Biography
Born in Alexandria, Virginia, Sam Lanham graduated from the College of William and Mary in 1975 and earned a Juris Doctorate from Wake Forest University School of Law in 1980. He then clerked for Justice David Nichols of the Maine Supreme Judicial Court. He is admitted to practice law in Maine and Colorado.
Mr. Lanham has achieved the highest rating for legal skills that an attorney can professionally achieve—an “AV” rating by Martindale–Hubbell—a recognition that he has reached the height of professional excellence and is recognized for the highest levels of skill and integrity.
During H. Ross Perot’s 1996 presidential campaign, Mr. Lanham served as his national trial and ballot access counsel. In that capacity he directed the “Presidential Debates” litigation against the Federal Election Commission and the Commission on Presidential Debates, arising from Mr. Perot’s exclusion from the debates with President Clinton and Senator Dole.
Mr. Lanham has represented clients in Maine and throughout the United States with pharmaceutical and medical device claims involving FenPhen diet drugs, the Ortho Evra birth control patch, Vioxx, Fosomax, Avandia, Fleet Phospho-soda, Sulzer Orthopedics hip prosthesis, Guidant Ancure endografts, Guidant defibrillators, and Medtronic Sprint Fidelis heart leads.
During the past four years Mr. Lanham participated in the successful litigation more than 2,400 diet drug claims in the courts of Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, and was a presenter at Mealey’s Fen-Phen Litigation Conference in Philadephia.
In 2006, Mr. Lanham was appointed to the Discovery Committee in Ortho Evra Products Liability Litigation, MDL 1742, in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Ohio. He presently serves on the E-discovery and Sales & Marketing committees in Avandia Marketing, Sales Practices and Product Liability Litigation, MDL 1871, in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.
Mr. Lanham is presently litigating a Maine class action litigation against Philip Morris, for deceptive and fraudulent marketing of its Marlboro Lights cigarette since the 1970s. That case is scheduled for oral argument before the United States Supreme Court on October 6, 2008. He is also involved in three national class action consumer litigations against the manufacturers of DRAM and SRAM (memory chips in computers, cell phones and iPods) and LCD (liquid crystal displays in televisions) for price fixing and antitrust violations. He recently filed the first class action case in the United States against the supermarket chain Hannaford Brothers, for credit and debit card security breach.
Mr. Lanham is a member of the American Bar Association, Maine State Bar Association, American Association for Justice, Maine Trial Lawyers Association, and American Inns of Court. He is past President of the Maine Trial Lawyers Association, the Penobscot County Bar Association, and presently serves on the national Board of Governors of the American Association for Justice. He is named to Who's Who in American Law and is Senior Counsel in The College of Master Advocates and Barristers.
Samuel W. Lanham, Jr. has been named by the New England Super Lawyers magazine as one of the top attorneys in Maine for 2008. Only five percent of the lawyers in the state are named by Super Lawyers.
The selections for Super Lawyers are made by Law & Politics, a division of Key Professional Media, Inc. of Minneapolis, Minn. Each year, Law & Politics undertakes a rigorous multi-phase selection process that includes a statewide survey of lawyers, independent evaluation of candidates by Law & Politics' attorney-led research staff, a peer review of candidates by practice area, and a good-standing and disciplinary check.
Mr. Lanham served for ten years on the international Board of Directors of Up With People and for fifteen years on the Board of the Bangor Halfway House. He is currently serving on the Board and is President of the Bangor Symphony Orchestra. Mr. Lanham resides in Bangor with his wife, Stephanie, a Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner at Acadia Hospital. They have three sons, Samuel, Andrew and John.
