Our Practice
The Cause
The Plan
Markland Hanley is a top tier, Dallas, Texas based product liability defense law firm that defends designers and manufacturers of advanced products in product liability litigation and consults with them regarding design phase processes that can reduce the likelihood of product liability case filings and increase the likelihood of successful defense of any such cases that are filed. If such cases are filed, Markland Hanley provides the highest quality defense in court. Our firm has been named a “Tier One Best Law Firm” in Product Liability - Defense by U.S. News and World Report and Woodward White, Inc.'s Best Lawyers, in 2014-2022. One of the firm’s founders, Texas Super Lawyer®, Dale Markland, was previously the head of the Product Liability Practice Group of one of the nation’s largest law firms, the international law firm of Vinson & Elkins, LLP. Markland Hanley’s other founder, Texas Super Lawyer®, Tara Hanley, also previously with Vinson & Elkins, LLP, is among the most highly respected product liability lawyers in the state of Texas. These firm founders have over 60 years of combined product liability defense experience.
TAKE THE FIRST STEP
You can achieve a sense of calm and confidence in the product liablility storm if you are prepared for the new and different attacks plaintiffs' trial lawyers are likely to make on your company's products. Do not let the plaintiffs' bar get ahead of your defense.
Our attorneys are ready to visit you at your location or, if you prefer, to connect with you via audio or video conference call to discuss your company's evolving product liablity legal needs and to help you safeguard your company against the likely impending attacks on its newest innovations.
We offer our services to assist your company in its review of its design phase processes and to advise the company regarding additional design phase processes which could be implemented and which can assist the company in reducing the risk of case filings and increase the likelihood of successful defense of any such cases that are filed. As to cases that are filed against the company, we can provide highest qulity defense in court. We will do everything within our power to provide you and your company with a sense of calm and confidence in the new product liability world.
We believe that the creators of modern-day technologically advanced products are true visionaries and that their tireless efforts to refine existing products and create new and better products will drastically improve life for all of humanity. We believe that technologically advanced products, including autonomous products, robots, and artificial intelligence, are the keys to a better future for all people – a future previously unimaginable and seemingly unattainable – that is safer, healthier, more sustainable, more productive, and more prosperous. We are truly inspired by assisting the creators of life-changing products as they bravely usher in an incredible new world. Our cause is simple. We determinedly and doggedly defend, advocate for, and champion the technologically advanced products changing our world and the extraordinary companies and individuals who create them, and we would be honored to pursue this cause on behalf of you, your product, and your company.
Our goal is to provide sound advice to our clients relative to their efforts to avoid lawsuits, and, in the event such lawsuits are filed, to provide defense to their companies' advanced products that is superior to that provided by any other law firm.
The combination of attributes that make it possible for our firm to achieve such goals include:
- A team of diverse, enthusiastic, motivated individuals who are fired-up to help manufacturers usher in the bright future made possible by technologically advanced products – a team of defenders who are true believers.
- Our commitment to gaining & maintaining unparalleled knowledge of:
- Texas substantive product liability law;
- Texas & federal expert exclusionary law;
- how to destroy adverse experts during deposition & trial cross examination, and through the use of testing, demonstrations, statistical, and other technical evidence presented by a team of highest quality experts; and
- the existence of interrelated technical issues arising in product liability cases relating to the specific types of technologically advanced products that we defend, which facilitates our development and maintenance of our unparalleled knowledge.
- Our ability to provide highest quality legal services at an extremely attractive cost.
01
The product’s perception device data intake goals;
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The product’s radiuses of perception;
03
The product’s array of perception devices and any limitations on their capabilities;
04
The product’s perception synthesis system, if any;
05
The product’s decision-making framework, including the moral judgment framework incorporated within the product’s algorithms, genetic coding or artificial intelligence processes, relative to making decisions regarding best actions under the perceived conditions;
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The information and warnings provided to the product user;
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Excluding genetically coded products, any designed-in autonomous function disengagement features activated under specified perceived conditions.
And, it is our goal to learn during the course of our engagement as much more about the client’s products and technical issues arising from use of such products as is cost effectively possible.
It is our goal to develop the facts of any specific case or engagement matter as efficiently and as effectively as can be done by any product liability firm.
Finally, it is our goal to help our clients’ in-house lawyers and technical personnel to most appropriately defend their products against plaintiffs’ trial lawyers’ unjustified attacks and to preserve the future visions of technologically advanced product manufacturers and those of our other clients. We will assist your company in creating and sustaining a better future for humanity.
Markland Hanley pledges to do everything within our power to fulfill these goals.
EXPERIENCE
The firm’s experience and accomplishments of the firm’s members include the following:
Markland Hanley’s team is uniquely qualified to powerfully and effectively advocate on your behalf. We tailor our advocacy to your needs and bring innovative ideas and time-tested strategies to the courtroom.
