Kenneth Ross is one of the world's most experienced and well-known lawyers practicing in the areas of product safety, product liability prevention, and corporate and regulatory compliance. He is a former partner and now Of Counsel to one of the premier product liability defense firms in the U.S., Bowman and Brooke LLP.
He has been selected for inclusion in the Who's Who Legal publication International Who's Who of Product Liability Defence Lawyers every year since 2009 and in 2023, was named as a Thought Leader in Product Liability Defence. In addition, he has been referred to by the National Law Journal as a "preventive law pioneer." Prior to entering private practice, Ken was an in-house lawyer at Westinghouse Electric and Emerson Electric where he counseled on safety and prevention issues and managed litigation.
Ken is a Life Member of the American Law Institute where he participated in the development of the Restatement of Torts: Products Liability 3d (1998) and has been an adjunct professor at Hamline Mitchell Law School and the University of Minnesota Law School where he taught product liability. In addition, he is on the Board of Directors of the Society of Product Safety Professionals (SPSP), was on the Board of Directors of the International Consumer Product Health & Safety Organization, and is active in the Defense Research Institute.
In his safety and prevention practice, he advises U.S. and foreign manufacturers, product sellers, and the insurance industry on ways to identify, evaluate, minimize and avoid the risk of liability, especially product liability, contractual liability and regulatory liability. This advice is provided during product development as well as after sale.
Representative Services
Ken has provided the following services to manufacturers and sellers of all kinds of consumer products, sporting goods, agricultural products, commercial and industrial products, food, vehicles, motor vehicle equipment, chemicals and medical devices:
Post-Sale - management systems, recalls, retrofits, safety improvements, and government reports.
Document Management - policies and procedures, implementation, education.
Contracts - purchase and sales terms and conditions, contracting procedures, risk spreading techniques, dealer agreements.
Regulatory Compliance - reporting to various agencies such as the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the Food & Drug Administration as well as Health Canada and the Australian government.
Legal Audits - pre-sale and post-sale legal audits, internal investigations, claims and litigation audits.
Legal Risk Assessments and Risk Management - for manufacturers or insurance companies.
Claims and Litigation Management - policies and procedures, staffing, strategic planning, training, and managing litigation and claims.
Seminars and Training - presented to manufacturers, product sellers, insurance companies, trade associations and insurance brokers on above issues.
Consulting Attorney and Expert Witness - assist in the defense of litigation on safety and prevention issues such as warnings, post-sale duty to warn, document retention and recall.
In addition to offering the above services, Ken works with a variety of companies that assist him with design, warning label testing, warning label production, technical writing, risk analysis, crisis management, and recall issues. He can also make referrals to excellent product liability defense counsel all over the world.
Warnings, Instructions, and other Safety Communications
Ken helps companies analyze risk and develop adequate warnings and instructions. In addition, he has lectured and written extensively in this area, including co-authoring one of the early warnings compliance manuals while he was an attorney at Westinghouse Electric. Ken has also provided legal advice regarding the testing of warning labels and has helped several industries create industry-wide labeling systems. Some of the testing projects he has worked on include the Mr. Ouch label in 1980 and the water heater flammable vapor labels in 1990. He has also helped trade associations revise voluntary industry standards for their products to incorporate new general labeling standards.
In the area of instructions, Ken has revised many instruction manuals, promotional literature, advertising, and other marketing communications.
Recalls, Retrofits, and Post-sale Safety Improvements
Another area where Ken concentrates his practice is post-sale issues such as recalls and retrofits involving machinery, industrial equipment, consumer products, motor vehicles and accessories, medical devices and food. He has worked with the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission since the late 1970's and more recently with the FDA, the NHTSA, Health Canada, Ontario's ESA, and ACCC (Australia).
He assists companies in setting up systems so that they can better identify possible safety issues as early as possible and also counsels them on all aspects of pre-sale and post-sale recall preparedness. Ken has assisted many companies in reporting safety issues to a government agency and implementing an acceptable corrective action program. Lastly, he has served as an expert witness in litigation on the issue of recall adequacy.
Articles and Seminars
Ken has written extensively on this subject. His recent writings can be accessed by clicking on the links next to each article shown in PLP Articles. He continues to write articles in this area. If you are interested in receiving electronic copies of his future articles, email Ken at kenrossesq@gmail.com.
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He has also presented hundreds of seminars, both public and in-house, over the last 30 years on product safety and liability prevention and regulatory compliance in the U.S., Asia, Latin America, and Europe for business persons, engineers, lawyers, and insurance company personnel. Click here to see a more complete description of the content and benefits of Ken's seminars and see PLP Resources for a general description of Ken's seminars and several agendas for sample in-house seminars.
