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Attorney Advertising. The information on this profile does not constitute legal advice and no attorney-client relationship is formed by reading it. Past results described do not guarantee similar outcomes.
In 2014, a federal jury in Louisiana deliberated for about an hour before finding Takeda Pharmaceutical and Eli Lilly liable for concealing bladder-cancer risks in the diabetes drug Actos, then took another 45 minutes to award $9 billion in punitive damages — one of the largest jury verdicts in U.S. history. Lead trial counsel Mark Lanier tried that case from a Houston firm he founded in 1990, and it’s one entry in a career total his firm and independent legal press put at nearly $20 billion in cumulative verdicts and settlements.
At a Glance
| Firm | The Lanier Law Firm |
| Founder | W. Mark Lanier |
| Houston Office | 10940 W. Sam Houston Pkwy N, Suite 100, Houston, TX 77064 |
| Founded | 1990 |
| Focus | Pharmaceutical/mass tort litigation, asbestos/mesothelioma, product liability, catastrophic personal injury, business litigation |
| Board Certification | Mark Lanier & Larry Wilson — Personal Injury Trial Law; Kevin Parker — Civil Appellate Law (all Texas Board of Legal Specialization) |
| Additional Offices | New York, NY; Westlake Village, CA |
| Fee Structure | Contingency; free consultation stated |
Career History
Mark Lanier earned his J.D. from Texas Tech University School of Law in 1984 and founded The Lanier Law Firm in Houston in 1990. Over roughly three and a half decades, he has served as lead trial counsel in nationally covered mass tort litigation including Vioxx, DePuy/Johnson & Johnson metal-on-metal hip implants, Johnson & Johnson talc/ovarian cancer claims, Actos, and multidistrict opioid litigation against major pharmacy chains. The firm has grown from a solo Houston practice to more than 60 attorneys across offices in Houston, New York, and California.
Practice Concentration
The firm’s work spans pharmaceutical and medical device mass torts, asbestos and mesothelioma claims, product liability, and complex business litigation, in addition to standard catastrophic personal injury and workplace injury cases handled out of the Houston office specifically. This breadth — national mass tort litigation alongside individual Houston-based injury claims — is a different scale of practice than most single-market PI firms in this directory’s coverage.
Track Record
| Result | Case Type | Source |
|---|---|---|
| $9 billion (jury verdict, punitive damages) | Actos (Takeda/Eli Lilly) failure-to-warn, 2014 | Independently reported (ABA Journal, NYT, Reuters, Bloomberg) |
| $4.69 billion (jury verdict); reduced to $2.1 billion on appeal, affirmed through the Missouri Supreme Court, cert. denied by the U.S. Supreme Court | Johnson & Johnson talc/ovarian cancer, multi-plaintiff trial | Independently reported; final figure confirmed through appellate record |
| $1.05 billion (jury verdict) | DePuy Orthopaedics/J&J hip implant, 2016 | Independently reported |
| $115.6 million | Asbestos verdict, 21 steel mill workers | Firm-published |
| $56.3 million | Caterpillar/Holt Texas — worker paralyzed by defective equipment | Firm-published |
These are among the firm’s largest results and are not representative of typical case outcomes; the firm and multiple independent legal-industry sources put Lanier’s cumulative career verdicts and settlements at nearly $20 billion. Large jury verdicts, including punitive damage awards, are frequently reduced through post-trial motions or appeal — as documented above for the talc case — so an initial jury number should not be read as the final recovery amount. Past results do not guarantee or predict a similar outcome in any future case.
Client Voice
Because this firm’s public profile is dominated by nationally covered mass tort litigation rather than routine local injury claims, this research found limited independently attributed individual-client reviews specific to the Houston office’s standard personal injury practice, distinct from the mass tort side. This is disclosed as a genuine limitation rather than papered over. This research did not surface disciplinary findings against Lanier or the firm.
Beyond the Courtroom
Lanier holds multiple honorary doctorates and has taught as a visiting professor at several law schools, including a recurring course on the law of evidence. He is also a pastor, an unusual dual role for a trial lawyer of his profile, and has written and spoken on legal advocacy and ethics beyond his litigation practice.
Recognition
Mark Lanier and attorney Larry Wilson are each individually Board Certified in Personal Injury Trial Law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization, and Kevin Parker is separately certified in Civil Appellate Law by the same board — the only “specialist” designations used in this profile. Separately, the National Law Journal recognized one of Lanier’s DePuy verdicts with its Outstanding Medical Device Award and named it among the Top 50 Verdicts of the Year; those are industry-publication recognitions distinct from the state board certifications above.
Texas Legal Backdrop
Texas personal injury claims generally carry a two-year statute of limitations under Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code § 16.003. Pharmaceutical and product liability mass tort claims, a substantial part of this firm’s national docket, often proceed through multidistrict litigation (MDL) in federal court, which follows federal procedural rules distinct from standard Texas state-court practice. Texas follows a modified comparative-fault rule under Civil Practice and Remedies Code Chapter 33 for state negligence claims: a claimant found more than 50% responsible for their own injury recovers nothing, and a claimant at 50% or below has recovery reduced by their own percentage of fault. None of this is legal advice and does not account for the specific facts of any individual case; consult a licensed Texas attorney about your situation.
Awesome Attorneys Assessment
Few firms in any Texas metro can point to a documented, independently reported track record at this scale — multiple billion-dollar-class jury verdicts against Fortune 500 pharmaceutical and medical device companies, confirmed through appellate courts rather than resting on firm-published claims alone. For a client with a genuinely complex mass tort or catastrophic product liability claim, that history is real, checkable leverage.
The honest trade-off: this is fundamentally a national mass-tort trial practice that also handles Houston-market personal injury work, not a boutique local injury firm — a client with a standard car accident or slip-and-fall claim may get more individualized attention faster at a smaller, Houston-focused practice, and should ask directly during a consultation how a case of their size and type would actually be staffed here.
Methodology & Sourcing
This profile was researched and written independently by Awesome Attorneys in August 2026 without the participation, sponsorship, or payment of The Lanier Law Firm. Primary sources: the firm’s own website (lanierlawfirm.com), including its Houston office page and attorney biographies. Independent verification: ABA Journal, New York Times, Reuters, and Bloomberg coverage of the 2014 Actos verdict; Benchmark Litigation and Super Lawyers attorney profiles documenting the talc verdict’s appellate history through the Missouri Supreme Court and U.S. Supreme Court; State Bar of Texas attorney directory confirming Mark Lanier’s board certification and Houston office address. Statutes cited in the Texas Legal Backdrop section were verified against the Texas Constitution and Statutes database (statutes.capitol.texas.gov).
Publisher Disclosure & Independence Notice
Awesome Attorneys is an independent legal-directory publisher. This profile was not paid for by The Lanier Law Firm, and inclusion in our editorial coverage cannot be purchased. Our methodology and editorial standards are applied consistently across all firms we cover.