

Mr. Paul has been designated a “Pennsylvania Super Lawyer,” a “Top Attorney in Pennsylvania,” and a Lawdragon 500 Leading Plaintiff Financial Lawyer. He has presented around the country at legal seminars on consumer product class actions, and his work has been profiled in the Wall Street Journal.

He has also lectured and written on class action litigation generally, including publishing “The Case for Separately Tracked Leadership Appointments in MDLs”, The Legal Intelligencer, January 23, 2020) and lecturing at The Global Class Actions Symposium 2021 at The Law Society in London in November 2021 on the role of the plaintiffs’ lawyer as a private attorney-general in U.S.-based class actions and key issues for a claimant class action lawyer.

Mr. Paul graduated from the Columbia University School of Law (J.D. 1989) where he was a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar, served on the Moot Court Review Board, and interned at the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York. He began his legal career in the New York office of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom. 

He completed his undergraduate studies at the University of Pennsylvania, earning a B.S. in Economics from the Wharton School (1986) and a B.A. in History from the College of Arts and Sciences (1986). He was elected to the Beta Gamma Sigma Honors Society.