Allie Oelhafen

• Served as the national trial counsel for a multinational retail corporation in the new wave of asbestos-in-talc litigation.
• Represented the subsidiaries and eight current and former employees of a multinational conglomerate corporation in 45 lawsuits filed in Georgia state court in which the plaintiffs claim injuries from alleged exposure to the chemical trichloroethylene.
• Obtained an order in the District of Columbia Superior Court on behalf of a wireless network operator excluding all six of the plaintiffs’ expert witnesses following a three-week evidentiary hearing in 2022 in litigation against the cell phone industry challenging the safety of cellular phones, specifically the allegation that cellular phones caused brain cancer in users.
• Lead trial and appellate counsel for Sterigenics in its defense of hundreds of personal injury and property devaluation actions against it claiming the plaintiffs developed cancer or other injuries or their properties lost value because of emissions of ethylene oxide from Sterigenics’ medical products sterilization facility in Cobb County, GA.

With over 25 years of experience, Allie Oelhafen is a nationally known “expert on experts” She focuses her practice in the development of scientific and medical expert witnesses for use at trial and at Daubert hearings. She has been a part of national trial teams and national science teams in nationwide class actions and multidistrict litigation, and, in addition to expert work, is responsible for the coordination of joint defense strategies, and supervision of local, regional, and national counsel.

Allie originally joined Alston & Bird in 1999 in the firm’s Products Liability Group defending clients in mass tort and class action litigation, specifically in drug, medical device, and wireless phone litigation. She left the firm in 2006 to be in-house at a large, international paper and packaging company. She rejoined Alston & Bird in 2017.

As a result of her experience in-house at a major American packaging company, Allie also understands the pressures in-house counsel have when facing suits involving mass torts. She pairs this background with her experience serving on national trial teams to provide clients with cost-effective representation in products liability and class action litigation.

Bar Admissions

• Georgia
• North Carolina
• Virginia

Education

• Vanderbilt University (J.D., 1994)
• Vanderbilt University (B.A., 1991)