BRENDA S. FULMER is a Partner and Shareholder with the law firm of Searcy Denney Scarola Barnhart & Shipley, P.A., one of the largest personal injury law firms in Florida. She also serves on the firm’s executive committee and leads the firm’s dedicated mass tort unit, which focuses on complex litigation for defective drugs, medical devices, and consumer products.
For the past 26 years, Ms. Fulmer’s practice has focused on the areas of pharmaceutical and medical device mass torts litigation. Over the years, she has represented thousands of claimants in claims and individual actions filed in state and federal courts involving 3M Dual-Ended Combat Arms earplugs; Abilify; Actos; Aelsculap knee implants; AMO and Bausch & Lomb contact lens solution; Avandia; Baycol; Belviq; Bextra; Biomet metal-on-metal hip implants; breast implants; CardioGen PET scans; Cialis; DePuy ASR and Pinnacle metal-on-metal hip implants; DePuy Attune knee implants; Digitek; drospirenone birth control pills (Yaz, Yasmin, Ocella, Gianvi, Beyaz, Safyral, and Loryna); Eliquis; Elmiron; Ethicon surgical staplers; Fen-Phen diet drugs; FinPlus compounded finasteride; Fosamax and other bisphosphonates; Gadolinium; Gulf Coast oil spill; Medtronic and Guidant and Medtronic leads, pacemakers and defibrillators; Heparin; hormone replacement therapy; Bard Kugel and Ethicon hernia mesh; Invokana; IVC filters; JUUL vaping pods; Levaquin; Mirena; NuvaRing; Ortho Evra; pain pumps; PPA; Power Morcellator devices; Pradaxa; Propulsid; Proton pump inhibitors; Provigil and Nuvigil; Reglan; Smith & Nephew Birmingham, R3, SMF and REDAPT hip implants; SSRI antidepressant birth defect cases; Stockert 3T heating/cooling devices; Stryker Rejuvenate, ABG II, Accolade, and LFIT V40 modular hip implants; Sulzer hip and knee implants; tobacco; transvaginal mesh and bladder slings (including products sold by Bard, Caldera, Coloplast, Johnson & Johnson/Ethion, Mentor, Boston Scientific, Cook Medical, Neomedic, Covidien, AMS, ARIS, Sofradim, and ProteGen); Trasylol, Viagra; Vioxx; Wright Medical metal-on- metal hip implants; Xarelto; Zantac; Zimmer-Biomet reverse shoulder implants; Zimmer Durom Cup hip implants; Zimmer M/L Taper and VerSys hip implants; Zimmer NexGen knee implants; and Zofran.
For several years, Ms. Fulmer has been named one of the Top 100 Trial Lawyers by The National Trial Lawyers, selected as a Super Lawyer from Florida, listed as one of Florida Trend’s Florida Legal Elite, and included in The Best Lawyers in America. She has received an “AV Preeminent” rating from Martindale-Hubbell. She also has been named a fellow to the Litigation Counsel of America and recognized on several occasions as one of the 500 Leading Plaintiff Consumer Lawyers by Lawdragon.
Ms. Fulmer serves on the board of governors for the American Association for Justice and the Florida Justice Association and works each year lobbying on state and federal drug and medical device issues. She is also active in the Palm Beach County Bar Association, Palm Beach County Justice Association, The Florida Bar, Workers’ Injury Law & Advocacy Group (WILG), Women En Mass (WEM), Florida Association for Women Lawyers, American Bar Association, the Duke Conference and Emory Conferences on mass tort litigation, and various mass torts-related litigation groups and consortiums.
She has served in various leadership positions with the American Association for Justice: executive committee, Evergreen Fund committee, PAC board, marketing & practice development committee, Trial Lawyers Care committee, compliance committee, law school committee, diversity committee, selection committee for the AAJ Leadership Academy, litigation group leaders council, and exchange advisory committee. She also serves in leadership roles with the Florida Justice Association Women’s Caucus, the American Association for Justice Women’s Caucus, and the executive committee for The National Trial Lawyers. She also serves on the Florida Justice Association membership and CLE Committees. She formerly served as co-lead of the AAJ Pradaxa Litigation Group and currently serves as co-lead of the AAJ Biomet Litigation Group. She has been appointed to serve as co-lead counsel of the Biomet Hip Implant Litigation MDL proceedings pending in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Indiana in South Bend as a member of Plaintiffs’ Steering Committee #2 and previously served on Plaintiffs’ Steering Committee #1 for the Biomet MDL. She has also been appointed to the Plaintiffs’ Steering Committee for the Zimmer M/L Taper and VerSys Hip Implant MDL Litigation in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York in Manhattan. Ms. Fulmer previously served on the Plaintiffs’ Steering Committees for the Pradaxa MDL in East St. Louis, Illinois. She has also been involved in state and federal court multi-district litigation discovery and settlement committee common benefit work for more than 25 years for various national pharmaceutical and medical device mass torts projects, including breast implants; diet drugs; Yaz, Yasmin, and Ocella; ProteGen bladder slings; Vioxx; Mentor ObTape; DePuy ASR hip implants; Stryker Rejuvenate & ABG II hip implants; Stryker Accolade and LFIT V40 hip implants; and BP oil spill claims.
Ms. Fulmer is a frequent lecturer on mass tort marketing, law office management, drug and medical device litigation and consumer drug safety issues. She has received the Bronze Eagle, Shoe Leather, and Cornerstone awards from the Florida Justice Association for her efforts in membership recruitment, political fundraising, and lobbying. She has also received the President’s Distinguished Service and Above and Beyond Awards on several occasions from the American Justice Association for her membership recruitment and fundraising work for that national trial lawyers’ organization. In 2016, she was honored with the Marie Lambert Award given in recognition of exemplary leadership to the profession, to her community, to AAJ, and to AAJ’s Women Trial Lawyers Caucus. She is also proud to be a graduate of AAJ’s first Leadership Academy program and continues to support the diversity and leadership development program through her family foundation.
She is a published author, having co-authored a chapter on mass torts litigation for “Anatomy of a Personal Injury Lawsuit,” published by Trial Guides and several articles for AAJ’s Trial magazine. She also served as a team leader involved in the drafting and publication of Guidelines and Best Practices for Large and Mass-Tort MDLs with the Bolch Judicial Institute at Duke Law School. She has also been awarded J.D. Supra’s Reader’s Choice awards on several occasions for her online legal publications.
Ms. Fulmer graduated from the University of South Florida with a B.S. in finance in 1990 and received her Juris Doctor degree cum laude from Stetson College of Law in 1993. She was an assistant editor of the Stetson Law Review and twice earned recognition as an Outstanding Law Review member. She served as a federal judicial intern for Judge Kovachevich and worked on pro bono projects as a Florida Bar Foundation Public Service Fellow and an intern with Gulf Coast Legal Services.
An Indiana native, Ms. Fulmer has been an active volunteer with a number of charitable organizations: Take Stock in Children; Coastal Boxer Rescue; Feed the Hungry; Special Olympics of Palm Beach County; Seagull Industries; Supporters of the Pre-Law Magnet, Inc. at Palm Beach Lakes High School; Buddy Break (providing respite care for autistic and physically-challenged children); Special Olympics; Girl Scouts; and Trial Lawyers Care (providing free legal services to the victims of 9/11 and those impacted by disasters). She has also volunteered as a foster parent (for children and dogs) and as an exchange student host parent for several years.
