Bill Austin joined the firm in 1980 and became a partner in 1986. For more than 25 years, he has focused his practice on the defense of toxic tort and product liability cases involving a broad array of products ranging from workplace chemicals to cellular phones, motor vehicles and construction equipment.

Since 2002, he also has participated in a series of suits filed on behalf of individual and tribal trust beneficiaries against the United States seeking redress for defendants' failure to properly account for the handling of lands and funds held in trust and other breaches of trust duties.

Mr. Austin has successfully defended chemical suppliers in toxic tort litigation in a half dozen different jurisdictions (including California and Texas), and represented a major southeastern utility company in a series of lawsuits in Waycross and Brunswick, Georgia alleging the contamination of plaintiffs’ properties with the byproducts of manufactured gas plants operated fifty years earlier. He also has successfully tried "crashworthiness" claims on behalf of a German automobile manufacturer and has coordinated nationally the defense of claims against manufacturers of gas space heaters, cigarette lighters and off-road construction equipment. Mr. Austin has appeared before the Consumer Product Safety Commission in conjunction with more than two dozen consumer product recalls and other regulatory matters.

Mr. Austin has written and lectured on a variety of product liability and product safety issues. He is AV^® rated by Martindale-Hubbell.* 

*CV, BV, and AV are registered certification marks of Reed Elsevier Properties Inc., used in accordance with the Martindale-Hubbell certification procedure's standards and policies.