Minnesota Lawyer
Those are impressive accomplishments in any year. However, they are all the more admirable given that Bassin left one Twin Cities law firm at the beginning of 2022 and opened a new Minneapolis office for her current firm, Nelson Mullins Riles & Scarborough LLP, where she leads a team of 20 litigators in Minneapolis and hundreds more around the country.
In the personal injury case, Bassin defended energy and engineering giant Siemens USA, which was named in a lawsuit involving serious injuries suffered by two young girls in Houston and their grandfather. The 9- and 6-year-old girls and their grandfather suffered electric shock injuries from a circuit box in a Houston park. Siemens alleged subcontractors were responsible for the incident.
It was a difficult case to defend as it was a distressing story regarding injured children with legitimate injuries and technical allegations. Bassin said although it wasn’t the fault of the girls, she and her team had to convince the jury it wasn’t the fault of Siemens, either. The jury agreed, granting a full defense for Siemens that has not been appealed.
In the Boston Scientific cases, plaintiffs alleged that the company’s IVC filter was defective, causing injury to dozens of recipients. (An inferior vena cava — IVC — filter is a small device that can stop blood clots from going up into the lungs.) Bassin and her team were able to convince the judge that the plaintiffs’ lead expert’s opinions were not scientifically reliable and excluded him from testifying, making the cases incredibly difficult for the plaintiffs to win.
Read more about Minnesota Lawyer’s superb class of Attorneys of the Year for 2022 here.
