Trial attorney Marissa Alkhazov uses her strength in product liability defense, investigations, and client advocacy beyond the courtroom to negotiate strategic, pre-trial resolutions and offer proactive counsel. Her extensive litigation experience ranges from wage and hour class actions to defense of professional athletes as well as breach of contract and other business-related claims. Manufacturers and distributors value her risk assessment and preventive advice on regulatory compliance, particularly on labels and safety warnings. In addition, clients value Marissa’s experience with mass torts defense, chemical law and toxic tort exposure to PFAS, benzynes, silicas, talc, asbestos and other substances.
Marissa is the Northwest Chair of Buchalter’s Products Liability Practice Group. Her clients include small local businesses, tech industry leaders and Fortune 500 companies with sophisticated commercial litigation matters in the PNW. Marissa’s clients rely upon her dispute resolution skills for their routine and complex cases, counting on her ability to unravel complicated fact patterns and her right-sized, confident approach to each matter. Marissa’s lifelong interest in science and medicine supports her skilled handling of technical data and expert testimony upon which many claims depend.
As lead counsel, Marissa defends catastrophic personal injury, wrongful death/survival lawsuits and class actions at all levels of state and federal court. Additionally, she serves as local and coordinating counsel in national, complex and MDL litigation.
Litigation Prevention and Regulatory Counsel
Experienced across numerous industries, Marissa represents the makers of pharmaceuticals, medical devices, nutritional supplements, cosmetics, and other health and wellness products. Her additional industry experience includes manufacturing, distributing, retail, sports and fitness, food, beverage, apparel and agribusiness.
When counseling clients on new regulations and compliance mechanisms and programs, Marissa anticipates regulatory hurdles and seeks practical solutions to clients’ compliance obligations across the lifecycle of a product.
Marissa immerses herself in her clients’ business environment to clarify goals, and is a highly effective negotiator with regulatory agencies, such as the FDA, Consumer Products Safety Commission, and Department of Ecology. Marissa is also a trusted advisor to many of her clients in the beauty industry with the roll out of MOCRA (Modernization of Cosmetics Regulation Act of 2022).
National Defense Bar Leadership and Programs
Marissa draws from her national network of torts, products, and defense professionals to protect clients’ positions. Marissa co-chairs the International Association of Defense Counsel’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee, and is vice-chair of its Environmental and Energy Law Committee.
Additionally, Marissa is a member of the prestigious Products Liability Advisory Council (PLAC) and serves as vice chair of the Torts Trial & Insurance Practice Section (TIPS) committee of the American Bar Association. Marissa has earned recognition as a “Top 100 Women Attorneys in Washington” in Seattle Metropolitan Magazine, and as a Rising Star and Super Lawyer (2016 – 2022) from Washington Law & Politics.
Marissa regularly presents substantive CLE’s to her clients, speaks at conferences on emerging issues in the product liability realm and is a regular contributor to various news sources. Marissa is regularly asked to provide insights on such issues as the Apparent Manufacturer Doctrine, Daubert and Frye Motions, GMO and other warnings/labeling issues, PFAS regulations, MOCRA developments and mediation techniques in mass tort and environmental litigation.
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