Personal Background
Kelsey Stokes is recognized as a national leader in mass personal injury litigation. Kelsey practices primarily in the areas of mass tort litigation, products liability, and complex commercial litigation.
As Co-Lead Counsel for the Plaintiffs’ Steering Committee in multiple Hernia Mesh MDLs (Multi-District Litigation) at the federal level and 3 MCLs (Multi-County Litigation) in New Jersey, the home of Johnson & Johnson, Kelsey has spent countless hours fighting for victims of defective medical devices, ensuring their voices are heard and their suffering acknowledged. Her leadership in the litigation against C.R. Bard and Johnson & Johnson has not only changed lives but has also set a precedent for women in leadership roles within the legal industry.
Kelsey is currently serving as Co-Lead Counsel for the Plaintiffs’ Steering Committee for the second largest MDL in the country (MDL No. 2846, In re Davol, Inc./C.R. Bard, Inc., Polypropylene Hernia Mesh Products Liability Litigation in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio). Appointed as Co-Lead Counsel in 2018, the MDL has over 23,000 cases consolidated there. Kelsey served as lead trial counsel for the three bellwether cases tried in MDL 2846. In 2024, as Lead Settlement Counsel for the Bard Hernia Mesh MDL, Kelsey Stokes successfully negotiated a path to resolution for over 30,000 plaintiffs. Kelsey currently serves as Administering Counsel for the Bard resolution and spends countless hours guiding plaintiffs’ lawyers across the country.
In addition to her leadership roles at the federal level, Kelsey Stokes was appointed to lead three New Jersey state court consolidated actions against Johnson & Johnson and Ethicon, Inc.: MCL 627, In re Physiomesh Litigation; MCL 630, In Re: Proceed Mesh Litigation; and MCL 633, In re Prolene Hernia System Mesh Litigation. Kelsey was also elected Co-Chair of the American Association for Justice Hernia Mesh Litigation Group by her peers, where she has served for over seven years.
In addition to her responsibilities with the hernia mesh litigation, Kelsey was also appointed to the Phenylephrine Plaintiffs’ Steering Committee. She serves as Co-Chair of the Science & Expert Committee and as a Discovery Co-Chair for the litigation.
Prior to leading the hernia mesh docket, Attorney Kelsey Stokes played an integral role in litigating transvaginal mesh cases to a successful resolution. Her work in the various transvaginal mesh MDLs gave her a wealth of knowledge overlapping with the knowledge required to successfully litigate hernia mesh cases.
Kelsey has regular speaking engagements, sharing the knowledge she has gained managing MDLs as well as studying the science and legal issues applicable to medical device and pharmaceutical litigation.
Throughout her career, Kelsey has taken hundreds of depositions, including those of corporate witnesses, expert witnesses, and treating physicians. Kelsey has also defended the leading experts in their fields, as well as hundreds of plaintiffs injured by various medical devices and pharmaceutical drugs. She regularly argues at hearings throughout the country and coordinates large-scale briefing on behalf of the MDLs she leads.
Early in her career, Kelsey managed a large GranuFlo docket from case filing to resolution, successfully navigating clients through the settlement claims process. In addition to the above litigations, Kelsey Stokes performed considerable work on the Wright Hip and Accutane Litigations as well as Testosterone Replacement Therapy (TRT), in which she was trial counsel in the first TRT trial in Cook County, Illinois, in 2017.
Kelsey’s practice also includes complex commercial litigation in federal and state courts and arbitration, resulting in multimillion-dollar settlements and verdicts. Examples include arbitrations where she represented health care providers in contractual and payment disputes with insurers; a massive Ponzi scheme; and an offshore commercial oil dispute. Attorney Kelsey Stokes’s experience also extends to catastrophic aviation accidents.