Emily Smith-Lee 2018 Lawyer of the Year
January 21, 2019: Emily Smith-Lee, attorney and owner of the Sharon law firm slnlaw, was named a 2018 Lawyer of the Year by Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly. The award recognizes Smith-Lee’s precedent-setting victory at the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, announced in March 2018, which opened the door for consumers of generic drugs to seek a remedy if they are injured by inadequate warnings on the drugs.
Once a downtown Boston lawyer who represented pharmaceutical companies defending personal injury claims, Smith-Lee took this case in 2012, recognizing that her client was among the approximately 80% of pharmaceutical consumers who use generic drugs, and under existing precedent were entirely without a remedy if the manufacturers failed to warn of dangerous side effects. In November 2017 she made the case to the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court that this result was inconsistent with established principles of tort law and fundamentally unjust, and in March 2018 the SJC issued an opinion in her client’s favor, breaking from over 100 cases in other jurisdictions that had closed the courthouse doors to plaintiffs like him. Though slnlaw primarily focuses now on business and employment disputes and estate planning, the story speaks volumes about our willingness to stand up to much larger opponents and persist in making sure the laws protect the people they are intended to protect. We were proud to be recognized for this achievement at a Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly dinner in March, along with other lawyers from the greater Boston area who also made significant and impressive contributions to the law in 2018 by their advocacy and hard work. |
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Emily Smith-Lee and the slnlaw team at the Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly Leaders in the Law awards in March 2019
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About Emily
Emily Smith-Lee has more than twenty years experience as a business and employment lawyer and litigator, including small business litigation, employment and consumer disputes, contract review and general business law advice. She was formerly a partner at a large Boston, Massachusetts law firm, where she handled business litigation, contract and trade secret and non compete claims. In 2009, she started her own law firm, which became slnlaw llc in 2016. Since starting her own business, Emily has represented individuals and businesses in civil litigation involving trade secrets, non compete agreements, business litigation, and labor and employment law. She has helped employees invalidate or re-negotiate their non compete agreements, obtained settlements for dozens of employees in overtime, wage and hour, employment discrimination, and independent contractor misclassification lawsuits, and favorably resolved numerous business disputes. Emily also helps small businesses with preventative legal advice on employment and contract issues, and negotiation and drafting of key business contracts, including vendor agreements and acquisition agreements. Emily graduated from Johns Hopkins University in 1993, and from Boston College Law School, summa cum laude, in 1996. In addition to the Lawyer of the Year recognition, she has been recognized on the Massachusetts Super Lawyers list every year since 2013, enjoys a perfect avvo rating, and is a fellow of the Litigation Counsel of America. Emily lives in Sharon, Massachusetts, where she is a member of the Sharon Rotary Club and serves on the advisory board of The Law, Your Money and You, a non-profit organization dedicated to improving financial and legal literacy in the community. She served for eight years as a member of the Sharon, Massachusetts School Committee, and was recently elected Selectman for the Town of Sharon. |
