* Court found that law firm improperly collaborated with

former J&J attorney in settlement talks

* Ruling removes Beasley Allen from leadership role and

bars it from representing clients

* Beasley Allen said it will appeal

By Dietrich Knauth

March 27 (Reuters) - A federal court has barred law firm

Beasley Allen from representing plaintiffs in a consolidated

group of more than 67,000 lawsuits alleging that Johnson &

Johnson ( JNJ ) talc-based baby powder causes ovarian cancer,

ruling that the firm improperly coordinated with a former J&J

attorney on a proposal to settle the litigation.

The ruling removes one of J&J's most persistent opponents in

the consolidated talc cases, barring the firm from representing

clients in the federal cases, as well as removing it from its

role as co-lead counsel in the litigation. Beasley Allen has

about 11,000 clients with talc claims, and has been one of the

leading opponents of J&J's repeated failed efforts to end the

lawsuits through a shell company's bankruptcy.

Beasley Allen managing partner Tom Methvin said the firm

will appeal.

"Johnson & Johnson ( JNJ ) has now spent years attempting to escape

that accountability, first through a series of rejected

bankruptcy maneuvers, and now through an aggressive litigation

tactic targeting the lawyers who have fought hardest on behalf

of these women," Methvin said in a statement.

J&J says that its talc products are safe and do not cause

cancer. J&J's vice president of litigation Erik Haas said the

ruling vindicated J&J's position that Beasley Allen used

"unethical and underhanded tactics throughout this litigation to

advance claims based upon junk science."

FESTERING CONFLICT

U.S. Magistrate Judge Rukhsanah Singh said in her Thursday

ruling that disqualifying Beasley Allen from a leadership role

would be warranted even if no ethical rules had been violated,

due to a "personal antagonisms" that began "festering" during

the 10-year-long litigation.

"Clearly, personal antagonism and poor choices render

Beasley Allen's continued leadership problematic," Singh wrote.

Singh concluded that Beasley Allen crossed an ethical line

by working with James Conlan, who previously represented J&J for

two years in the talc litigation while he was at the firm of

Faegre Drinker Biddle & Reath. After leaving legal practice,

Conlan formed a new company and allied with Beasley Allen to

pitch J&J on a proposal to settle the lawsuits for $16 billion,

which J&J rejected, according to the opinion.

J&J alleged that Conlan shared privileged information about

the talc cases with Beasley Allen attorney Andy Birchfield while

working on the settlement proposal.

Conlan could not immediately be reached for comment.

Birchfield has denied receiving any confidential information

about J&J's litigation strategy, but Singh ruled that it did not

matter. Beasley Allen became "responsible" for Conlan's conduct

by coordinating with him on the settlement proposal, and Conlan

was barred by ethical rules from "switching sides" to represent

an opponent after representing J&J in the same litigation,

according to the ruling.

J&J had moved to disqualify Beasley Allen from the litigation in

both federal and New Jersey state courts, where approximately

3,600 cases are consolidated, and was initially unsuccessful.

But a New Jersey appeals court reversed an initial ruling in the

state court litigation last month, ruling that Beasley Allen

should be disqualified. The firm has appealed that ruling.

The federal court asked both sides for more briefing after

the New Jersey ruling before Singh concluded that Beasley Allen

should also be disqualified from the federal litigation.

Singh said that "it is not clear to this court that Beasley

Allen's clients would be left unrepresented" in the event of

disqualification, pointing to the law firm's joint venture

agreement with the Smith Law Firm to represent the plaintiffs.

But the two firms are litigating the validity of that agreement

in other courts, and Smith Law Firm has said that it is deep in

debt in a lawsuit against its litigation funders.

The talc litigation resumed last year after a three-and-a-half

year delay caused by J&J's three failed attempts at resolving

the lawsuits in bankruptcy court.

As the lawsuits resumed, J&J pursued an expansive legal

strategy, seeking to challenge plaintiffs' lawyers, suing the

scientific experts on whose testimony they rely, and

scrutinizing the sources of plaintiffs' litigation funding.

J&J stopped selling talc-based baby powder in the U.S. in

2020, switching to a cornstarch product.

The case is In re: Johnson & Johnson Talcum Powder Products,

U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey, No.

3:16-md-02738

For J&J: Susan Sharko of Faegre Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP;

Stephen Brody of O'Melveny & Myers LLP

For Beasley Allen: Jeffrey Pollock of Pollock Law

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