Gregory S. Bailey

Mr. Bailey concentrates on cases involving mass torts, toxic torts, products liability, fraud, violations of consumer fraud statutes, false or deceptive advertising and unfair competition. He successfully has represented companies from a variety of industries, including insurance, financial services, pharmaceutical, computer and technology, health care, biotechnology, energy and household product manufacturing.

Mr. Bailey has been involved in a number of significant litigation matters, including federal multidistrict proceedings and other complex state and federal litigations, and takes an active role in managing all stages of litigation in those matters from pretrial proceedings and discovery to trial to appeals. Mr. Bailey successfully has defended clients in a variety of class actions pending in various state and federal courts. He also has represented clients in product liability, toxic tort and other mass tort cases.

In addition, Mr. Bailey has been involved in securing significant appellate victories for clients. For example, he successfully represented Intel Corporation in the Illinois Supreme Court in a putative nationwide class action originally filed in Madison County, Ill., alleging that Intel misrepresented the performance of Pentium® 4 processors. He advised Wisconsin Energy Corporation in the successful reversal on appeal before the Wisconsin Supreme Court in connection with the construction of two supercritical pulverized coal-fired electric generation facilities by Bechtel Power Corporation. The court granted authorization to Wisconsin Energy to construct the two new 1,230 MW power plants.

He also was part of the Skadden team representing State Farm in two appeals before the Illinois Supreme Court. In Avery v. State Farm Mutual Automobile Ins. Co., the Illinois Supreme Court reversed a nationwide class action judgment of more than $1 billion against the company. The judgment was one of the largest in Illinois history and the largest judgment ever against an insurance company. In Gridley v. State Farm Mutual Automobile Ins. Co., the Illinois Supreme Court dismissed a putative nationwide class action alleging violations of the Illinois Consumer Fraud Act brought by a nonresident named plaintiff. The decision established important limitations on forum shopping in putative class actions.