Ellen Gregg

As a litigator, Ellen Gregg works to solve clients’ problems and help them achieve their goals.

As a leader, Ellen brings this same emphasis on client service to the Case Management Facility, where she serves as Practice Team Leader. She and other CMF attorneys and paralegals help clients manage and coordinate mass tort litigation, thereby improving performance and increasing efficiencies.

Using the CMF’s secure technology, in-house and outside counsel quickly search, track and synthesize pleadings, discovery and work product into information they can use to help them win cases and eliminate duplicative efforts by various outside counsel. They also use the CMF’s secure environment to share knowledge in real time, thus improving communication at every level.

However, the CMF’s greatest asset remains its people. Ellen supervises a team of experienced attorneys and paralegals who understand mass tort litigation. She works directly with general counsel in Fortune 500 companies to develop and implement custom case management systems, as well as to ensure that these systems bring about the desired results.

Ellen spent 12 years trying cases at all levels of state and federal courts before joining the Case Management Facility. In that role, she defended clients in a broad range of cases, including:

• Medical malpractice
• Wrongful death
• Insurance coverage
• Errors and omissions
• Professional liability
• Civil rights
• Complex product liability claims

Throughout her career with Womble Carlyle, Ellen has served in a variety of leadership roles, particularly in the areas of professionalism and recruiting and in 2002 was honored by the Firm for her many contributions with the W. P. Sandridge, Sr. Distinguished Service Award for Service to the Firm. Read more...

Chris Douglas

Experienced in every aspect of product liability litigation, Chris has represented clients in the pharmaceutical, automotive and tobacco industries. In addition, she has significant trial experience in the following areas: municipality defense, personal injury, civil rights, medical malpractice, premises liability, workers' compensation, business torts and professional malpractice.

Chris is the second partner to join the Firm’s Case Management Facility (2006), where she works closely with in-house counsel clients to expedite and improve efficiencies in handling the many tasks of large-scale litigation. Her own litigation management experience is essential in creating customized solutions for clients. She also works with outside counsel to ensure that the CMF is used as a litigation analysis tool as opposed to merely data management. Read more...

Jackie Goble

Jackie Goble has spent her entire 10-year legal career defending clients in products liability litigation. Currently, she is working as a liaison attorney at the Case Management Facility. In that capacity, she has become thoroughly familiar with her specific company client, its strategic objectives, senior executives and outside counsel.

By exchanging ideas with in-house attorneys and their outside counsel, and then partnering with technology vendors, she works with this group to find ways to do more work with less people. She works through problems with clients, develops a solution, integrates it into the CMF processes, and engages in constant feedback to be sure the solution adds value.

Jackie began working with the CMF at its inception and has been an active participant in its evolution from a system to manage documents and work product to an indispensable tool to win cases. She has also provided significant pre-trial and trial support to clients, including drafting of answers to complaints and discovery responses as well as exhibit preparation, meet and confers regarding exhibits and exhibit tracking.

The CMF is committed to fostering relationships with their clients and providing extraordinary client services. As part of that initiative, Jackie assists in the CMF’s in-house continuing education program of its paralegals and support staff to enhance their understanding of the legal process and how their day-to-day activities assist the clients in winning cases. Read more...

Sarah Johnson

Sarah Johnson brings first rate knowledge of legal technology to the Case Management Facility. Sarah has the rare combination of a legal degree and a technical degree in information systems management, along with three decades of practical experience.

When clients need help conducting particularly tough and tricky information searches, they turn to Sarah to help them get the materials they need. She uses an analytical, problem-solving approach to meet her clients’ demands.

Her career in case management with a focus on using technology to aid in litigation defense efforts predates the CMF. She has been instrumental in helping the CMF keep its technology up-to-date and user-friendly.

Throughout her career, she has remained current with the latest in legal technology and brings that knowledge to clients of the CMF. She currently serves as the CMF's liaison to its software and programming design partners. Her background and experience allow her to communicate effectively with these specialized high-tech vendors.

She also assists vendors with software testing, as well as reviewing and reporting on their latest products for the use of CMF clients. Read more...

Leigh Anne Miller

Leigh Anne Miller offers Womble Carlyle clients a diverse civil litigation background, including experience on the other side of the table.

In addition to independently handling hundreds of civil cases from start to finish, Leigh Anne’s experience includes plaintiffs' work in large medical malpractice matters. As a plaintiffs' attorney, she worked in both state and federal courts in cases with hundreds of thousands of dollars at stake. This unique background gives her Womble Carlyle defense clients a strategic advantage.

Now, she works with the Case Management Facility, serving as the liaison attorney to a corporate client, working with in-house counsel and outside counsel firms to represent the company’s interests in high profile tort litigation. Leigh Anne also coordinates research requests for various outside counsel law firms. She was recently instrumental in integrating over 450,000 documents from seven different databases into the CMF.

