Shafer, Darcy A.

Ms. Semilof defends corporate clients in toxic tort and pharmaceutical products liability litigation. She has special expertise in presenting, defending, and cross-examining expert witnesses, including experts in highly specialized fields such as epidemiology, teratology, oncology, immunology, dermatology, neurotoxicology, neuropsychology, cardiology, and pediatric neurology. Ms. Semilof has appeared in forums throughout the country in matters involving welding fumes, chlorinated and other synthetic pesticides and fumigants and is counsel and national coordinating trial counsel on multiple pending chemical exposure matters on behalf of manufacturers as well as commercial end-users. She also defends claims of work-site chemical exposures.

In 2004, in Ballentine v. Terminix Int’l Co., Ms. Semilof succeeded in the Firm’s Daubert/McDaniel effort on behalf of Terminix in which the court excluded all of plaintiffs’ causation testimony in a mass tort case.

In 2002, Ms. Semilof defended Stauffer Chemical Company in a putative medical monitoring class action brought on behalf of thousands of former workers in an elemental phosphorous plant who alleged exposure to more than a dozen substances including silica, asbestos, lead, chromium, and phosphorous. The trial court’s opinion rejecting certification after a four-day evidentiary hearing demonstrated how expert witnesses can be used to defeat class certification.

Ms. Semilof is heavily involved in the defense of causation issues, including preparation of the defense expert slate, in the welding fume litigation pending in state and federal courts, including the welding fume multidistrict litigation in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio.

Ms. Semilof has lectured on toxics practice at several private seminars.