When a group of bewildered opioid activists and survivors sought transparency and accountability during the infamous Purdue Pharma bankruptcy, they found Jonathan Lipson. Lipson, who earned his degree from University of Wisconsin Law School in 1990 and held the Foley & Lardner Chair at the institution from 2010-12, dove into the case both as an academic and advocate.
The bankruptcy stemmed from thousands of lawsuits against Purdue Pharma for its role in the opioid crisis due to the marketing of OxyContin as less addictive than other opioids. The Sackler family, who owned Purdue Pharma, proposed contributing billions of dollars to a settlement in exchange for legal immunity from future lawsuits related to the epidemic.
“I was concerned about the bankruptcy because I expected the Sacklers would want to use their company’s bankruptcy to get special protections for themselves through a litigation shield,” said Lipson, who was tapped in part due to the papers he’d written while a professor at UW Law about the use of bankruptcy examiners and independent investigators in Chapter 11 bankruptcies.
“The papers were aimed at a fairly niche audience — bankruptcy nerds, like myself — not the sort of thing that you’d expect to take you to the Supreme Court,” he said. “But that’s what happened.”
Lipson successfully sought the appointment of a bankruptcy examiner in the Purdue case, acted as a pro bono counsel to an opioid activist who objected to the controversial release of the Sacklers and later filed amicus briefs in support of an appellate decision striking those releases.
He also informally advised the opioid activist group and worked closely with their lawyer, Mike Quinn. The group included Pete Jackson, whose daughter, Emily, died after taking a single OxyContin in 2006, and who became Lipson’s pro bono client. It also included photographer Nan Goldin, whose protests about Sackler money in art museums gained major media attention even before the bankruptcy.
“I represented Pete, personally, because he was strongly motivated to learn the truth about what happened,” Lipson said.
Unlike creditors in ordinary bankruptcies, Lipson said the group had no interest in payment, calling the Sacklers’ proposed multi-billion-dollar contributions to settle claims against them “blood money.”
“I acted as their ‘bankruptcy whisperer,’ in Beth Macy’s words,” said Lipson, referring to the author who wrote about the group in “Raising Lazarus” and “Dopesick.”
Lipson’s involvement in the Purdue case was informed by personal loss.
“My brother-in-law’s husband overdosed on fentanyl in 2020, a tragedy tied to the opioid crisis Purdue helped ignite,” he said.
“UW Law teaches that law is simply an instrument of power, and that we should treat it accordingly.” — Jonathan Lipson ’90
Lipson, a law professor at Temple University, was recently honored with the Association of American Law Schools (AALS) Litigation Section’s Leading Scholar Award for his role in the Supreme Court rejecting the Sackler release in June 2024.
“I have been called many things over the years, but ‘litigator’ — much less ‘leading scholar’ — are not among them,” Lipson said during the AALS annual meeting in San Francisco. “To be considered both is amazing and humbling.”
Looking back on his career, “empowering others” has been his greatest reward. It was influenced by his experience at UW.
“UW Law teaches that law is simply an instrument of power, and that we should treat it accordingly,” Lipson said. “To represent clients is to empower them, to vindicate their rights, protect their interests and give voice to their concerns. It sounds a little hokey, but to teach law is to empower those who would empower others — to create creators.”
Lipson said UW Law has been trailblazing with its interdisciplinary focus and “big intellectual tent.”
“The Law School was committed to understanding how and why law works in the ways that it does as broadly as possible, which requires you to adopt and adapt the skills of other academic disciplines,” he said. “Wisconsin did it long before most others.”
Lipson concedes that he went to law school for the worst reason he’s ever heard — his band was “going nowhere.”
“The logical response would have been to get a better band,” he said. “Not being terribly logical, I thought law school was the next move.”
But Lipson said his experience in law school proved he had made the right decision.
“UW Law School, and the incredible education I received there, served me far better than I could have imagined,” he said.
Lipson has also taught at the law schools of the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Baltimore. His research focuses on corporate governance, restructuring and contracting practices.
He has published in the nation’s top law reviews, and his work is frequently cited by the courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court and U.S. Courts of Appeals. Lipson is co-author (with UW Law professors emerita Stewart Macaulay and William Whitford, among others) of “Contracts Law in Action,” a leading casebook. He also frequently writes op-eds for The New York Times (with Gerald Posner), the National Law Journal and USA Today.
While he may have abandoned dreams of rock stardom, the beat goes on for Lipson. He’s the drummer for The Indestructible Water Bear, a Philadelphia-based indie rock band with music available on Spotify.
“Hitting things hard, like a drum, has a therapeutic effect,” Lipson said. “The experience in Purdue Pharma was stressful, and making music is a good way to help manage that stress.”
By Brian Walker