Gerard Cedrone is a product liability trial lawyer. He is a founding attorney at the Lavin firm, serves as the firm’s Vice President and is a member of the firm’s Executive Committee.
Mr. Cedrone has defended nearly every automobile maker in high-stakes personal injury and wrongful death cases, multi-plaintiff consolidated matters, toxic tort and class actions. He has served as national coordinating counsel, regional counsel, and lead trial counsel in over thirty-six states.
Mr. Cedrone has defended catastrophic automotive cases to verdict, including cases involving severe burns from post-collision fuel-fed fires, brain damage, and paralysis following a vehicle rollover. His trial experience also includes defending vehicle structures, rooftops, glazing, primary and supplemental restraint systems, and the handling and stability of automobiles. In addition to his automotive work, Mr. Cedrone defends makers of heavy industrial equipment and consumer products.
Mr. Cedrone represents companies with principal places of business in China, Japan, Korea, the United Kingdom, Mexico, Sweden, Canada, and Germany. He educates international companies on how to understand the U.S. regulatory and product liability environment. He also counsels his clients in matters involving emerging self-driving technologies and active vehicle safety systems.
Mr. Cedrone is admitted to practice in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York. He is also admitted in the United State District Courts for Eastern, Middle, and Western Districts of Pennsylvania, the Eastern and Southern Districts of New York, the District of New Jersey, the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, and the United States Supreme Court.
Mr. Cedrone has a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics from LaSalle University and earned his Juris Doctor at the Temple University School of Law. He is an active member of the American and Philadelphia Bar Associations, the International Association of Defense Counsel, the American Board of Trial Advocates, the Product Liability Advisory Council, the Temple Inn of Court, and the Defense Research Institute. Mr. Cedrone currently serves as Judge Pro Tempore for the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas. He is AV rated as AV® Preeminent™ 5.0 out of 5.0 by Martindale, has been selected as a Pennsylvania Super Lawyer, and for the last several years, and has been recognized by Best Lawyer as one of the Best Lawyers in America.
Mr. Cedrone has spoken before the American Bar Association, the Defense Research Institute, the Product Liability Advisory Council, the American Conference Institute, and the Pennsylvania Bar Institute, among other organizations about trial, product liability, engineering, and ethical issues. He has lectured on emerging automotive technologies, including semi-autonomous and autonomous vehicles.
Mr. Cedrone is the author or co-author of a number of publications on trials and the law of product liability, including “Preparing Your Witness” for the Third Edition of the Defense Counsel Training Manual of the International Association of Defense Counsel (2016); “A Defense View of Product Liability Jury Instructions,” The Legal Intelligencer (April 19, 2018); “Allocating Liability Among Defendants in Crashworthiness (and Other) Cases,” The Legal Intelligencer (Sept. 14, 2017); and “The Admissibility of Statistics in Product Liability Litigation,” The Brief, ABA Tort and Insurance Practice Section (Fall 2007).
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