Jim Archibald brings both in-house and outside counsel perspectives to his litigation practice. In his in-house capacity, he is Chief Litigation Counsel for the manufacturing company, Wm. T. Burnett, and its sporting goods and apparel subsidiary, STX LLC.  In his outside counsel capacity, he is of counsel in the Washington, DC and Baltimore offices of Venable LLP, where he has maintained a varied litigation practice for many years.  Mr. Archibald is a seasoned trial lawyer with extensive first chair experience in the defense and prosecution of large, complex, civil litigation, with a particular focus on intellectual property, products liability, toxic torts, commercial disputes and class actions.  Practicing out of Venable's offices in Baltimore and in Washington DC, he is one of a handful of lawyers licensed in Maryland and DC who are both a Fellow in the American College of Trial Lawyers and a member of the American Law Institute.  He is listed in The Best Lawyers in America.

Mr. Archibald brings sound, mature judgment to his cases, unvarnished advice to his clients, formidable skills to the courtroom and the experience of having tried over 60 substantial cases to (mostly successful) verdicts.

Representative Clients

Mr. Archibald’s clients have included many large national and international corporations in a variety of manufacturing, industrial, consumer products, banking and financial services fields, as well as smaller entities and individuals with particular litigation needs.

Significant Matters

Mr. Archibald regularly handles large commercial litigation (including intellectual property, business, banking and insurance-related disputes), class actions, and products liability and toxic tort cases for corporations.  For example, he successfully defended Goodyear against a counterclaim seeking very large damages in a case before the United States District Court in Cleveland.  He also secured a verdict on behalf of Goodyear in a case brought by 30 persons claiming damages for cancer deaths or disablements, allegedly from chemical exposure.

He was for many years national coordinating counsel for a multi-national manufacturer in certain products liability litigation and has acted as lead counsel for various clients in a wide variety of evidentiary hearings on class certification issues and served as lead trial counsel in numerous high stakes trials around the country.  In addition to handling many matters in Maryland and the District of Columbia, both on his own and as local counsel, Mr. Archibald has litigated significant cases in Arizona, California, Colorado, Delaware, Guam, Illinois, Maine Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Rhode Island, Texas, Virginia and West Virginia.

Activities

Mr. Archibald is a Fellow in the American College of Trial Lawyers and a member of the American Law Institute, in which he has served on the Members Consultative Groups for the Restatement Third of Torts: Liability for Physical Harm; The Principles of Aggregate Litigation; and The Restatement Third of Torts: Liability for Economic Loss.  He is also a sustaining member of the Product Liability Advisory Council ("PLAC") and a member of the International Association of Defense Counsel ("IADC").  Active in various bar associations, Mr. Archibald has served as President of the Maryland Association of Defense Trial Counsel, as a member of the Governing Council of the ABA Section of Litigation, and as Maryland State Chair of the Defense Research Institute ("DRI").

Active in the community when not running in marathons, Mr. Archibald has served on the boards of many charitable and educational organizations and institutions, including the boards of The Johns Hopkins University, the Maryland State Universities and Colleges (which he chaired for two years) and the Roland Park Country School.  He is a past-president of The Johns Hopkins University National Alumni Council, a former member of the Board of the University of Maryland Law School Alumni Association and a current member of the National Advisory Council of the Sheridan Libraries of The Johns Hopkins University.