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Join this Virtual Grand Rounds presentation with W. Lawrence Deas, Partner, Liston & Deas PLLC and Josh Wackerly, Partner, The Cicala Law Firm, Austin, TX .

The presentation will discuss how Pharmacy Benefit Managers came to have an outsized influence on the pricing of and access to drugs in the U.S. Market, the consequences of that development, and the current legal challenges that are underway to address perceived PBM abuses. We will address the statutory and common law theories that have been successfully used in litigation brought against PBMs by public sector litigants and private payers and the specific factors that lawyers should consider in advising their clients who work with PBMs or who are impacted by their conduct in the drug marketplace.

This program will only be offered online and you must register for the Zoom Webinar using the link below. Following registration, you will receive an email with a link to join the Webinar. To enable participation in the polling throughout the webinar for CLE credit, please ensure that you are joining the webinar from the Zoom application (desktop or mobile). Note that joining the webinar from a web browser is not compatible and doing so will result in not receiving CLE credit.

E-mail certificates will be provided certifying attendance for those wishing to apply for CLE credit outside of Indiana.

CEU Certificates are available for Indiana Behavioral Health & Human Services Providers.

About the Speakers:

W. Lawrence Deas
Partner, Liston & Deas, PLLC

For more than 20 years, Lawrence has represented both plaintiffs and defendants in complex civil matters. He has served as lead litigation counsel in state and federal court actions involving pharmaceutical services, pricing, and contract adherence, multi-district litigation, antitrust, environmental torts, personal injury, banking and lender liability, and consumer fraud.

Since 2020, Lawrence has represented 19 state attorneys general pursuing and resolving claims against a national managed care provider alleging misconduct in the pricing of pharmaceuticals and was integral in negotiating and finalizing a settlement resolving those claims for $1.25 billion, one of the largest such recoveries ever achieved. He has also led multiple lawsuits filed by state governments against pharmacy benefit managers that have resulted in significant settlements.

Lawrence currently represents nine state attorneys general pursuing claims of wrongful price manipulation in the U.S insulin market. A number of those claims have recently been consolidated into MDL In re: Insulin Pricing Litigation, Case No. 2:23-md-03080 (D.NJ.), which is proceeding before Judge Brian Martinotti in the District of New Jersey.

Lawrence received his law degree from the University of Virginia in 2000 and his undergraduate degree from Yale University in 1993.

Josh Wackerly
Partner, The Cicala Law Firm PLLC

Josh Wackerly is a partner at The Cicala Law Firm PLLC who specializes in complex commercial litigation, including antitrust, consumer protection, and False Claims Act claims in the healthcare space. 

Josh has substantial experience representing State and local governments. He currently represents dozens of municipalities and political subdivisions throughout the country pursuing claims for injunctive relief and damages arising out of the opioid epidemic. 

Josh also currently represents dozens of States investigating and pursuing claims against the largest insurance and pharmacy benefit manager companies in the United States. This includes representing the States of Arkansas, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, Montana, Oklahoma, Texas, Massachusetts, and Utah in litigation addressing insulin price gouging in the MDL In re: Insulin Pricing Litigation, Case No. 2:23-md-03080 (D.NJ.), which is proceeding before Judge Brian Martinotti in the District Court of N.J. 

In addition to his focus on commercial litigation, Josh has devoted significant time to pro bono matters. He successfully briefed, argued and won an appeal of the denial of a habeas petition before U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. After remand, Josh successfully argued the case to the Southern District of Indiana, resulting in the release of a woman who had been wrongly imprisoned for the past eighteen years. Josh also has numerous other pro bono successes, including assisting the ACLU of Texas in securing a multi-million dollar recovery for a New Mexico woman who was crossing the border and illegally subjected to a traumatic body cavity search.

Josh graduated with honors from Harvard Law School, earning Dean’s Scholar Prizes for the top grade in the classes of Constitutional Law and Socio-Economic Rights.