For further information about our practice or if we can be of assistance, please call or email Dale Markland at 214-706-9176/dmarkland@marklandhanley.com or Tara Hanley at 214-706-9326/thanley@marklandhanley.com
Our Core Values
Careers
Our firm is committed to employing a legal team of the best and brightest. We live in a multi-cultural and multi-ethnic world. By embracing diversity and taking advantage of varying view points and experiences Markland Hanley offers its clients the best strategies to prevail in court and to otherwise foster its clients’ interests. By assembling a diverse team we have created an organization which is truly uplifting and inspirational to its personnel- one in which each team member benefits and grows from interaction with their diverse co-workers, greatly fostering enthusiasm for the practice of law and for life.
Markland Hanley was awarded by client, Navistar Inc., its Law Department Diversity Recognition Award, given annually to one law firm of less than 250 attorneys that has fostered the idea of a diverse law firm.
Our Common Characteristics
For those interested in employment with Markland Hanley, we strive to recruit and maintain a team of lawyers and support personnel who possess a set of common traits that are required to provide the highest quality legal representation in our areas of practice.
We recruit team members who possess this set of characteristics:
- Integrity
- High Intelligence
- Excellent communication and persuasive skills and the ability to get along well with a wide spectrum of people
- Creativity
- Enthusiasm for and enjoyment of the practice of law and life generally
- A high energy and a hard-working nature
- Mental toughness- the ability to work well within an environment of conflict and competition
- A burning desire to excel in our practice
- An intensity of purpose that stands the test of time
- Excellent organizational skills and the ability to focus on very detailed information and to discern from such information that which is significant
- Sound judgment
- Self-confidence
We are not looking for individuals who believe that their past accomplishments are sufficient to carry them through their careers. We are looking for highly motivated, very hard-working individuals who will devote a very large percentage of their energy, time, and spirits to be all that they can be. We are looking for individuals who want to soar professionally and in life generally. This is a very demanding profession and our niche practice areas within it are even more so. Our clients and our team members expect all personnel to throw themselves into the task and to give it our very best efforts.
Markland Hanley is committed to educating and grooming its employees so that they can become the highest quality trial lawyers and paralegals that they can be.
Accolades
- Markland Hanley has been ranked by U.S. News & World Report and Woodward White, Inc.’s Best Lawyers as a Tier 1 “Best Law Firm” in Dallas for Product Liability Litigation-Defendants, in 2014-2022.
- Dale Markland has been selected through the Thomson Reuters Peer Selection Process as a “Texas Super Lawyer,” in 2013-2016 and 2019-2022
- Tara Hanley has been selected through the Thomson Reuters Peer Selection Process as a “Texas Super Lawyer,” in 2019-2022
- Dale Markland has been recognized by his peers, through Woodward White, Inc.’s Best Lawyers, as one of the “Best Lawyers in America” in the Field of Product Liability, in 2010-2023.
- Markland Hanley and its founding partners, Dale Markland and Tara Hanley, are listed by Martindale-Hubbell in the Bar Register of Preeminent Lawyers in the Field of Product Liability.
- Markland Hanley and its founders, Dale Markland and Tara Hanley, have been named “Texas Top Rated Lawyers” by the ALM/Martindale-Hubbell organization, in 2014-2022.
- Markland Hanley was awarded, by its client, Navistar, Inc., its Law Department Diversity Recognition Award, given annually to one law firm of less than 250 attorneys that has best fostered the ideal of a diverse law firm.
- Dale Markland has been selected through the America’s Top 100, LLC’s Selection Process as one of “America’s Top 100 High Stakes Litigators” for Northern Texas in 2018-2020.
- Tara Hanley has been listed in the ALM/Martindale-Hubbell Bar Register of Preeminent Women Lawyers, in 2011-2017.
- Dale Markland has been selected, through Woodward White, Inc.’s Best Lawyers, as one of “Texas Best Lawyers” in the Field of Product Liability Litigation, in 2013-2023.
- Dale Markland has been named the “Lawyer of the Year” for Product Liability Litigation, 2012, Dallas, Texas, by Woodward White, Inc.’s Best Lawyers.
- Dale Markland has been selected as one of the “Best Lawyers in Dallas” through the D. Magazine peer selection process, in 2015-2018, 2020.
- Dale Markland has been named by the Dallas Morning News in 2017 as a “Leading Lawyer in Texas.”
- Dale Markland has been named a Fellow in the Texas Bar Foundation. Such Fellows are nominated by Texas Bar members and are selected from 1/3 of 1% of the membership of the State Bar of Texas based on an outstanding record in the legal profession and on commitment to support the community at large.
- Dale Markland was in the initial small group of outside counsel nationwide to be honored by being invited to join the Product Liability Advisory Council, Inc. as a “Sustaining Member.”
- Tara Hanley has been a “Sustaining Member” of the Product Liability Advisory Council, Inc. since 2019.
- Dale Markland’s defense verdict in a product liability case was selected by the National Law Journal as one of the best defense wins in the country in 2000.