Bill Marler

E. coli O157:H7 lawsuits against companies responsible for introducing E. coli contaminated food into our food supply have become the focus of Bill Marler’s professional career as an attorney. Bill’s first client sickened by the E. coli bacteria was nine-year-old Brianne Kiner, who fell ill after eating a contaminated hamburger during the now-infamous Jack in the Box E. coli outbreak in 1993. Bill negotiated a $15.6 million settlement for Brianne’s injuries, a record in the State of Washington for personal injury cases. He resolved several other cases from the Jack in the Box E. coli outbreak for over $2.5 million each.

Bill Marler, the “E. coli lawyer,” has since represented thousands of people sickened or killed in outbreaks of E. coli O157:H7 and other food borne pathogens, including Salmonella, Hepatitis, Shigella, Campylobacter, Norovirus, and Listeria. In 1998, he negotiated a reported $12 million settlement for the families of children who fell ill after drinking E. coli-contaminated apple juice sold by Odwalla; and in 2001, a jury awarded the families of eleven children Bill represented $4.6 million for the injuries they received during an E. coli outbreak traced to school lunch served at Finley Elementary School in Finley, Washington.

This E. coli attorney has represented victims of E. coli and other food borne illnesses from across the country. Bill’s clients have come from over thirty states, and he was recently lead counsel in devastating outbreaks of Salmonella and Hepatitis A in Illinois and Pennsylvania.

As a trial lawyer, however, Bill’s practice is not limited to cases involving E. coli and other food borne pathogens. Several of his cases have been of national importance, including his representation of the families of children murdered by serial killer Wesley Alan Dodd; his representation of the family of William Louth, a construction worker killed when a crane collapsed in Seattle’s Kingdome, causing William to fall to his death 250 feet below; and his representation of the family of Randall Terlicker, a fireman killed in Seattle’s warehouse fires set by convicted arsonist Martin Pang.

Bill graduated from the Seattle University School of Law in 1987. Ten years later, he became the law school’s “Lawyer in Residence.” Bill received undergraduate degrees in Political Science, English, and Economics from Washington State University in 1982. At nineteen years of age, while a freshman at WSU, Bill became the youngest person, and the first student, ever elected to the Pullman City Council.

In 1997, Bill received the Distinguished Achievement Award from the WSU College of Liberal Arts. In 1998, Washington Governor Gary Locke appointed Bill to the Washington State University Board of Regents. And in 2004, Governor Locke appointed Bill to the Washington State Higher Education Coordinating Board.

A perennial “Super Lawyer” in the Washington Law and Politics magazine, Bill Marler has an AV rating from Martindale-Hubble and is listed in the National Register of Preeminent attorneys. He is a past board member of the Washington State Trial Lawyers, a member of the board of directors of Bainbridge Youth Services, and a member of the Children’s Hospital Circle of Care. Bill and his wife, Julie, live on Bainbridge Island, across the Puget Sound from Seattle, with their three daughters—Morgan, Olivia, and Sydney.