The Lanier Law Firm Opens New York Office; Office Features 15-Foot ‘Peter & the Wolf’ Artwork by U2’s Bono

(New York) The Lanier Law Firm, the Houston-based litigation powerhouse that recently won the nation’s first VIOXX-related jury verdict, has opened an office in New York City. The New York Office will operate as The Lanier Law Firm, P.L.L.C.

Heading the office will be the firm’s founder W. Mark Lanier and Richard D. “Rick” Meadow.

Lanier said the decision to open a New York office was cemented by several pre-existing relationships.

"We have great clients in New York and great friends in the New York Bar who we look forward to working with further," said Lanier, who tried the VIOXX case and was featured in a 2004 profile in The American Lawyer magazine titled “Lone Star Rising: Is Mark Lanier America’s Next Great Trial Lawyer?”

Meadow, who has more than two decades of trial experience and several multi-million dollar verdicts and settlements, is joined by attorneys Evan Janush, David Kuttles, and Meredith Gursky.

The office will represent clients in a variety of practice areas, including pharmaceutical liability, commercial litigation, product liability, personal injury, maritime, and medical malpractice. The firm will also work as trial counsel to other plaintiff’s law firms.

In August, a Brazoria County, Texas, jury delivered a $253 million verdict against pharmaceutical giant Merck & Co. The case was one of many The Lanier Law Firm is preparing against pharmaceutical companies whose products have injured or killed those who have taken them. In addition to VIOXX, the Lanier Law Firm represents clients who have taken Neurontin, Zyprexa, Celebrex, Bextra, and Accutane, among others.

The aesthetic highlight of The Lanier Law Firm’s New York office is a 15-foot long mixed-media paint, pencil and charcoal drawing by U2 lead singer and human rights activist Bono and his daughters, Jordan and Eve. The work was created as part of a series designed to accompany a new interpretation of Prokofiev’s Peter & the Wolf by Irish musician and performance artist Gavin Friday. It was purchased at auction at Christie’s, New York in 2003. All funds raised were donated to the Dublin-based Irish Hospice Foundation and targeted to train hospice caregivers in AIDS-ravaged Africa, the USA and elsewhere around the world.

Moving the piece into the firm’s sixth-floor offices in Midtown East was a bit of performance art in itself, requiring more than a dozen workmen and the closure of an entire city block. In a harrowing delivery, a 10-story crane moved the crated artwork to the sixth floor (where workmen had removed a large pane of glass)—only to find the crate was too large to make it through the window.

In a heart-stopping, mid-air maneuver, the artwork was delicately removed from the crate and moved to its new home in The Lanier Law Firm’s offices at 126 E. 56th Street.

For more information on The Lanier Law Firm, visit www.lanierlawfirm.com.