Migliazzo, Sophie C.

Ms. Merritt’s practice consists of a wide variety of business-related matters resolved through litigation.

She has represented clients in a range of matters including business and commercial litigation, eminent domain proceedings, real estate litigation, products liability and personal injury actions, and insurance litigation and regulatory practice.  Ms. Merritt has appeared as appellate counsel before the Supreme Court of Arkansas and the Arkansas Court of Appeals on a variety of issues including the scope of a trial judge’s authority to grant a new trial based on newly-discovered evidence, “no-injury” product defect claims, the sufficiency of the evidence and propriety of punitive damages in wrongful death actions, the constitutionality of certain regulations of the Arkansas State Plant Board, the qualifications of candidates for elective office, the jurisdiction of a probate judge to enter orders during the pendency of an appeal, land-use appeals, and the appropriate measure of just compensation to a landowner in an eminent domain case.  Recently Ms. Merritt represented a defendant on appeal in which the Arkansas Supreme Court, in a unanimous decision, reversed a $2.5 million judgment and dismissed a complaint in a products-liability case involving a “gray market” product.

Ms. Merritt has been involved in the defense of a number of putative class actions.  These matters include her representation of a publicly-traded food manufacturer and a publicly-traded pharmaceutical company in putative class actions alleging deceptive trade practices, her defense of a title insurance company in a putative class action alleging the unauthorized practice of law, and her defense of a corporate officer in a putative class action alleging breaches of fiduciary duties and violations of state securities law.  Ms. Merritt has also represented manufacturers and distributors of welding consumables in toxic tort suits pending in both federal and state courts alleging personal injury from exposure to welding fumes.

Ms. Merritt spearheaded this firm’s partnership to provide legal services at no charge for clients referred by the Medical-Legal Partnership (“MLP”) at Arkansas Children’s Hospital.  Ms. Merritt also provides pro bono services for other local nonprofit organizations and has served on the Board of Directors of the Arkansas Association of Women Lawyers for the last four years.

Ms. Merritt graduated with high honors from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock School of Law in 2002, where she served as the Notes Editor of the University of Arkansas at Little Rock Law Review.  She received the Arkansas Bar Foundation Ethics Scholar Award (2002); Arkansas Bar Foundation Law Review Writing Excellence Award (2001); and “Top Paper” Awards in Administrative Law (2002), White Collar Crime (2002), Intellectual Property (2001), Legal Profession (Ethics) (2001), and Reasoning, Writing & Advocacy II (2000).

After being admitted to the Arkansas bar in 2002, Ms. Merritt served as law clerk to Chief Judge Jane A. Restani of the U.S. Court of International Trade in New York, New York, from 2002-2004, where she also clerked by designation to the United States Courts of Appeals for the Fifth, Ninth, and Eleventh Circuits. Ms. Merritt is also licensed to practice law before the Supreme Court of the United States, the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, and the United States District Courts for the Western and Eastern Districts of Arkansas.