Profile

John C. Dougherty is a trial lawyer who concentrates his practice on major commercial, civil, and product safety matters. He serves as co-chair of Haug Partners LLP's Life Sciences Practice and is a member of the firm's Executive Committee.

Mr. Dougherty has nearly 25 years of experience representing public and private companies in commercial and business matters, including disputes arising out of merger and acquisition, development, collaboration, licensing, supply and sourcing, and management agreements. He has litigated these cases in federal and state courts and in national and international arbitration forums. Mr. Dougherty also helps avoid or manage commercial or business risks by advising clients at the due diligence, contract formation, project management or pre-dispute stages. He regularly counsels clients on commercially reasonable efforts and other diligence clauses, and consults on best practices in all aspects of alliance management.

On product safety matters, Mr. Dougherty has acted as lead counsel, national coordinating counsel, and trial counsel in a variety of maters alleging personal injury and related claims. He has developed strategies to help companies manage their national tort dockets, and to coordinate the defense of those matters both nationally and internationally. In addition to litigating those matters, Mr. Dougherty has served national resolution counsel, helping the senior leadership of companies consider, design, and execute settlement and endgame strategies for mass actions or difficult one-off cases.

He also defends life science companies in shareholder or derivative class actions, particularly around allegations involving clinical trial or product performance data. His consumer fraud class action experience includes defending pharmaceutical and food companies against allegations brought by consumers, state attorney's generals, insurance companies and other payors.

Mr. Dougherty's background, which also includes representing clients in criminal, patent, regulatory, and appellate matters, as well as his experience in internal investigations, compliance, crisis management and the leadership of large multi-disciplinary teams, makes him a trusted advisor to clients faced with company-sensitive matters, especially those involving scientific, medical, and regulatory issues.

Mr. Dougherty has built and managed global client-service teams, and works closely with clients to design effective and efficient outside counsel relationships. He is experienced in leading and coordinating "virtual firms" drawn from multiple outside law firms, and pioneered many techniques and systems for managing large teams and their budgets.