Jennifer Connolly

Jennifer Fountain Connolly is a Shareholder in Baron & Budd’s Washington, D.C. office and a member of the Opioid Litigation Group. She has more than two decades of experience leading national, complex litigation matters including antitrust, pharmaceutical and consumer fraud class actions, qui tam cases, and cases brought by state attorneys general and other governmental entities. Since working on multistate investigations as an Assistant Attorney General, Ms. Connolly has enjoyed working with parties and attorneys around the country to litigate and resolve some of the nation’s largest cases.

Ms. Connolly has held significant roles in many of the largest pharmaceutical class actions and state attorney general cases over the past ten years. She currently represents nine states as well as several major municipalities in their cases against manufacturers, distributors and dispensers of opioids, and leads the litigation filed by those entities. Ms. Connolly performed a key role in litigation against McKesson Corporation, alleging the company engaged in a scheme that raised the prices of more than 400 brand name drugs. That case resulted in a $350 million private class action settlement, an $82 million settlement for municipalities throughout the United States, and numerous settlements on behalf of state attorneys general. Ms. Connolly was also a member of the team that successfully tried the Average Wholesale Price (AWP) litigation against four pharmaceutical defendants, obtaining a verdict that was subsequently affirmed in all respects by the First Circuit Court of Appeals.

Before joining Baron & Budd, Ms. Connolly was a Partner at Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro and led its Washington, D.C. office. She handled all types of complex litigation including pharmaceutical pricing and marketing fraud, antitrust class actions and qui tam litigation. Prior to working at Hagens Berman Ms. Connolly was a partner at Wexler Wallace LLP, practiced at a litigation boutique in Denver, Colorado, now part of Sherman & Howard, and was an Assistant Attorney General in the Business Regulation Unit of the Colorado Attorney General’s office.

In addition to being a litigator, Ms. Connolly enjoys mentoring young attorneys and takes pride in the long list of mentees who continue to keep touch with her as they grow in their careers. When not at the office, Ms. Connolly enjoys traveling with her husband and two children and attempting to tackle the “to be read” pile of books next to her bed.

Presentations

• Panelist, Federal Bar Association Qui Tam Conference, The FCA and Opioids, March 2019
• Panelist, National Association of Women Judges, Opioid Litigation, March 2020

Appointments

• Co-Chair, Public Client Litigation Group, American Association for Justice