It was heck of a time to get a new trial team together.

Last fall Giant Eagle, a regional grocery and pharmacy chain, hired veteran Weil, Gotshal & Manges trial star Diane Sullivan about a month and a half before the first bellwether trial in the national opioid MDL involving pharmacy defendants. Giant Eagle was going to trial alongside codefendants CVS, Walgreens and Walmart. With the Omicron variant surge picking up steam and the firm’s offices closed, Sullivan told the Lit Daily earlier this week that pulling a trial team together on short notice was “a challenging affair to say the least.”