Rising star lawyers Eric Chaffin and Roopal Luhana announce the formation of Chaffin Luhana LLP, a boutique law firm focused on representing plaintiffs in mass torts, securities, consumer fraud and whistleblower cases in federal and state courts across the country. Within a week of opening, the firm has won a significant victory in the ongoing litigation for consumers poisoned by zinc in Fixodent denture cream when Judge Sandra Moss in Philadelphia denied Procter & Gamble’s motion to dismiss punitive damages in those cases.
Formerly the founders of the mass tort practice at New York law firm Bernstein Liebhard, Chaffin and Luhana have litigated cases together for injured consumers and shareholders for nearly seven years. Their shared experience includes the IPO Securities Litigation, which recently settled for $586 million, a consumer fraud action against Dell Financial, which settled for $17.5 million, as well as various mass tort and whistleblower actions. Most recently, Chaffin was appointed by federal and state courts to lead denture cream zinc poisoning litigation against GlaxoSmithKline and The Procter & Gamble Company on behalf of injured consumers nationwide. Similarly, Luhana was recently appointed by the federal district court in the Southern District of Illinois to represent women who suffered bodily injury from the popular oral contraceptives Yaz, Yasmin and Ocella.
Eric Chaffin is unique among trial lawyers in the plaintiffs’ bar because he is accomplished both in civil and criminal litigation. Before joining Bernstein Liebhard, Chaffin was a partner at the mass tort boutique, Seeger Weiss LLP, and before that he was an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Criminal Division of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York, where he specialized in securities prosecutions. Prior to that, he was a litigator at Reed Smith LLP, a world class defense firm. Chaffin is also a former law clerk to the Honorable D. Brooks Smith of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania (who now sits on the Third Circuit Court of Appeals).
Roopal Luhana is a former attorney with Bernstein Liebhard and Seeger Weiss, both National Law Journal “Plaintiffs’ Hot List” law firms. Luhana clerked for the Honorable Marina Corodemus when she was the only sitting mass tort judge in the state of New Jersey with one of the most active pharmaceutical litigation dockets in the United States.
Though they are now rising stars in the plaintiffs’ bar, both have humble roots – Chaffin, the son of a steelworker, was raised in West Virginia and Luhana was raised in New Jersey by modest hard-working Indian parents. Their backgrounds, along with a shared, deep commitment to helping those who have been wronged or injured by corporate misdeeds, has shaped the way Chaffin and Luhana practice law and intend to structure their firm.
“At Chaffin Luhana we want to help restore the ideals of our civil justice system and put the focus back on the plaintiffs, where it belongs,” says Chaffin. “You will see some unique things coming out of our firm in the coming months and years in terms of the cases we pursue, how vigorously we pursue them and how we share our successes by giving back to the causes we believe in.”
“We understand the struggles of working class men and women and pride ourselves in giving the little guy a voice in the courtroom,” says Luhana “Our motto at Chaffin Luhana is ‘Doing Good by Doing Right.’”
Chaffin Luhana will exclusively represent injured plaintiffs in trials and appeals, offering quality, experienced trial representation and top-line client service. The firm has shed archaic back-office functions and hardware that bogs down some traditional law firms in favor of a creative, proactive approach to technology that has allowed the firm to hit the ground running. Over the next five years Chaffin and Luhana expect to grow the firm significantly, building a team of attorneys and extensive support staff in New York and around the country who are focused on representing seriously injured consumers and shareholders.
CHAFFIN LUHANA LLP
330 Madison Ave.
6th Floor
NY, NY 10017
(Temporary Address through February 28, 2010)
Toll Free Telephone: (888) 480-1123
Toll Free Fax: (888) 499-1123
