Litigating vehicle accidents in an age of automated vehicles – by Joel Smith at our Product Liability Conference

Joel Smith of Bowman and Brooke presented a talk on ‘Litigating vehicle accidents in an age of automated vehicles’ at Outer Temple’s half day product liability conference ‘Running product liability, aviation and mass tort claims in the UK & US’. The video and slides are now available.

Outer Temple Chambers hosted a half day conference on product liability claims in the UK and the US in early September 2024. Our specialist barristers were joined by colleagues from around the world to discuss a range of product liability issues and claims, including the differences in defending claims in the UK and the US, the Boeing 737 litigation, and recent vaccine litigation claims, amongst other topics.

The recordings of this event are now available online. Our audience was welcomed by the Chair of event, Nathan Tavares KC of Outer Temple Chambers. Joel Smith of Bowman and Brooke presented the first talk of the conference on ‘Litigating vehicle accidents in an age of automated vehicles’.

The full slide deck from this presentation can be found here.

Watch the talk – Litigating Vehicle Accidents in an Age of Automated Vehicles

About the presenters

Nathan Tavares KC (Chair)

Nathan Tavares KC is a Head of Chambers and specialises in clinical negligence, catastrophic personal injury claims, product liability, and professional negligence. Nathan has many years of experience in product liability claims involving personal injury. His expertise includes medical device litigation through to defective consumer products such as vehicles and machine tools. His instructions have been broadly balanced between claimants and defendants and many claims have involved a foreign element.

Nathan was retained for a number of years by a foreign consumer machine tool manufacturer (GMC Tools) in relation to all of the English product liability claims brought against it, of which there were numerous claims often with B&Q or Homebase co-defending. More recently, he is instructed by an American manufacturer of mesh products in relation to multiple claims in England & Wales arising out of alleged defects in the products. On the claimant side, he has been instructed by numerous claimants in metal-on-metal hip product liability claims predominantly involving De Puy devices, and in a claim arising out of defective implanted cardiac defibrillator (ICD).

Joel H Smith

Joel Smith is a Columbia based Partner at Bowman and Brooke, a leading trial firm with one of the largest product liability practices in the US. The firm has 15 offices around the US.

Joel is a nationally recognized first-chair trial lawyer with more than 40 years of experience dedicated to defending high exposure product liability and mass tort litigation. As lead trial counsel, he has tried to verdict over 20 high-exposure product liability trials across the country. In recent years, he has been a lead counsel in two of the biggest product liability crises to hit the automotive industry, including Toyota’s unintended acceleration litigation and Honda’s handling of the massive recall of Takata air bags.

Previously named a Product Liability MVP by Law360, Joel has represented manufacturers of automobiles, tires, forklifts and other equipment, as well as pharmaceuticals and consumer products. Joel’s experience defending automotive manufacturers in catastrophic injury and wrongful death claims nationwide includes roof crush, air bags, restraints, rollover, crashworthiness, unintended acceleration, and tire defects, among others.

Find out more

If you would like to discuss any of the topics covered, or to find out more on the speakers contact contact Paul Barton on +44 (0)20 7427 4907.

Webinars & Recordings 16 Sep, 2024