Peter L. Choate
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Peter Choate focuses his practice on the representation of major corporations in pharmaceutical and toxic tort/mass tort product liability litigation in coordinated proceedings and in state and federal courts throughout the United States.
Peter works with trial teams across the country to formulate, coordinate, and execute the scientific-legal defense in high-profile product liability litigations. He has led legal teams at multiple trials, including a team responsible for all pre-trial and trial briefing in one of the largest pharmaceutical product liability litigations in history. Peter enjoys the process of integrating a complex set of facts, scientific/medical principles, and legal theories into a compelling story designed to persuade a judge and jury.
Before joining Tucker Ellis, Peter was a litigation partner at O’Melveny & Myers LLP for several years. Before that, he was a law clerk for the Hon. William J. Rea of the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California. Peter lives in West Los Angeles with his two daughters. When he is not working and his daughters are not in school, they enjoy skiing, camping, fishing, traveling, cooking, working in the garden, and reading good books.
- Education
- Loyola Law School, Los Angeles (J.D., cum laude, 1999); Order of the Coif; Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review, Articles Editor
- University of California, Los Angeles (B.A., magna cum laude, 1993); Phi Beta Kappa
- State Admissions
- California, 1999
- Federal Admissions
- United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit
- United States District Court, Central District of California
- United States District Court, Eastern District of California
- United States District Court, Northern District of California
- United States District Court, Southern District of California
- Languages
- French
- Service Areas
- Life Sciences Litigation
- Mass Tort & Product Liability
- Class Action Litigation
- Health & Life Sciences
- Industries Represented
- Chemical
- Consumer Products
- Manufacturing
- Pharmaceutical & Medicine
Publications
- Choate, P.L. and Shafroth, T.L. (2021). Damages Theories and Defenses. In C.E. Ward-Reichard (Ed.), Mass Torts in the United States, Strategy and Practice (1st ed., pp. 131–194). American Bar Association.
- “Experts Liberally Construed,” Los Angeles Lawyer (October 2018)
- “California’s Evolving Standard on Expert Opinion Evidence,” Law360 (February 2018)
- “Sargon Enterprises v. USC: A Step Toward Daubert,” Law360 (Jan. 2013) (co-written with Kelsey Larson)
- “Attributable Risk and Specific Causation,” Law360 (Nov. 2008) (co-written with Brian Currey and Houman Ehsan)
- “Suspenders and the Perfection of Security Interests in Copyrights: The Undressing of the Contemporary Creditor,” 31 Loy. L.A. L. Rev. 4, 1415 (1998)
- Sullivan Canyon Preservation Association, Board of Directors
- Los Angeles County Bar Association, Amicus Brief Committee
- American Bar Association
