Lewis Eidson

With over four decades of experience, Lewis 'Mike' Eidson has played leadership roles in many important product liability cases across the United States. He earned his Juris Doctor from Emory University Law School as a Woodruff Law Scholar, with prior studies at the University of South Carolina, Warwick University in Coventry, England, and Georgia State University. Eidson was an outstanding athlete, serving as captain of the Track Team (1964-1968) and Cross Country Team (1967), and in 1968 was named Atlantic Coast Conference Student-Athlete of the Year; he served as a 1st Lieutenant in the United States Army (1968-1971) and in the Army Reserves (1972-1981). His practice encompasses complex litigation including personal injury, wrongful death, product liability, medical malpractice, motor vehicle crashworthiness, insurance disputes, professional liability, mass tort aviation cases, commercial law, and class actions, with extensive trial experience in federal and state courts, mediation, and arbitration representing hundreds of clients.

In Havlick vs. Ford Motor Company, Eidson won the first Pinto gas tank explosion case nationally in 1975, establishing crashworthiness as an acceptable legal theory in Florida and creating new fuel system safety standards. He served as lead counsel in the Firestone/Ford MDL (Case No. 1373, 2000-2008), representing over 125 injured or deceased individuals in a coordination involving more than 1,000 personal injury and wrongful death cases plus over 100 class-action economic loss cases, resulting in 40 million tire recalls and tire design repairs, and he was lead attorney in litigation brought by victims from nine nations in the 1996 AeroPeru Flight 603 crash against Boeing Corporation. He authored textbooks including the Florida Personal Injury Practice Guide (1996) and 'Product Defect - Evidence to Verdict' (1995), lectured nationally, and was elected President of the Association of Trial Lawyers of America (now the American Association for Justice), serving 2006-2007.