ST. LOUIS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Husch Blackwell today announced the launch of CXT (Complex Torts), a dedicated platform built to transform how complex torts litigation is managed, coordinated, defended, and resolved. CXT is the shared infrastructure from which independent client teams operate, giving each team greater access to proprietary market intelligence, litigation analytics, operational resources, emerging technology, and value-aligned pricing tools, while empowering them to craft the service model that best fits each client’s objectives, risk profile, and litigation footprint. The product of those service models is what CXT calls “Engineered Defense”—a fundamentally new approach to complex torts defense built on shared capability, individualized execution, and cutting-edge AI and technology integration.
Building on Husch Blackwell’s nationally recognized toxic tort practice, CXT brings together over 165 highly experienced attorneys licensed across more than 30 states, exclusively focused on complex torts, with concentrated depth in Mass Torts, Toxic and Environmental Torts, Product Liability, and Class Actions.
These attorneys are organized into dedicated client teams, each built around the specific demands of that client’s industry, docket, and legal strategy. Many already serve as national coordinating counsel and first-chair trial counsel on the most consequential litigation in the country, working with leading Fortune 500 companies, private equity firms, and insurers to coordinate the defense of asbestos, talc, silica, solvent, herbicide, pesticide, pharmaceutical, and other complex tort litigation. Behind every engagement sits the full depth of the CXT platform: a shared bench of talent, intelligence, analytical tools, and technology purpose-built for the demands of high-stakes, multi-jurisdiction defense.
“The challenges posed by complex tort litigation have never been greater as defendants face enterprise risk in the form of surging costs, unpredictable outcomes, and skyrocketing jury verdicts, all of it accelerating as AI use reshapes an already volatile landscape and provides new risks and opportunities,” said J.Y. Miller, Husch Blackwell partner and leader of CXT. “CXT was built to help clients navigate that environment with clarity and confidence. The platform exists to give every client team the intelligence, technology, and resources they need to build a defense model around their specific client’s litigation profile, risk tolerance, and business objectives. Every case outcome and litigation data point we accumulate sharpens the tools available to every team on the platform. We are not asking our clients to adapt to us. We built CXT so we could better adapt to them.”
Miller, a former firm executive board member, has been a firm leader in innovation throughout his career, first as the managing partner of The Link, the first virtual office at an Am Law 100 law firm, which has since grown into Husch Blackwell’s largest, and then at the helm of the acclaimed Alliance National Asbestos Team that defends over 10,000 toxic tort claims across the country.
“CXT reflects the kind of firm we are committed to being for our clients,” said Jamie Lawless, Chief Executive of Husch Blackwell. “We didn’t ask how to build a better practice group. We asked what the ideal relationship looks like from our clients’ point of view, and then we built the infrastructure to deliver it. CXT is a long-term investment in capabilities that make our lawyers sharper, our strategy stronger, and our clients’ outcomes better. J.Y. is a pioneer within the legal industry and exactly the person to carry the vision for CXT into this next chapter.”
CXT is structured as a dedicated operational unit within Husch Blackwell’s nationwide platform. The shared foundation brings the same deep infrastructure to every client engagement: ground-level venue knowledge across the nation, real-time insight on judicial tendencies and plaintiff-firm behavior, early-warning intelligence on emerging litigation trends, and a national network of experienced counsel and trial talent that can be rapidly deployed to project power where needed. Each team draws from that shared base and configures it around the specific demands of their client. including their docket composition, budget structure, risk appetite, and strategic priorities. The result is a defense operation that is simultaneously consistent in its depth and flexible in its execution.
CXT operates closely with Husch Blackwell’s Transformation Office to continuously evolve the platform’s technology infrastructure, including agentic AI, litigation analytics, and real-time data tools, making those capabilities available to every client team as a shared resource. How each team deploys those tools is shaped by the client needs: some clients benefit from deep portfolio analytics; others need rapid-response trial support or real-time venue intelligence. CXT’s pricing models are similarly client-configured, offering value-based fees, fixed-fee arrangements, and performance-aligned structures so each team can build the economic model that best aligns with their client’s objectives, budget expectations, and incentive structures.
About Husch Blackwell
Husch Blackwell is a different kind of law firm—structured around our clients’ industries and built on a culture of selfless service. Our 1,000+ lawyers collaborate across the U.S. from more than 20 offices and our virtual office, The Link, to provide uncommon solutions to our clients’ most complex challenges. Learn more at huschblackwell.com.
Contacts
Mike Lavieri
Public Relations Manager
816.983.8667
mike.lavieri@huschblackwell.com
