Atlantic Legal played a pivotal role in Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, the case that definitively set the evidentiary standard for expert scientific testimony in federal court.

Completing its "Daubert Trilogy," the Court held that the "Gatekeeping" role of federal trial judges, explicated in Daubert, applies to technical evidence that is not in the realm of "pure science." Atlantic Legal's brief was cited in the Court's decision. Atlantic Legal's clients included several prominent engineers, including a foremost expert on tire failure and non-destructive testing of tires (whose monograph was also cited by the Court), as well as former presidents of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.

Although the Supreme Court established firm and clear standards for admissibility for expert testimony in Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, 509 U.S. 579 (1993), state courts have been slow to grasp the principles of sound science underpinning that decision. This slowness has been especially obvious--and ironic--in cases involving medical causation. Though Daubert was itself a medical causation case in which it was alleged that a child's birth defects were caused by medication the mother took while pregnant, state courts have repeatedly exempted medical causation cases from Daubert standards of evidence. Likewise, as courts continue to struggle to apply the Daubert principle fairly and responsibly, Atlantic Legal continues to clarify that principle persistently and successfully.

The California Supreme Court, in a landmark ruling, found that the citizens of Redlands, California, had no basis for filing a class action toxic tort lawsuit again the Lockheed Martin Corporation. The ruling in Carrillo v. Lockheed Martin both clarified the terms upon which mass medical tort claims may be filed, and debunked the increasingly common notion that "medical monitoring" is always a reasonable response when people are exposed to hazardous chemicals.

n GEOD v. New Jersey (U.S. District Court, New Jersey) the Foundation represented a small aerial surveying firm which had been virtually excluded from participating in New Jersey state construction projects because of the state's "minority and woman owned business enterprise" program, which required prime contractors to subcontract seven percent and three percent, respectively, of the value of the state contract to minority and woman owned businesses. We alleged that this program, embodied both in statute and regulations, violated GEOD's equal protection rights under both the United States Constitution and the New Jersey constitution because the state had no credible evidence that the state or its contractors had ever discriminated against minority or woman-owned firms in connection with state construction projects.

The Red Bank Charter School, a middle school serving 80 students from the fourth through the eighth grades, opened in the fall of 1998. The school was a smashing success, a truly innovative, genuinely effective alternative to the public middle school. Test results were high; the waiting list was long. Free and open to all, the Red Bank Charter School was poised to make a deep and lasting impact on the quality of education offered to its students. Trouble arose, however, when the Red Bank Board of Education opposed the renewal and expansion of the school's charter.

The case involved a challenge to the constitutionality of the Solomon Amendment, which provides that certain federal funds may not be granted to colleges and universities that do not give military recruiters the same access to on-campus recruiting as the school provides to other outside employers.

In 2008, Atlantic Legal served as special counsel to a major national law firm in defending a small chemical manufacturing company and its principal against a recovery claim brought by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency under § 107(a) of the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act. EPA claims it is entitled to recovery costs of approximately $1.3 million.

On November 4, 2008 the Atlantic Legal Foundation filed an amicus brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit on behalf of the National Association of Manufacturers and the National Federation of Independent Business opposing the Government’s appeal from an order for a new trial in a criminal prosecution for violation of EPA regulations.

For what has been described as the most important Equal Protection case of the decade, Atlantic Legal filed an amicus brief in the United States Supreme Court on behalf of several prominent legal and political science scholars.

In July 2009, acting as counsel of record and co-counsel with New England Legal Foundation (“NELF”), Atlantic Legal filed an amicus brief in the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit on behalf of NELF in IMS Health v. Sorrell. The case arises out of a law adopted by Vermont that restricts the transfer of physician- identifiable data (no information revealing the identity of the patient is collected or disclosed), which, we argued, violates the First Amendment.