Baron & Budd Attorneys Recognized by The National Law Journal 2024 Elite Trial Lawyers

President and Managing Shareholder Russell Budd received the Lifetime Achievement award for his decades long career that has made an indelible mark on the community, his clients, and the legal profession.

Baron & Budd is proud to share that the firm and multiple attorneys have been recognized by The National Law Journal for the 2024 Elite Trial Lawyers awards. President and Managing Shareholder Russell Budd was honored with the Lifetime Achievement award while attorneys Elizabeth Smiley and Noah Rich were awarded the Rising Stars of the Plaintiffs Bar.

The firm is also a finalist in three categories: Consumer Protection, Environmental Protection, and Pharmaceutical Litigation. The winners in these categories will be announced at an awards dinner on July 11, 2024, in New York.

“I am deeply honored to receive this recognition from the National Law Journal and their acknowledgment of the years of hard work and dedication it takes to obtain justice for our clients,” said Budd. “It has always been our mission to protect individuals and communities from the harm caused by major corporations and remain steadfast in our commitment of ‘Protecting What’s Right.’”

Budd received the Lifetime Achievement award for the accomplishments in his career spanning more than four decades. He has been a trailblazer for the entirety of his career and a mainstay of the plaintiff’s bar representing victims of corporate wrongdoing across the nation. Throughout his career, he has played a major role in many of the largest cases ever to be litigated in the United States court system. Currently, Budd is a key player in the ongoing nationwide opioid litigation and insulin pricing litigation.

Budd’s passion for helping people extends outside the courtroom. In 2007, Budd and his wife, Dorothy, founded and endowed The Budd Center for Involving Communities in Education, housed within Southern Methodist University’s Simmons School of Education and Human Development, and they remain actively involved in the Center’s mission to improve under-resourced schools in Dallas through community-driven collaboration. The Budds also established The Budd Innocence Center in 2017 at the University of Texas School of Law in Austin to improve the criminal justice system with the goal of helping prevent injustice while providing assistance to innocent Texas prisoners.

Baron & Budd attorneys Elizabeth Smiley and Noah Rich received the Rising Stars of the Plaintiffs Bar award for demonstrating their litigation prowess, service to the community, and impact on their firm. Smiley works in the class action practice at Baron & Budd and plays an important role as a member of the trial team in the nationwide opioid litigation. Rich works for the qui tam practice which oversaw the largest whistleblower settlement in which the government intervened to enforce the non-payment of customs duties.

Since 2015, ALM’s Elite Trial Lawyers has recognized U.S. based law firms that have performed exemplary and cutting-edge work on behalf of plaintiffs. The methodology used to determine the winners is based on an evaluation of nominations by the senior leaders across the newsroom and external advisers. Only a small percentage of submissions are selected as finalists and even fewer as winners.

About Baron & Budd, P.C.

With more than 40 years of experience, Baron & Budd has the expertise and resources to handle complex litigation throughout the United States. As a law firm that takes pride in remaining at the forefront of litigation, Baron & Budd has spearheaded many significant cases for hundreds of public entities and tens of thousands of individuals. Since the firm was founded in 1977, Baron & Budd has achieved substantial national acclaim for its work on cutting-edge litigation, trying hundreds of cases to verdict and settling tens of thousands of cases in areas of litigation as diverse and significant as dangerous and highly addictive pharmaceuticals, defective medical devices, asbestos and mesothelioma, wildfires, environmental contamination, fraudulent banking practices, e-cigarettes, motor vehicles, federal whistleblower cases, and other consumer fraud issues.

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