Cari Dawson

Partner at Alston & Bird

She co-chairs the Class Action & MDL Practice Team and has a winning track record defending Fortune 500 companies as lead counsel in high-profile enterprise litigation nationwide. Cari assists clients in the areas of commercial litigation, strategic counseling, and crisis management. From litigating on behalf of Fortune 500 companies such as Toyota to providing strategic counseling and crisis management, Cari’s leadership in high-profile class action cases and multidistrict litigation makes her a go-to lawyer for clients nationwide.

In 2021, Cari was named, for the seventh time, one of the “Top 250 Women in Litigation” in the U.S. by Benchmark Litigation. She is one of four litigators from Georgia highlighted by the publication, which noted: “Dawson has developed a practice defending hundreds of class actions in a variety of industry sectors.”

Experience

  • Served as national coordinating counsel for Liberty Mutual in connection with its COVID-19 business interruption coverage class actions.
  • Defending State Farm in cost of insurance class action litigation in Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, and Washington and serving as coordinating counsel for all of its cost of insurance class actions nationwide.
  • Serving as lead class action defense counsel to Porsche Cars North America, Inc. and Porsche AG in multidistrict litigation in San Francisco in the Volkswagen “Clean Diesel” MDL.
  • Serving as lead class action defense counsel to Mazda in multidistrict litigation in Miami following widely publicized vehicle recalls relating to allegedly defective Takata airbags.
  • Defeated certification as lead class action defense counsel for Ford in consumer class actions in Washington and Missouri. Currently defending Ford in a consumer class action in Michigan.
  • Portland, OR: Won issue of first impression in the U.S. Supreme Court regarding whether the insurance company client willfully violated the Fair Credit Reporting Act by failing to give the statutorily required notice of “adverse action” under the Act. The client was sued in U.S. district court in a nationwide class action, where we won summary judgment. The Ninth Circuit reversed on appeal, but the Supreme Court reversed the Ninth Circuit. The Supreme Court ruled the client did not, as a matter of law, willfully violate the Fair Credit Reporting Act.
  • Seattle, WA: Defeated a purported nationwide class action filed in the Western District of Washington seeking damages under various consumer protection statutes for failure to disclose and pay diminished value under insurance contracts.
  • Edwardsville, IL (Madison County): Won a dismissal of an insurance client in a multidefendant conspiracy class action in which the plaintiffs sought more than $1 billion for alleged injuries involving the specification of aftermarket parts.

Education

  •  Harvard University (J.D., 1993)
  •  Princeton University (A.B., 1990)

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