Nelson Mullins poaches a 17-lawyer mass-tort team from Shook Hardy

Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough said Monday it has hired 17 lawyers, including eight partners, from Shook, Hardy & Bacon, adding a team that defends corporations in multidistrict litigation and giving the firm a new office in Kansas City, Missouri.

The move hands Nelson Mullins a ready-made bench for the consolidated product cases that can pile thousands of claims onto a single company. The group's lawyers hold leadership roles in the federal hair relaxer products liability litigation, the firm said, and the addition lifts its litigation practice to more than 625 lawyers across 39 offices. Managing Partner Jim Lehman called the hires "an important milestone in the continued growth of Nelson Mullins" as the firm expands in key markets nationwide.

The team is led by Patrick Oot, a Shook partner since 2014 who co-chaired its Complex Litigation Strategic Counseling Group and ran its government investigations and white-collar practice. Before Shook, Oot was senior special counsel at the Securities and Exchange Commission and director of electronic discovery at Verizon. His new firm biography says he has held leadership roles in eight of the nation's largest MDLs and mass torts.

Oot's specialty is the first response when a company is in trouble. He advises boards and general counsel when litigation, regulatory scrutiny and reputational risk converge, and he said that when a business faces a recall, a government investigation or a wave of lawsuits, "the decisions made in the first days often shape the outcome for years." He will chair the firm's National Complex Litigation and Strategic Counseling Practice Group.

The partners will work from seven offices: Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Kansas City, Los Angeles, New York and Washington. Chris Cotton, who defends products liability cases involving pharmaceuticals, medical devices and asbestos, will run the Kansas City office as office managing partner. The group also brings Kimberly Priest Johnson, a former U.S. magistrate judge in the Eastern District of Texas, and Veronica Gromada, who spent 17 years as in-house counsel at Walmart managing nationwide litigation portfolios.

The team's science work is led by Tom Sheehan, a New York litigator and epidemiologist who focuses on defending pharmaceutical and biologic products. Nelson Mullins said the group works with epidemiologists, toxicologists and cancer researchers, and that it builds large discovery programs, including AI-driven discovery, to control cost in high-volume cases.

The firm, established in 1897, has more than 1,100 attorneys, policy advisors and professionals. A spokesperson told Law.com the Kansas City office will open by the end of the year.