User:Jlewis22/draft article on Gene Locks

Gene Locks was born and raised in the Philadelphia area and is a product of Central High School in Philadelphia. He was a 9-letter athlete as a third baseman, point guard and quarterback, while also serving as president of his high school. He continued to play quarterback while attending Princeton University, graduating with a B.A. in 1959 and then from Columbia University School of Law in 1962.

Gene is the founding and managing partner of Locks Law Firm, a prominent national environmental, litigation, and consumer-oriented law firm formed in 1966, with offices in Philadelphia, New York and New Jersey.

He has dedicated his life to representing the people of Philadelphia and beyond, who have been used and abused by the legal system. He obtains justice for the working people of the world and focuses his work exclusively on helping individuals, not corporations, obtain justice through the legal system. He is an innovator, creator, and a pioneer. Gene Locks is a true people's lawyer.

During the 1960s and 70s, Gene represented individual unions and established the first Group Legal Service plan.

Gene was a pioneer in asbestos personal injury litigation, having handled such cases and obtaining precedential verdicts in decisions in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Kentucky, Maryland and Virginia, since 1974. Asbestos litigation has since become the largest mass tort in the United States. Gene and the personal injury attorneys at Locks Law Firm have represented in excess of 16,000 personal injury victims in more than 20 different states. He is co-counsel and acts in a pro hac vice capacity in both federal and state courts across the country. Gene has tried hundreds of these complex product liability matters. He has participated directly and as amicus in numerous appeals resulting in precedent-setting opinions in many states that have become landmark decisions on a wide spectrum of issues.

Thanks to his litigation experience, negotiating reputation and his ability to persevere and sustain lengthy litigation, Gene was appointed by the Honorable Jack B. Weinstein of the Eastern District of New York to the Management Committee of the Agent Orange Litigation, MDL 381. He directed the liability and medical aspects of the Agent Orange cases and was co-chair of the negotiating committee which, at the time, resulted in the largest class action settlement of a personal injury class of victims.

After negotiating the Agent Orange settlement, Gene became involved in other major toxic tort litigation primarily involving environmental and occupational exposure to hazardous substances. This led, in the early 1990s, to his being named as lead counsel in the nationally coordinated asbestos cases. He ultimately became class counsel in a case in which an innovative and creative solution to many major asbestos litigation problems was developed. The principles developed and negotiated have become a model for recent national asbestos resolutions. Gene served as co-lead counsel in the Asbestos Personal Injury Litigation, MDL 875, as well as various others, in Philadelphia for many years. He became the Chairman and Director of the Board of UNR Industries, Inc., the director of Celotex Corporation and Raytech Corporation and reorganized multi-million dollar former asbestos companies which have paid millions of dollars in benefits to hundreds of thousands of asbestos victims. Gene was chief negotiator representing victims in almost all the 20th century bankruptcy re-organizations for numerous asbestos companies. Gene and the attorneys of Locks Law Firm have also represented numerous school districts and other entities across the nation in property damage cases arising from asbestos exposure.

In the late 1990s, Gene and Locks Law Firm attorneys filed class actions in the Diet Drug (Fen-Phen@) Litigation in New York, Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Gene was co-lead negotiator in that litigation which culminated in a 3.75 billion dollar settlement of those claims (in Brown v. American Home Products Corp, MDL 1203). Gene Locks is a member of the American Association for Justice, the Chairman, Board of Managers for the Philadelphia Foundation, served on the Board of Managers for the Philadelphia Liberty Medal and was the Advisory Board Chairman for the Fund for Children. He received the Pennsylvania Association for Justice Stalwart Award and also the New Jersey Bar Association William A. Dreier Award.

He chooses to represent those with just positions who deserve to win against the abuses created by large global companies. Nationally and internationally, he and the firm fight to right the injustices of corporate misbehavior by helping individuals to obtain their fair day in court. A born leader, Gene is known for creating winning teams that bring people justice.

Gene Locks is married to Sueyun Pyo Locks and the proud father of six daughters. He resides in Florida and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.