2022 Azbee Awards of Excellence

Category

Online > Online Single Topic Coverage by a Team > Northeast

Awarded to

Jeff Overly, Editor-at-Large; Cara Salvatore, Senior Trials Reporter; Emily Field, Senior Reporter; Erin Coe, Max Stendahl and Michael Martinez, Assistant Managing Editors

Entry details

Law360: Opioids on Trial

Issue or publication date: May 28, 2021
Publication name: Law360
Publishing/parent company: Portfolio Media
Website home page: https://law360.com

About the publication's mission and readership:

https://www.law360.com/about

Description of the enterprising work that went into this entry and its significance or impact on readers:

Law360's exclusive reporting delivered numerous revelations in some of the most important litigation in modern U.S. history: cases against the pharmaceutical industry seeking tens of billions of dollars to alleviate an opioid abuse epidemic claiming 75,000 American lives annually.

These revelations included explosive details about an alleged nationwide cover-up by a major drug company and a prestigious law firm; animosity among state attorneys general and their ostensible allies in the plaintiffs bar; and the creation of a vast public trove featuring millions of internal documents showing how prescription opioids were marketed and sold.

A team of reporters publicized further revelations by doggedly tracking daily trial proceedings and traveling to courts across the country. Scores of articles described the high-stakes trajectories of climactic trials and examined major themes, including efforts by Big Pharma to downplay the crisis; attempts by large drugmakers to shift blame to OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma; allegations of judicial bias against drug companies; and emerging doubts about the litigation's central legal theory.

Diving even deeper, Law360 took readers behind the scenes of crucial cases by conducting lengthy interviews with state and federal judges, Department of Justice enforcers, plaintiffs counsel and defense lawyers. The interviews unearthed pivotal details that had never been made public and often illuminated the road ahead for this momentous litigation.

Explanatory graphics helped readers understand the legal landscape and human side of this litigation through reporting that utilized data from diverse sources, including small county courts, state health departments and federal health care agencies.

Links to entry URLs

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Entry URL(s), if applicable:
https://www.law360.com/articles/1352824/opioid-litigation-is-prying-open-vaults-of-big-pharma-secrets
https://www.law360.com/articles/1377680/-what-opioid-crisis-drugmakers-test-bold-claim-in-calif-trial
https://www.law360.com/articles/1388271
https://www.law360.com/articles/1391883/meet-jpml-s-favorite-judge-tasked-with-new-opioid-mdl
https://www.law360.com/articles/1411142

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