Laura Kingsley Hong is a trial lawyer with extensive experience in the defense of class action, mass and toxic tort, and product liability litigation. She serves as national, trial and local counsel for several companies. As national and trial counsel, she manages and assists local counsel, insurance companies and corporations in the defense of mass and toxic tort, and product liability claims. As trial counsel, Laura appears in state and federal courts throughout the United States, has jury tried several cases to verdict as well as commenced jury trials in several state courts involving both individual and consolidated claims. As local counsel, Laura partners with national and trial counsel providing the defense team with the nuances of local practice. She also has arbitrated before the American Arbitration Association.

Laura enters her 15th year of being rated AV by Martindale-Hubbell Peer Review Ratings, its highest ranking for legal ability and professional ethics. She was featured in The American Lawyer's “Big Suits” column detailing a victory on behalf of BP. Her testimony supporting Ohio’s Asbestos Medical Criteria Bill (H.B. 292) helped shape that legislation and is cited in its legislative history. Laura also testified before the US Senate Subcommittee on Criminal Justice Oversight, Committee on the Judiciary, regarding enforcement of the International Parental Kidnapping Act. She was named a 2010 and 2011 Ohio Super Lawyer by Thomson Reuters, a distinction honoring the top 5 percent of lawyers in the state. She again appears in The Best Lawyers in America 2012.

Laura’s article, “Apportioning Liability in Asbestos Litigation: A Review of the Law in Key Jurisdictions,” appeared in the Thomas M. Cooley Law Review, Vol. 26, No. 3, 2009. Laura is a former law professor of trial tactics for Case Western Reserve University, and a frequent lecturer on topics relating to toxic tort and product liability litigation. She is a Fellow in the Litigation Council of America (by invitation), past president of the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association, past president of the Federal Bar Association, Northern District of Ohio Chapter, member of the Ohio and Cleveland Associations of Civil Trial Attorneys, the Defense Research Institute and a Fellow of the Cleveland Metropolitan Bar Association. She was a recipient of the YWCA Greater Cleveland Women of Achievement Award in 1999 and a Woman of Professional Excellence Award in 2010. Laura serves as our Cleveland office Mentoring Coordinator.

Repräsentative Mandate

• Winning a defense jury verdict as lead trial counsel in a wrongful death mesothelioma case on behalf of a lone defendant under OPLA.
• Briefing a winning motion for summary judgment on successor liability in a Louisiana case through the appellate process.
• Supporting a defense jury verdict as lead trial support coordinator in a class action refinery contamination case in Southeast Kansas.
• Winning a defense jury verdict as lead trial counsel in a mesothelioma death case on behalf of a lone defendant.
• Defending a wire supplier in cases filed by experimental participants in the Functional Electrical Stimulation Program.
• Winning a defense jury verdict as lead medical counsel in a severe pulmonary fibrosis case.
• Winning a defense jury verdict in a mesothelioma death case on behalf of a thermal insulation manufacturer.
• Defending a nursing home and enforcing a settlement for claims made pursuant to the Nursing Home Bill of Rights.
• Winning a fraudulent inducement claim in a bench trial in federal court, which was reversed by the US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.