William Gage

Practice Areas

Product Liability Litigation; Drug and Device Litigation; Trials

Career

William is an attorney in Butler Snow LLP’s Pharmaceutical, Medical Device & Healthcare Litigation Group. He previously served as Chair of the firm’s Litigation Department. He is a trial attorney with more than 30 years of experience in drug and medical device, product liability, personal injury and mass torts litigation.

William served as MDL lead counsel for Johnson & Johnson and Ethicon, Inc. in In re: Ethicon, Inc., Pelvic Repair Systems Products Liability Litigation, MDL No. 2327, United States District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia, one of the largest litigations in U.S. history. He also serves as MDL lead counsel in In re: Ethicon Physiomesh Flexible Composite Hernia Mesh Products Liability Litigation, MDL No. 2782, United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia. He previously served as statewide coordinating counsel for the Wyeth diet drug litigation and trial counsel in the New Jersey Accutane litigation.

Profiled as one of Law360’s 2016 Trial Pros, William has extensive trial experience. He was retained in 2019 as lead trial counsel in a Washington state attorney general action related to pelvic mesh that resolved shortly before trial. He was also retained in 2019 as co-lead trial counsel in a first-of-its-kind eight-week bench trial in an attorney general action in California involving pelvic mesh. Over the past eight years, he tried eight product liability mesh cases to verdict, obtaining defense verdicts in the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas (2017) and in state court in Dallas, Texas (2015). The Texas trial was one of Law360’s 2015 Product Liability Trials to Watch, and the verdict was named as one of CVN’s Top 10 Defense Verdicts of 2015.

William is recognized by many prestigious industry publications, including Chambers USA (nationwide Product Liability & Mass Torts), The Legal 500 US (recognized in the editorial for nationwide Product Liability, Mass Tort and Class Action: Pharmaceuticals and Medical Devices – Defense), Who’s Who Legal: Product Liability Defence, Benchmark Litigation, The Best Lawyers in America, and Mid-South Super Lawyers. Additionally, Best Lawyers in America named William as the 2023 Lawyer of the Year for Product Liability Litigation – Defendants for the Jackson, MS area. He is a Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers and the International Academy of Trial Lawyers. He has presented on numerous occasions about litigation and trial-related topics, including speaking at the Defense Research Institute’s Product Liability Conference, the DRI Drug and Medical Device Seminar, the Contemporary Issues in Complex Litigation Conference at Northwestern Pritzker School of Law, and the American Conference Institute’s Drug & Medical Device Litigation Seminar.

He received his J.D. and B.Accty., both cum laude, from the University of Mississippi. He is admitted to practice in Mississippi.

Professional Memberships

American Bar Association; Defense Research Institute (DRI); Lawyers for Civil Justice; Mississippi Bar Association; Mississippi Defense Lawyers Association.

Personal

University of Mississippi, J.D., cum laude, 1990; B.A., cum laude, Accountancy, 1987