With Sri Srinivasan’s departure from O’Melveny & Myers to become chief deputy solicitor general last August, Jonathan Hacker has been shouldering more of the load in the firm’s nine-lawyer appellate practice.
Hacker handled his second oral argument before the U.S. Supreme Court in November for Viad Corp., one of dozens of companies sued in Pennsylvania state court by the estate of a railroad welder who died of an asbestos-related cancer. Hacker persuaded the Court that the federal Locomotive Inspection Act pre-empted the family from suing in state court. The 6-3 ruling was expected to make it harder for mesothelioma sufferers to sue manufacturers of products that contained asbestos.
