Illustrations by Jon Han

Meet the ‘Hillbilly Lawyer’ Fighting to Take Down Big Pharma

Inside the massive lawsuit that seeks to assign blame — and financial penalties — for the opioid epidemic

Jessica Wapner, journalist, author and podcaster
Published in
23 min readMar 21, 2019

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PPaul Farrell paced the courtroom as lawyers filed into place: plaintiffs on the left, defendants to the right, briefcases down, folders out. Outside the chambers, Lake Erie glistened…

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Jessica Wapner, journalist, author and podcaster
OneZero

Jessica Wapner writes for The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Scientific American & elsewhere. She co-hosted the podcast One Click and has written two books.