Kerrie Campbell is a partner in the Firm’s Litigation Department and she is resident in its Washington, DC office. Over 27 years, Ms. Campbell has built a practice focused on all aspects of consumer product safety, risk management, regulatory compliance and related litigation, and on reputation protection, defamation, libel, product disparagement and First Amendment issues and litigation.
One of the leading reputation protection trial lawyers in the country, Ms. Campbell has extensive libel, defamation, product disparagement, commercial speech, Lanham Act and First Amendment litigation experience, in both trial and appellate courts. She has extensive and highly specialized experience advising businesses and individuals on pre- and post-publication issues and strategies to effectively refute and rectify inaccurate and misleading publications in print, broadcast and online media that unfairly harm the reputations of businesses, products, brands and individuals.
Ms. Campbell has represented public figures, including G. Gordon Liddy, Deepak Chopra, and Mark Felt, Sr. (“Deep Throat”) in high-profile cases and obtained the largest defamation jury verdict affirmed by the Virginia Supreme Court against a local news station based on a false and defamatory “I Team” investigative report. She also represented Lt. Colonel Martha McSally—the first woman to command a U.S. Air Force fighter squadron—in her successful challenge of Department of Defense regulations requiring American servicewomen stationed in Saudi Arabia to wear the Islamic abaya and ride in the backseat of vehicles.
Ms. Campbell is lead counsel for World Kitchen, the maker of Pyrex glass cookware, in a pending product disparagement case against a trade publication falsely impugning the safety of American-made glass cookware and on the brief of the Cato Institute as amicus curiae in a pending appeal challenging a New Orleans law requiring tour guides to be tested and certified as an unconstitutional content-based restriction on speech.
In addition to her litigation practice and skills, Ms. Campbell works with global businesses to solve problems and manage risks associated with the development, manufacturing, distribution, marketing and sale of consumer products and services, including evaluating and substantiating the adequacy of warnings and instructions, ensuring compliance with applicable safety standards, analyzing reported incidents and consumer claims to evaluate applicable reporting obligations in the US and abroad, and developing strategies to minimize product liability and class action exposure. Over the course of her career, Ms. Campbell has represented manufacturers, importers, retailers and distributors, large and small, in investigation, enforcement and penalty proceedings before the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, penalty matters referred by the CPSC to the U.S. Department of Justice, and administrative litigation brought by the Federal Trade Commission. She counsels clients on a wide range of issues relating to product safety laws administered by the CPSC, including compliance with mandatory safety standards and reporting requirements, negotiating and implementing product recalls and notice materials, responding to Freedom of Information Act requests, and ensuring adherence to the procedures and protections mandated by Section 6(b) of the Consumer Product Safety Act to prevent the improper disclosure of confidential information and inaccurate or misleading information that unfairly disparages a company or its products. The author of a comprehensive BNA overview article on the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act, Ms. Campbell has counseled companies on compliance with sweeping CPSIA requirements since the law was enacted.
