About Rebecca
Rebecca G. Newman is a senior associate with the firm who focuses her efforts primarily in the areas of pharmaceutical products liability and environmental toxic tort litigation.
Ms. Newman was born in Atlanta, Georgia, and raised in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. She graduated from Vassar College with a Bachelor of Arts, majoring in both Political Science and French language. After working as a legal assistant for two years following college, she attended Brooklyn Law School, where she served as a Primary Articles Editor on Brooklyn Law School’s Journal of Law and Policy. She received her Juris Doctor and graduated cum laude.
Following graduation, Ms. Newman began working with the firm, where she has continuously and diligently devoted her energy to representing injury victims and consumers, primarily in the mass tort and class action context.
For approximately the last five years, Ms. Newman has been integrally involved with representing the firm’s clients in litigation concerning perfluorinated alkyl substances (“PFAS”), and in particular, perfluorooctanoic acid (also known as “PFOA” and/or “C8”), in the In re E. I. du Pont de Nemours C8 Personal Injury Litigation, pending before the Honorable Edmund A. Sargus, Jr. in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio.
Ms. Newman’s involvement in this litigation included representation of thousands of clients who alleged injury resulting from exposure to PFAS through their public drinking water supplies. She was instrumental in helping prepare multiple bellwether cases for trial, including developing evidence to support both generic and specific theories of liability, retaining qualified experts, handling multiple fact witness depositions, and assisting in the preparation of expert reports, legal research, and legal writing both prior to and during the bellwether trials.
Ms. Newman’s hard work and dedication in developing the case against DuPont helped lead to a settlement of more than 3,500 cases for approximately $671 million.
Likewise, in the environmental context, Ms. Newman represents multiple counties throughout the United States in litigation involving PFAS in their efforts to eliminate PFAS from drinking water supplies and remediate PFAS contamination in ground and surface water. These cases are pending throughout the country, with a large number centralized in the District of South Carolina at Charleston.
On the pharmaceutical side, during the last three years, Ms. Newman has represented the firm’s clients who suffered bleeding events as a result of their use of the novel oral anticoagulant Xarelto.
In this role, Ms. Newman was a member of two state court trials in the consolidated Philadelphia litigation, including the only one to obtain a plaintiff’s verdict. In 2019, a $775 million settlement was secured for plaintiffs in the Xarelto litigation.
Ms. Newman is currently admitted to practice law in the States of New York and New Jersey, as well as in the United States District Courts for the Eastern District of New York, Southern District of New York, District of New Jersey, District of Colorado, and Eastern District of Wisconsin. She is also admitted to practice in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims.
Ms. Newman is an active member of the New York State Trial Lawyers Association (NYSTLA) and the American Association of Justice (AAJ).
