Ellen Gregg is a retired member.
A veteran trial lawyer, Ellen led the Case Management Facility (CMF), which helps clients manage information in mass tort and class action litigation. Ellen is an innovator in law firm leadership, professional development, and recruiting programs. Ellen Gregg has litigated cases at all levels of state and federal courts including class actions, and medical malpractice, wrongful death, civil rights and complex product liability claims.
Ellen applied this experience in her role as Team Leader of the CMF, a high-tech legal knowledge management (LKM) system. The CMF creates and administers case repositories and virtual law firms nationwide, enabling in-house and outside counsel to communicate in real time in a secure electronic environment, to instantly access all work product, and to reduce costs. Her recent efforts focused on applying business intelligence and predictive analytics to her clients’ litigation. For years, Ellen has helped her clients achieve significant budget savings while enhancing their ability to win cases.
At Womble Bond Dickinson, Ellen held numerous leadership roles, including service on the firm’s Management and Executive Committees. Ellen also actively serves the Winston-Salem community through her involvement in the United Way, Habitat for Humanity and the American Heart Association.
Publications
How Artificial Intelligence is Impacting Litigation, Attorneys’ Liability Assurance Society (ALAS) Loss Prevention Journal, Summer 2019. Co-author with Womble Bond Dickinson Chief Knowledge Officer Bill Koch.
Professional Activities
- Bar Associations:
- Forsyth County Bar Association
- North Carolina Bar Association
- CLE Committee
- Women in the Profession Committee
- Career Development Committee
- Trial Practice General Curriculum Committee
- Litigation Section
- American Bar Association, Litigation Section
- Member, DRI, The Voice of the Defense Bar – Professionalism Committee
- Member, North Carolina Chief Justice’s Commission on Professionalism, 2005-2009
- Faculty Member, North Carolina Institute of Government, Public Officers Training School, 1990-1996
- Vice Chair, Elon University School of Law Advisory Board, 2006-present
Honors and Awards
- Recognized in The Best Lawyers in America (BL Rankings) in the fields of Bet-the-Company Litigation, Commercial Litigation, Mass Tort Litigation / Class Actions – Defendants, Product Liability Litigation – Defendants, 2007 – Present
- Received the Best Lawyers™ Mass Tort Litigation "Lawyer of the Year" award in Greensboro, North Carolina, 2017
Experience
Any result the lawyer or law firm may have achieved on behalf of clients in other matters does not necessarily indicate similar results can be obtained for other clients.
- As counsel to the joint defense group, led the efforts to design and operate a joint defense knowledge management system for four Fortune 500 manufacturing companies facing thousands of product liability lawsuits presented by a well-funded and organized plaintiffs’ bar.
- Represented Merck & Co. as national litigation management counsel in the VIOXX litigation, one of the largest mass tort cases in US history. Successfully navigated service, jurisdictional and other complex case strategy issues in the wide-scale multi-district and state-coordinated proceedings.
- Represented a global energy company as national litigation management counsel in thousands of individual actions and class actions, including shareholder actions and government investigations arising out of the Gulf Oil Spill.
- Represented a Wall Street investment bank in creating and operating a legal knowledge management system in support of its residential mortgage-backed securities litigation.
- Worked directly with general counsel in Fortune 500 companies to develop a variety of custom legal knowledge management systems that integrated compliance, early case assessment (ECA) LEAN/Six Sigma and crisis management goals. Creative emphasis on legal analytics and innovation in the use of artificial intelligence and automation of legal processes and process improvement.
