Craig Zimmerman is a partner in the law firm of McDermott Will & Emery LLP based in the Chicago office. He focuses his practice on mass and toxic tort defense.
Craig has defended companies in a wide variety of exposure and environmental toxic tort matters nationwide. Many of these matters have involved highly complex and/or multi-jurisdictional toxic tort litigation problems, ranging from purported class actions and multi-district litigation (MDL) proceedings to managing and controlling large dockets of individual cases. He currently serves as a national coordinating counsel for a Fortune 100 company with more than 20,000 asbestos cases pending throughout the United States. Craig is also lead counsel for our client in In re North American Refractories Co., Chapter 11 case, in which we are seeking to create certainty as to the client’s asbestos liabilities through the creation of a Section 524(g) trust and channeling injunction.
Historically, Craig led the day-to-day defense of a large petroleum company in MDL No. 1358, In re Methyl Tertiary Butyl Ether (MTBE) Products Liability Litigation, which then combined a number of putative private well owner class actions. In the first phase of that MDL, Craig and a McDermott team were able to successfully defeat plaintiffs’ attempts to obtain class certification; the individual cases subsequently settled on very favorable terms.
More broadly, Craig works with clients to evaluate liability exposure to toxic tort claims—both individually and across dockets, developing and implementing related liability reduction strategies.
Craig has also handled a broad range of more traditional environmental matters, including representing targets of federal and state environmental criminal investigations, defending and prosecuting private environmental cost recovery actions, and defending environmental enforcement and citizen suit cases. In addition to handling a variety of Clean Water Act (CWA) and Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) matters, Craig has managed the defense and participation of a number of clients in substantial, traditional Superfund matters (primarily in Region V).
Craig is a member of the bar of the Supreme Court of the United States, as well as a member of the Illinois Supreme Court Bar. He is admitted to practice before a number of federal courts, and is a member of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois' Trial Bar. He is a member of the relevant American Bar Association sections and committees.
Education
- Georgetown University Law Center, J.D. (magna cum laude), 1989
- Brandeis University, B.A. (magna cum laude), 1984
