Speaker

Motley Rice

Speaker Bio

A trial lawyer with more than 30 years of experience litigating complex mass torts, Esther Berezofsky has devoted her career to representing communities impacted by environmental contamination and fighting for the rights of consumers, individuals and families impacted by fraud and misconduct across a range of litigation areas.

Esther focuses her practice on protecting the rights and seeking accountability for people harmed by toxic chemical exposure””environmental and occupational””as well as patients who suffer life-altering complications caused by dangerous and defective medical drugs and devices.

Prior to becoming an attorney, Esther practiced as a clinical psychologist and consultant for a national network of law firms on post-traumatic stress and community trauma arising out of environmental disasters such as Three Mile Island, Pa., and Times Beach, Mo. She currently serves on the Executive Committee as class counsel for residents exposed to lead contaminated water in the Flint water crisis litigation, in addition to litigating similar cases in Fresno, Calif. She also represents residents in Kent County, Mich., Hoosick Falls, N.Y. and Petersburgh, N.Y. in litigation against corporations such as 3M, Wolverine, St. Gobain and others accused of manufacturing and wrongfully disposing of PFAS chemicals. She was lead counsel for a cancer cluster of children in Toms River, N.J, the story of which is memorialized in the Pulitzer prize winning book: Toms River: A Story of Science and Salvation.

In addition to her environmental and toxic exposure work, Esther has held numerous leadership positions and represented clients in MDLs and other litigations involving medical drugs and devices including Medtronic Pain and Insulin Pumps, DePuy ASR, Pinnacle and Stryker Hip Implant cases, Benicar, Risperdal, Xarelto, Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT), Ortho Evra, Rezulin, PPA, Invokana, Taxotere, among others. 

She also represents plaintiffs in consumer class actions alleging fraudulent student loan schemes and consumers in pay day lending cases. She has also litigated rent-to-own and option ARM fraudulent mortgage claims, among other consumer protection cases. 

Prior to joining Motley Rice, Esther founded Berezofsky Law Group in New Jersey where she pursued complex consumer mass torts. Prior to that, she was a name partner in a plaintiffs' law firm in Philadelphia for more than two decades. She has been active in the legal community has held leadership roles at several law firms in Philadelphia and New Jersey.

Active in the legal community, Esther previously served as Board President of Public Justice, a national public interest law firm, and continues to serve on its Board of Directors. She also sits on the Board of Governors of the New Jersey Association of Justice and was awarded the Gold Medal for Distinguished Service in 2008. 

She is a frequent speaker and lecturer on matters related to environmental contamination and toxic exposure, product liability and mass torts. She served as an adjunct professor on trial advocacy at Rutgers Law School, her alma mater in 2014. While completing her legal studies at Rutgers Law, Esther served as an articles editor for the Rutgers Law Journal.