H. Christian L'Orange focuses his practice on complex litigation and has substantial experience in commercial, consumer class action and environmental matters including both large scale toxic tort and cleanup cases. He has extensive trial and alternative dispute resolution experience, and has performed a significant amount of preventative counseling to clients in a variety of fields. Chris has served as local and national counsel and has represented parties in a variety of commercial disputes including breach of contract, business torts, and unfair competition class action litigation, as well as coordinated and consolidated matters. In 1986, he was appointed to the Governor's Task Force for Toxics, Hazardous Waste and Technology and served on the Technical Advisory Committee on Legal Issues which rewrote portions of the California Hazardous Waste law. He has frequently written and lectured for the American Bar Association, the Defense Research Institute, the California and San Francisco Bar Associations and several private organizations on topics related to commercial and environmental litigation strategy.
His representative engagements include:
· Representation of manufacturers, financial institutions and retailers in consumer class action cases involving allegations of price fixing and unfair or deceptive business practices.
· Numerous large-scale toxic substance and environmental cleanup cases involving PCBs, various pesticides and herbicides, TCA, TCE and other solvents, and heavy metals.
· Representation of manufacturers in the pharmaceutical and nutritional supplement industry in cases involving allegations of personal injury and misleading business practices.
In General. Chris graduated from the Virginia Military Institute, where he was academically distinguished, in 1969 with a bachelor's degree and received the Charles R. Martin and Sumpter Lowery Awards and the Society of the Cincinnati Medal. He served in the U.S. Marine Corp from 1969 through 1973, and earned a master's degree from the George Washington University Business School. He graduated from the Emory University School of Law in 1976 where he was elected to the Order of the Barristers, and was a member of the second place Moot Court Team in the Southern Regional Moot Court competition. He is an active member of the American Bar Association TIPS, Science and Technology and Litigation Sections, the Defense Research Institute, the American Board of Trial Advocates and the Association of Business Trial Lawyers. He is also a member of the Antitrust and Unfair Competition Section of the California Bar Association. Chris is licensed to practice before the California bar, and the United States District Courts for the Northern, Central, Southern and Eastern Districts of California and the District of Arizona.