Cliff Hutchinson is a litigation attorney with over 40 years experience in litigating complex, high-stakes commercial and personal injury cases. Mr. Hutchinson focuses on cases involving scientific and technical evidentiary issues, ranging from questions of economic loss in commercial damages claims to epidemiological analyses in toxic tort cases. Mr. Hutchinson has represented clients in state and federal trial or appellate courts in twenty states and before the United States Supreme Court.
Mr. Hutchinson began his career using his background and training in engineering and computer science trying commercial contract and intellectual property cases for a leading outsourcing company. Mr. Hutchinson also represented financial institutions in a full range of disputes form collections and bankruptcy to lender liability. Mr. Hutchinson has represented energy companies in disputes concerning international developments, including coal mining concessions in Colombia, North Sea gas fields, and Malaysian concessions. Mr. Hutchinson has also had extensive experience defending personal injury claims, involving both products (industrial and consumer) and toxic torts. Mr. Hutchinson represented trade organization members in numerous claims of formaldehyde exposure. He has defended claims alleging toxic injury from a variety of other products and substances including benzene, industrial coatings, silica, elemental silicon, hydrogen sulfide, nickel, cadmium, insecticides, solvents and glues. Mr. Hutchinson has defended manufacturers and distributors of automobiles and automotive components, scaffolding and related equipment, heating and fireplace products, industrial drills, mobile drilling units, and cigarette lighters.
Mr. Hutchinson pioneered the defense of evidentiary claims by “junk science” expert witnesses, and was lead defense counsel in the Fifth Circuit en banc decision of Christophersen v. Allied Signal, 939 F.2d 1106, which established a gatekeeping standard for federal courts considering expert testimony. Mr. Hutchinson has written or contributed to several books and articles on this topic and is a frequent speaker on expert evidence. Mr. Hutchinson is a member of the State Bar of Texas and the State Bar of California and is admitted to practice before the United States Patent and Trademark Office.