Bill focuses his practice on defending major companies in high-stakes complex product liability, class action and consumer fraud litigation, with a focus on legal issues, error identification and preservation, and appellate litigation. Bill is a creative thinker who develops innovative strategies to best defend against and prevent litigation. He provides superior representation in all aspects in litigation from initial pleadings through appeal.
An experienced appellate litigator, Bill has extensive knowledge in federal appellate practice and procedure and has assisted firm clients in matters pending before various U.S. Courts of Appeals and the U.S. Supreme Court. Bill has been the primary author of several appellate briefs before various state and appellate courts, and he has argued appeals before the Eighth and Tenth Circuits. Bill’s argument in a significant pharmaceutical appeal before the Eighth Circuit was noted by American Lawyer Daily.
Bill has also worked on several amicus briefs on issues as varied as school finance and climate change, and he has assisted in the preparation of two petitions for certiorari to the U.S. Supreme Court. Bill has extensive experience with interlocutory appeals, and he has prepared several petitions for permissive appeals and extraordinary writs.
Bill has also worked on all aspects of trial work-up and preparation. He has leveraged his appellate skills at the trial court level by briefing, arguing and winning significant dispositive motions for his clients in state and federal courts.
Bill has extensive class action experience and has guided clients facing unfair trade practices, consumer fraud, biometric privacy and breach of contract class actions. He is experienced in defending statutory consumer protection claims brought both by individuals and state attorneys general. He was recently involved in resolving a multi-year state attorney general deceptive trade practices investigation for a major medical device company.
Before law school, Bill served as a supply officer in the United States Navy.
Publications
Mark A. Behrens and William F. Northrip, Department of Justice Combats Asbestos Trust Abuse, 86 Def. Counsel J. (January 2019).
William F. Northrip and Manuel López, Guarding the Flanks: Keeping Negligence Per Se from Being an End Run Around Medical Device Preemption, RX for the Defense (DRI Drug and Medical Device Committee Newsletter) Vol. 21, Issue 3 (July 16, 2013).
Marie Woodbury, Christopher Gramling & William Northrip, Keeping the Lid on Pandora’s Box: Using Traditional Limits on Liability to Defend Corporate Defendants Against Civil Liability Based on Criminal Misuse of Legal Products, 8:8 Mealey’s Personal Injury Report, October 24, 2011, at 16.
Tristan L. Duncan, Manuel López & William F. Northrip, Tenth Circuit Limits First Amendment Privacy Rights of Advocacy Groups, Energy Committees Newsletter (ABA Section of Env’t, Energy & Resources), October 2011, at 7.
Tristan L. Duncan, William F. Northrip, & Kevin R. Corlew, Border Wars: Political Questions Presented by Common-Law Claims in Climate Change and Fuel Temperature Litigation, Energy Committees Newsletter (ABA Section of Env’t, Energy & Resources), April 2010, at 10.
Laura Clark Fey, Scott D. Kaiser & William F. Northrip, The Supreme Court Raised its Voice: Are the Lower Courts Getting the Message? Punitive Damages Trends After State Farm v. Campbell, 56 Baylor L. Rev. 807 (2004).
William F. Northrip, Running Aground on the (Shoal) Waters of the United States: The Supreme Court Invalidates The Migratory Bird Rule, 66 Mo. L. Rev. 903 (2001).
Multimedia
BIZLIT | TODAY: Biometric Litigation, American Lawyer Media, May 22, 2023.