The Managing Partner of Lieff Cabraser's Nashville office, Mark Chalos has been appointed to lead multidistrict litigations and class actions in federal and state courts throughout the country. Mark represents individuals who have suffered catastrophic personal injuries, and consumers, businesses, and municipalities that have been defrauded.
Mark has obtained hundreds of millions of dollars for his clients in jury verdicts, arbitration rulings, and settlements.
To help fight the opioids catastrophe that has devastated communities across America, Mark represents states, large and small counties, cities, Native American tribes, and health benefit providers in litigation that seeks to make our communities safer. In addition to serving on the firm's court-appointed leadership team in the national opioids litigation, Mark recently served as trial counsel in the national bellwether trial on behalf of the City of San Francisco, which resulted in a successful verdict for his client.
Mark also represents families in communities that have been deprived of access to safe drinking water, including in Benton Harbor, Michigan, where residents have been exposed for years to water poisoned with lead and other contaminants.
Mark has also been interviewed by various national media outlets regarding the fight to keep our families and communities safe from opioids, poisoned water, and other person-made catastrophes.
Mark also prosecutes product defect civil cases against U.S. and foreign corporations that make and sell allegedly defective or dangerous consumer products. Some cases involve products causing unfair economic loss, while others involve products causing serious injuries or fatalities. Mark's cases include lawsuits against manufacturers of unsafe motor vehicles, as well as dangerous pharmaceutical drugs and medical devices.
Mark has been appointed to leadership roles in numerous complex civil proceedings, including: Co-Lead MDL Counsel in In re Evenflo Co., Inc. Marketing, Sales Practices and Products Liability Litigation (child booster seats), MDL 2938 (D. Mass); Co-Lead MDL Counsel and Co-Lead Trial Counsel in In re Whirlpool Front Loading Washer Products Liability Litigation, MDL 2001 (N.D. Ohio); Co-Lead Interim Class Counsel in Miller v. Ford (engine failures), Case No. 2:20-cv-01796 (E.D. Ca); Co-Lead Class Counsel in Weidman v. Ford (brake failures), Case No. 2:18-cv-12719 (E.D. MI); Plaintiffs Executive Committee, Murphy v. Graco Children's Products (child booster seats), Case No. 1:20-CV-03030-LMM (N.D. Ga.); and Chair of MDL Expert Committee in In re General Motors Air Conditioning Marketing and Sales Practices Litigation, MDL 2818
(E.D. MI); Plaintiffs Steering Committee, Federal/State Litigation Liaison, in In re New England Compounding Pharmacy, Inc. Products Liability Litigation (fungal meningitis/infections), MDL 2419 (D. Mass); Plaintiffs Steering Committee and Co-Chair Plaintiffs Expert Committee in In re Navistar Diesel Engine Product Liability Litigation, MDL No. 2223 (N.D. Ill); and Plaintiffs Steering Committee in In re Ford Switch Fire Litigation, Texas state MDL, Travis County, Texas, Cause No. D-1-GN-08-000901. He also represents clients in many centralized litigations across the country.
An active member of the legal community, Mark serves as President of the Tennessee Trial Lawyers Association (formerly served as Vice-President, Secretary, and Treasurer of the organization), on its Board of Governors, and as a director of the political action committee Lawyers Involved for Tennessee (LIFT). Mark has also served on the Tennessee Bar Association Continuing Legal Education Committee (Co-Chair), Nashville Bar Association YLD Board of Directors, and the Editorial Board of the Nashville Bar Journal. On the national level, Mark serves as Co-Chair of the American Association for Justice (AAJ) Class Action Litigation Group, Member of the AAJ Public Affairs Committee, and Member of the National Finance Council. He has served as Chair of the AAJ Public Education Committee.
Mark and his co-authors recently updated their acclaimed book, Litigating International Torts In United States Courts (Thomson Reuters West, 2022 ed.), a practical resource for legal practitioners and judges. Mark has also published a number of articles in journals, including articles in the national publications TRIAL Magazine and The Trial Lawyer on holding foreign companies accountable for injuries they cause in the U.S., and has served on the Law360 Product Liability Editorial Advisory Board, providing feedback on Law360's news coverage of the legal world. Mark is currently working a book regarding consumer class actions (Thomson Reuters West, publication forthcoming).
Mark serves as an Adjunct Professor of Law at Vanderbilt Law School, teaching The Practice of Aggregate Litigation. Mark served as a Drafting Team Leader for “œGuidelines And Best Practices For Large And Mass-Tort MDLs,” (2d Edition, 2018), Bolch Judicial Institute, Duke Law School, as well as for “œDiscovery Proportionality Guidelines and Practices,” 99 JUDICATURE, no. 3, Winter 2015, at 47″“60, Duke Law Center for Judicial Studies. He also served on the Select Committee on Class Actions within Emory University School of Law's Institute for Complex Litigation and Mass Claims.
Mark is a frequent speaker at legal seminars nationwide on a variety of civil litigation topics. He has also been cited by top-tier media outlets including The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, The Washington Post, NPR's Morning Edition, The Associated Press, Forbes, CNN, CBS This Morning, FoxNews, and MSNBC. Recently, Mark acted as legal analyst for a series of articles in The Tennessean regarding a nationally significant privacy trial based on illegal videos taken of a woman in a Nashville hotel by another hotel guest and distributed on the internet, leading to a $55 million jury verdict for the plaintiff.
Named “œLawyer of the Year for Product Liability Litigation” by Best Lawyers for 2021, Mark has repeatedly been recognized by The Best Lawyers in America, “œMid-South Super Lawyers,” “œNashville's Best Lawyers,” Benchmark Litigation, the Tennessean, and the Nashville Business Journal's “œBest of the Bar.” Mark has been included in The Best Lawyers in America via peer vote nationwide in the fields of “œMass Tort Litigation/Class Actions-Plaintiffs” from 2012 through 2022. Mark was named in the Nashville Business Journal's “œBest of the Bar” from 2015-2022, to the “œTop 100 Tennessee Superlawyers” for 2015-2021, and to the “œTop 50 Nashville Superlawyers” for 2015-2021, distinctions for attorneys with the highest evaluations region-wide and statewide. Mark was selected by Lawdragon as one of the “œLawdragon 500 Leading Plaintiff Consumer Lawyers in America” for 2019 through 2022. Mark was named an American Bar Foundation Fellow in 2016; the organization is dedicated to advancing justice through rigorous research on the law and membership is limited to 1% of attorneys in each state. Also from 2016″“2022, Mark has been listed as one of Nashville Post's lawyers “œIn Charge.”
Mark is admitted to practice before the United States Supreme Court; United States Court of Appeals for the First, Sixth, and Seventh Circuits; the United States District Court for the Western, Middle, and Eastern Districts of Tennessee; the Northern District of Florida; and the courts of the State of Tennessee. He is a member of the American, Tennessee, and Nashville Bar Associations, as well as the American Association for Justice and Tennessee Trial Lawyers Association.