This Month’s Focus.
This month’s focus is on New Jersey lawyer, George T. Baxter. George’s legal career has taken him from private law practice to the co-founder of a public bio-tech company. As a New Jersey trial lawyer, George won the only jury verdict in New Jersey or in the United States against the American Association of Blood Banks for it role in failing to recommend AIDS testing to scene blood products in the early 1980’s. George took on the case for William Snyder, a 52 year old man who went into the hospital for cardiac surgery and came home dying from AIDS. The evidence George produced at the trial resulted in a congressional investigation into the blood industry’s practices and FDA’s regulatory failures.
The Trial Lawyers for Public Justice honored George Baxter as a New Jersey trial lawyer for his success in winning the case Snyder v. American Association of Blood Banks. In that case, George established that the blood industry conspired to delay testing that would have saved his client’s life and prevented the national distribution of AIDS-contaminated blood to thousands of Americans. The case fueled a congressional investigation into the blood industry’s practices and FDA regulatory conflicts-of-interest.
The Trial Lawyers for Public Justice Honored New Jersey Attorney, George T. Baxter, with the Trial Lawyer of the Year Public Achievement Award for protecting health care consumers in the case Snyder v. American Association of Blood Banks. Since then George devotes his time to the Baxter Law Firm where he focuses in the area of medical malpractice, personal injury, motor vehicle accidents, dangerous products and work accidents.
As an early co-founder of VaxGen, Inc., George served as the company’s senior vice president, general counsel and secretary to its board of directors. He sucessfully helped to guide the company’s initial public offering (IPO).
George continues to win the difficult personal injury cases for his clients. Recently he took on a medical malpractice case for a young woman who suffered a severe injury as the result of a cystosphy. She was turned down by four previous lawyers, but George took her case and went on to win a confidential settlement for her.
In 2014 George’s book, “Every Last Drop,” was published which tells the David and Goiath story about his persistence in winning the Snyder case, and the friendship between him and the clients. The book has a David and Goliath paradigm that centers on the universal themes of persistence, friendship and trust over greed.
The book is presently available through book stores and Amazon.com.
George has also successfully represented parties in business disputes and New Jersey arbitrations. In the case Petriccione v. FDR, George represented a 58 year old man who retired from his long standing New Jersey partnership which owned a Ford dealorship and its property. When the partners could not agree on the fair value of his client’s partnership buy-out, George successfully won him a milliion dollar arbitration award.
George Baxter continues to take on challenging and serious cases with the Baxter Law Firm.