Jennifer Wethington Merritt
Associate
Complex Business Litigation, Products Liability Litigation, Appellate Practice
Ms. Merritt’s practice consists of a wide variety of business-related matters resolved through litigation.
She has represented clients in a range of matters including business and commercial litigation, eminent domain proceedings, real estate litigation, products liability and personal injury actions, and insurance coverage disputes. Ms. Merritt has appeared as appellate counsel before the Supreme Court of Arkansas and the Arkansas Court of Appeals on a variety of issues including land use, guardianship issues, the scope of a trial judge's authority to grant a new trial based on newly-discovered evidence, "no-injury" product defect claims, the sufficiency of the evidence and propriety of punitive damages in business tort and wrongful-death actions, the constitutionality of certain regulations of the Arkansas State Plant Board, the qualifications of candidates for elective office, and the appropriate measure of just compensation to a landowner in an eminent domain case.
Ms. Merritt has recently been involved in the defense of a number of putative class actions. These matters include her representation of a former officer of a corporation defending securities and breach-of-fiduciary-duty claims, her defense of a publicly-traded food manufacturer and a publicly-traded pharmaceutical company in putative class actions alleging deceptive trade practices, and her defense of a title insurance company in a putative class action alleging the unauthorized practice of law. Ms. Merritt also represents manufacturers and distributors of welding consumables in toxic tort suits pending in both federal and state courts alleging personal injury from exposure to welding fumes.
Ms. Merritt graduated with high honors from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock School of Law in 2002, where she served as the Notes Editor of the University of Arkansas at Little Rock Law Review. She received the Arkansas Bar Foundation Ethics Scholar Award (2002); Arkansas Bar Foundation Law Review Writing Excellence Award (2001); and "Top Paper" Awards in Administrative Law (2002), White Collar Crime (2002), Intellectual Property (2001), Legal Profession (Ethics) (2001), and Reasoning, Writing & Advocacy II (2000).
After being admitted to the Arkansas bar in 2002, Ms. Merritt served as law clerk to Chief Judge Jane A. Restani of the U.S. Court of International Trade in New York, New York, from 2002-2004, where she also clerked by designation to the United States Courts of Appeals for the Fifth, Ninth, and Eleventh Circuits. Ms. Merritt is also licensed to practice law before the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit and the United States District Courts for the Western and Eastern Districts of Arkansas.
Education
University of Arkansas at Little Rock School of Law (J.D., with high honors, 2002)
Fulbright Fellow, Vienna, Austria (1997-98)
Hendrix College (B.A., Politics, 1997)
Associations and Affiliations
Member, American Bar Association, Arkansas Bar Association, and Pulaski County Bar Association
Board of Directors, Arkansas Association of Women Lawyers (2009-12)
Volunteer Organization of the Center for Arkansas Legal Services (VOCALS) (2011)
Publications
Note, Violence Against Women Act’s Civil Rights Remedy Exceeds Congress’s Powers to Regulate Interstate Commerce, 23 U. Ark. L. Rev. 485 (2001); Survey of Constitutional Law, 24 U. Ark. L. Rev. 905 (2002)
