Ryan J. Duplechin

About Ryan

Ryan J. Duplechin is an attorney in Beasley Allen’s Mass Torts Section, where he primarily handles products liability cases involving pharmaceuticals and medical devices. Ryan has worked with the firm’s Products Liability Section on appellate matters involving complex issues including personal jurisdiction and sovereign immunity. He is also the Chair of Beasley Allen’s Summer Associate Program.

Background

Ryan was born in Birmingham, Alabama, while his father was in law school. He grew up in Niceville, Florida. He attended Florida State University and received his law degree from Faulkner University’s Jones School of Law, where he served as a member of Faulkner Law Review and the Board of Advocates.

Notable Cases

While at Beasley Allen, Ryan has litigated cases involving several joint replacements, dietary supplements, and pharmaceutical drugs like Xarelto and Belviq. He has served as lead attorney in oral arguments before various federal and state courts, as well as authored briefs before the Alabama Supreme Court and New Jersey Supreme Court.

Ryan was recently the lead author of an amicus brief filed on behalf of the American Association for Justice (AAJ) and Alabama Association for Justice (ALAJ). In that case, the Alabama Supreme Court ultimately sided with the plaintiffs in ruling that Alabama’s products liability law requires drug manufacturers to provide doctors with both adequate warnings and instructions for safe use.

Ryan currently focuses on litigation involving drug manufacturers’ failure to caution families about the link between acetaminophen use during pregnancy and autism. The multidistrict litigation is currently pending in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

Professional Associations

Ryan is a member of the Alabama State Bar, where he currently serves as the Secretary of the Young Lawyers Section. He is also a member of the Birmingham Bar Association’s Young Lawyers Section Executive Committee. Ryan was recently selected to the Alabama State Bar’s Leadership Forum Class 17.

He is also an active member of the AAJ and the ALAJ. Ryan serves on AAJ’s New Lawyers Division’s Publications Committee and as a member of the Preemption Law Litigation Group. He is also a member of ALAJ’s Amicus Curiae Committee and an Emerging Leaders board member.

Ryan is also a member of the Federal Bar Association, American Inns of Court, and serves as a team member of the State Rules Project for the Electronic Discovery Reference Model (EDRM).

Publicity

Ryan has published law review articles in Tennessee Law Review and Faulkner Law Review.  His article featured in Tennessee Law Review was the first to predict how products liability law would apply if someone hacked a self-driving car.  He also authored pieces on the opioid litigation and FDA clinical trials for the Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics at Harvard Law School.

Ryan’s publications have been cited in legal treatises and other national law journals, including American Law of Products Liability, Owen & Davis on Products Liability, Boston University Law Review and NYU Law Review.  He has also been quoted by the Associated Press (AP), American Association for Justice’s Trial Magazine and Law360.

Community Involvement

Ryan led efforts to create the COVID-19 Legal Assistance Hotline on behalf of the Alabama State Bar’s Young Lawyers Section (YLS) and in partnership with the Volunteer Lawyers Program (VLP). For the project, he recruited 15 of his fellow Young Lawyers to help provide free legal advice to approximately 60 Alabama citizens. The Alabama State Bar President presented Ryan, along with two others, with the 2020 President’s Award for their work on the COVID-19 Hotline.

Ryan was a volunteer coach of the Saint James School trial team. His team competed in the YMCA Youth Judicial, a statewide high school mock trial competition held at the Federal courthouse. He is also a member of the YMCA Boys Work Committee, which is a group of young professionals in Montgomery who raise money for youth football.