Baum Hedlund

Industry:	Law Firms & Legal Services
Revenues:	$5.1 Million
Employees:	47

Description

Baum Hedlund is one of the leading national law firms representing antidepressant suicide and suicide attempt victims across the country. The firm represents approximately 50 victims, over one third of those are children and adolescents.

Since 1990, Baum Hedlund has been handling SSRI (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors) suicide/violence cases and served on the Plaintiffs' Steering Committee in the first SSRI-suicide litigation involving Prozac (the first SSRI approved by the FDA for marketing in the U.S.).

Baum Hedlund partner, Karen Barth Menzies, heads the firm's SSRI-Antidepressant Litigation Department and is Lead Counsel for the Plaintiffs' Steering Committee (MDL-1574) Paxil Products Liability Litigation. In addition to her court activities, she has testified about the dangers of SSRIs before the California State Assembly and the Food and Drug Administration's Psychopharmacologic Drugs Advisory Committee and met with members of the House and Senate regarding the risk of antidepressant induced suicidality. In 2004 Ms. Menzies was named Lawyer of the Year by Lawyer's Weekly, California Lawyer of the Year by California Lawyer magazine and in 2005 one of The National Law Journal's Top 40 Under 40 for her "extraordinary achievements" and "impressive track record" for "stepping up her fight in the past few years, advocating that pharmaceutical companies should warn about the alleged risks of antidepressant drugs."

News Archive

Paxil and preemption: Last stand of a defense argument Lawyers USA; 9/25/2009 ...family of a 23 year-old college student who committed suicide after taking Paxil. Their attorney, Bijan Esfandiari of Baum Hedlund Aristei & Goldman in Los Angeles, will argue that a warning label about suicidality that GlaxoSmithKline added in 2006... ...more

Glaxo used ghostwriting program to promote Paxil AP Online; 8/19/2009 ...for publication. The document was uncovered by the Baum Hedlund PC law firm of Los Angeles, which is representing hundreds...said McHenry, who works as a research consultant for Baum Hedlund. But to create an internal ghostwriting program and... ...more

Court denies preemption in Paxil suicide attempt case Lawyers USA; 8/10/2009 ...sales above safety will be held accountable," said the plaintiffs' attorney Bijan Esfandiari, who practices at Baum, Hedlund, Aristei & Goldman in Los Angeles. The case is Forst et al. v. SmithKline Beecham Corp., No. 2:07- cv-00612... ...more