Leigh Anne is active in the continuing education efforts for CMF paralegals to enhance their understanding of the legal process and how their day-to-day activities assist the clients in winning cases. Read more...

Patty Poole

As a founding member of the Case Management Facility team, Patty Poole has crafted creative solutions in complex litigation for eight years. Fully understanding the practical needs of trial and appellate counsel, her eye has always been on successful trial verdicts and favorable appellate decisions.

Patty is a trained mediator, certified to conduct mediated settlement conferences in Superior Court Civil Actions. This skill, as well as a background in counseling means she understands people and their business relationships. She fully grasps client requests and efficiently determines what solutions they need. Patty adds value to businesses involved in mass tort litigation by helping to oversee the big picture and implementing cost-effective and innovative litigation support. Patty is the liaison attorney to a corporate client with domestic and international companies. She works directly with in-house counsel and over 25 outside counsel firms located throughout the United States and abroad. Read more...

Joann Waters

Joann Waters brings a client’s perspective to the Case Management Facility due to her defense work for a Fortune 500 company before joining the CMF practice team as a liaison attorney to a major pharmaceutical client.

She started her legal career at Womble Carlyle as part of the products liability practice group, in which she gained substantial experience in defensive discovery strategy, document production and trial preparation. Joann used the CMF on a daily basis to assist clients in controlling the costs of discovery and developing standardized protocols. Given this background, Joann approaches her work at the CMF from a user’s perspective. This perspective allows her to better understand the needs of CMF users and clients.

Joann has a particular concentration in pharmaceutical defense. Relevant engagements include identifying and developing expert medical witnesses, and working with local counsel on issues relating to affirmative discovery in the "Phen-Fen" litigation. Joann’s current pharmaceutical practice has allowed her to develop an experience in federal reporting guidelines. Read more...

Howell A. Burkhalter

Howie is a member of the Case Management Facility Practice Team. His practice focuses on the defense of both individual and class action consumer and products liability cases and the prosecution and defense of other complex commercial cases.

In his role at CMF, Howie supports numerous clients and their outside counsel firms across the United States. A seasoned litigator with a broad range of experience beyond the practice of law, Howie has tried jury and non-jury cases before North Carolina trial courts, argued before the North Carolina and 4th Circuit Courts of Appeals, defended and taken depositions in numerous jurisdictions, and handled the full range of pre-trial and dispositive motions in cases ranging from personal injury to complex environmental matters. Read more...

Theresa Coalson

Give Theresa Coalson any challenge in the area of product liability litigation management and chances are, she’s encountered it before and conquered it.

She has two decades of experience in products liability case management and has been an integral part of the Case Management Facility since its 1997 formation. Now, Theresa brings that unmatched experience to the CMF as its Director of Operations.

In that role, Theresa works directly with clients in planning, developing and implementing all projects. Because she has managed thousands of individual cases and literally millions of document pages, she is ideally suited to working with technology vendors to find creative solutions to help clients sort, organize and use vast amounts of information in the most cost-effective manner.

Theresa oversees every project the CMF undertakes. If a client has a special request, she works with her different teams to ensure that the project beats client expectations. The websites and databases she helps design are individually tailored for each client’s specific needs.

Theresa began her paralegal career in Womble Carlyle's products liability group in 1985. She experienced litigation by crisis first hand and became invested in the detailed planning necessary to prevent pitfalls in increasingly complex litigation. She holds an associate’s degree from Central Piedmont Community College.

Phone number: (336) 747-2811
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Daniel Wood

Womble Carlyle’s Case Management Facility is a wonderful tool for helping law firms and corporations manage high volumes of cases.

But like any tool, it functions best when employed by a skillful operator. As user support and training manager, Daniel Wood makes sure that the CMF's clients get the support they need to get the results they want.

Daniel provides training and user support to the in-house legal departments and their more than 150 law firms who use the CMF, devising creative solutions to help clients find and access information. Corporate clients and law firms search, sift and organize information pertaining to thousands of their cases. Through Daniel’s guidance, CMF clients learn to use a secured web site to access their information. Daniel brings more than a decade of case management experience to the job.

In addition to providing user support and training, Daniel develops customized reports supplying the information needed for insurers, Sarbanes-Oxley compliance and SEC reporting. He also supervises the quality control processes of the CMF.

Daniel has been a volunteer for Easter Seals/United Cerebral Palsy for twelve years and currently serves on the Stokes County Family YMCA Board of Directors. He and his wife own The Southern Cupboard, a gift basket and coffee shop in historic downtown King, North Carolina.

Daniel has worked with the CMF since 1999. He previously worked as a paralegal in Womble Carlyle’s Antitrust Practice Group as well as the in-house legal department at Oakwood Homes. He is a 1995 summa cum laude graduate of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, where he was a member of Phi Beta Kappa.

Phone number: (336) 747-2761
Fax number: (336) 726-6918
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