Roberta B. Walburn - Lawyer in Minneapolis, MN

Roberta B.Walburn has focused her legal career on complex, high-stakes litigation. Most notably, she played a pivotal role inthe Minnesota tobacco litigation, representing the State of Minnesota and BlueCross and Blue Shield of Minnesota in their groundbreaking lawsuit against thetobacco industry. After four years oflitigation?including unearthing more than 30 million pages of internaldocuments, litigation of crime-fraud issues, more than a dozen unsuccessfulinterlocutory appeals by the tobacco industry (including two to the U.S.Supreme Court), and four months of trial?the case settled on the eve of jurydeliberations. The settlement providesfor more than $6.6 billion in payments to the State and Blue Cross andunprecedented injunctive relief. For her work on the tobacco litigation, Ms.Walburn, along with Mike Ciresi, received the Trial Lawyer of the Year Awardfrom Trial Lawyers for Public Justice.

Ms. Walburn alsoplayed significant roles in other major cases including: the Bhopal gas leakdisaster litigation (representing the Union of India and, through thegovernment, all victims of the Bhopal disaster in litigation against UnionCarbide Corporation), the Copper-7 IUD litigation (representing women injuredby the Copper-7 intrauterine device), the Honeywell autofocus camera litigation(representing Honeywell Inc. in a series of patent infringement cases againstcamera manufacturers from Japan and the United States), the Eveleth plane crash(representing the families of U.S. Senator Paul and Sheila Wellstone and thefour staff members killed in a charter plane crash in northern Minnesota). She also helpedto represent Alan Page in his successful constitutional challenge to vacate agovernors executive order extending the term of an incumbent justice (whichcleared the path for Alan Pages successful election to the Minnesota SupremeCourt).

Among otherhonors, Ms. Walburn is also listed in Minnesotas Legal Hall of Fame: The 100Most Influential Attorneys in State History and has been commemorated by theUniversity of Minnesota Law School as an alumni who made a difference byshaping the legal landscape for the benefit of society.

Previously, Ms.Walburn worked as a reporter on the Minneapolis Star-Tribune and the Buffalo(N.Y.) Evening News, as a legislative assistant to U.S. Senator Paul Wellstone,and as a senior fellow at the World Health Organization in Geneva, Switzerland.

She also servedas a law clerk to former U.S. District Court Chief Judge Miles W. Lord and hasauthored the book, Miles Lord: The Maverick Judge Who Brought CorporateAmerica to Justice.

Ms. Walburn is acum laude graduate of the University of Minnesota Law School, where she servedon the law review, and received her undergraduate degree in economics from theUniversity of Michigan.

She is a trustee of the Ciresi Walburn Foundation for Children. Learn more at: www.ciresiwalburnfoundation.org.