Charles Orr

Charles G. “Chip” Orr is a member of Baron & Budd’s Opioid Litigation Group. Before joining Baron & Budd as a shareholder in 2019, he spent the past decade at a boutique pharmaceutical and medical device law firm, successfully litigating mass tort cases for plaintiffs from across the country.

Mr. Orr has 25 years of experience working on complex cases, both for clients of large international firms and for the Texas Supreme Court and appellate courts as a staff attorney. Prior to joining Baron & Budd, Mr. Orr was the lead attorney in several lines of pharmaceutical litigation that resulted in settlements totaling around $100 million. For example, in Avandia litigation, in which GlaxoSmithKline set aside $3.4 billion in 2011 to settle lawsuits over not disclosing that its Type-2 diabetes drug increased the risk of heart attack and cardiac death, Mr. Orr authored dozens of trial court briefs and was the primary brief writer for a California state court bellwether trial team (the case settled while the parties were picking a jury). And in Reglan litigation, in which product liability, negligence, and misrepresentation claims were brought against numerous drug manufacturers for serious neurological side effects resulting from prolonged use of an anti-nausea drug, Mr. Orr spearheaded all litigation matters for hundreds of clients, including managing a complex Plaintiff Fact Sheet process and navigating complex issues regarding federal preemption and personal jurisdiction. Mr. Orr also served in leadership roles in the California Judicial Council Coordinated Proceeding (JCCP) pertaining to the injectable diabetes medicine Byetta, settling the firm’s cases on very favorable terms following extensive litigation, including working up a bellwether case which was set for trial just weeks before the cases settled.

Mr. Orr currently serves on the Plaintiffs’ Executive Committee and as Co-Lead Counsel for thousands of plaintiffs in the California Lipitor JCCP, in which plaintiffs allege that the cholesterol drug causes Type-2 diabetes. As the primary brief writer for this case, he has successfully secured remand twice for the plaintiffs, including defeating appeals by the defendant to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals following both remand orders and to the U.S. Supreme Court following the second remand order. Mr. Orr also wrote and argued the JCCP plaintiffs’ opposition to the defendants’ motion to dismiss the case on personal jurisdiction grounds and successfully defended the trial court’s order denying that motion in the California Court of Appeals, the California Supreme Court, and the U.S. Supreme Court.

Before focusing his practice on mass torts, Mr. Orr handled a broad appellate practice encompassing a wide variety of disputes. Mr. Orr spent nearly six years as an appellate attorney working for Texas appellate judges, including two stints at the Texas Supreme Court (first for Justice Lloyd Doggett, then for Justice Craig Enoch) as well as serving as a staff attorney for Chief Justice John Cayce at the Fort Worth Court of Appeals and for Justice Rebecca Simmons of the San Antonio Court of Appeals. Mr. Orr also worked for more than five years in the appellate section of an international law firm, where he served as both primary author of hundreds of trial and appellate briefs and motions and also as a member of appellate teams on several notable cases.

In the mid-2000s, Mr. Orr provided a full range of legal services as general counsel to an intercountry adoption agency. In addition to lending his expertise to licensing and federal accreditation matters, Mr. Orr was responsible for lobbying the United States and Guatemalan governments and various private sector actors on how Guatemala should reform its adoption laws to be in compliance with the Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption. Mr. Orr also provided consulting services to other intercountry adoption agencies on Hague accreditation, implementation, and compliance.

Mr. Orr earned his law degree from the University of Texas School of Law, graduating in 1993 with High Honors. He was a Chancellor at UT (top 16 students in graduating class, or top 3%) and was a member of the Law Review. Mr. Orr obtained undergraduate and master’s degrees from the University of Delaware before attending law school, with an emphasis in political science and philosophy.

Mr. Orr has served on the boards of several nonprofits, including Preservation Dallas, a group dedicated to the preservation and revitalization of the city’s historic buildings, neighborhoods and places, and Focus on Adoption, whose mission was to improve relations between intercountry adoption agencies, adopting families, and governmental entities overseeing the intercountry adoption process. When he is not practicing law, Mr. Orr enjoys spending time with his wife and teenage daughters. He is a music buff, an avid reader, and an enthusiastic traveler.

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Publications

• Appellate Oddities” (updated with new text) – Journal of the Texas Supreme Court Historical Society, Summer 2014, Vol. 3, No. 4
• O’Connor’s Texas Civil Appeals 2005-06 ed. – updated and edited
• “An Overview of Selected Issues In Punitive Damages” (co-author) – University of Texas Damages Institute Oct. 2004
• “Formation of the Judgment and Calculation of Interest” (co-author) – 14th Annual Conference on State and Federal Appeals, June 2004
• Appellate Advocate “Texas Supreme Court Update” (co-author) – Winter 2005, 2004, 2003, 2002
• Dallas Headnotes “Profile of Attorney General Greg Abbott” – Aug. 2003
• “Appellate Oddities” – State Bar of Texas and the Appellate Section of the State Bar 2002
• “Nuts and Bolts of Mandamus Procedure” – State Bar of Texas and the Appellate Section of the State Bar 2001
• “Mandamus Update – Survey of Recent Mandamus Decisions” (co-author) – South Texas College of Law Civil Trial Law Conference Feb. 2001
• “Chip’s Tips – A Primer for Petition Practice at the Texas Supreme Court” – Tarrant County Bar Association Appellate Section May 2000

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Presentations

• “Using   Litigation   For   Preservation”   –  Historic  Preservation: Easements,  Tax Incentives, and Litigation, San Antonio, June 2008
• “Guatemala and Hague Treaty Compliance” – Annual Conference, Focus on Adoption (held in Guatemala City, Guatemala), February 2007
• “Texas Supreme Court Practice” – Appellate Boot Camp, Advanced Civil Appellate Practice Course 2004
• “Using Discovery Products as Summary Judgment Evidence” – University of Houston Law Foundation Advanced Evidence and Discovery Institute 2003
• “Trends at the Texas Supreme Court” – North Dallas Bar Association 2003
• “Mandamus Practice” – Appellate Boot Camp, Advanced Civil Appellate Practice Course 2001
• “Texas Supreme Court Petition for Review Practice” – Tarrant County Bar Association Appellate Section 2000