Emma K. Burton is a counsel in Crowell & Moring's Torts Group. Emma's practice focuses on civil litigation involving product liability, toxic tort, and environmental matters, with a specialty in complex health and life science cases regarding alleged injury from exposure to chemical products. Emma is experienced in litigating matters involving specialized scientific knowledge, such as developmental toxicology, epidemiology, pharmacokinetics and genetics. Emma also has unique experience in the use of, and challenges to, expert testimony in the fields of science and medicine. She has successfully authored numerous briefs resulting in the exclusion of unqualified and improper expert opinions under Daubert and similar state standards. See Bourne v. E.I. DuPont de Nemours & Co., 189 F. Supp. 2d 482 (S.D. W.V. 2002); Bourne v. E.I. DuPont de Nemours & Co., 2004 U.S. App. LEXIS 1161 (4th Cir. 2004); Bowen v. E.I. DuPont de Nemours & Co., 2005 WL 1952859 (Del. Super. Ct. June 23, 2005).
Representative Matters:
· Counsel for a Fortune 100 company in a series of high-profile product cases alleging birth defects from exposure to a major fungicide, including significant toxicology, epidemiology, teratology, genetics, and exposure issues, international discovery and application of foreign law;
· Defending a major East Coast railroad in complex toxic tort litigation;
· Representation of a Fortune 100 manufacturer of construction equipment, engines and turbines as national coordinating counsel in a series of tort matters filed in various state and federal courts; and
· Representation of a major railroad in a multi-million dollar commercial contract dispute regarding fiber-optic telecommunications facilities.
Emma originally joined Crowell & Moring in 1997 and returned to the firm in 2012 after an extended leave to focus on her family. She received her A.B. in sociology from Brown University in 1994. She graduated cum laude earning her J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center in 1997, where she was a member of the Georgetown Journal of Legal Ethics.