Get to know members of the NJAJ Women Trial Lawyers Caucus:

Ellen Relkin is a nationally recognized trial lawyer — and the 2025 recipient of the American Association for Justice’s Lifetime Achievement Award and a recipient of the 2025 Temple Law School’s  Trial Lawyer’s Hall of  Fame— as well as a partner at Weitz & Luxenberg, P.C., where she chairs the firm’s Drug and Medical Device Litigation group. For nearly forty years, she has represented thousands of plaintiffs injured by defective medical devices and pharmaceuticals, securing significant recoveries and helping shape the modern landscape of mass tort litigation.

Ellen has served in numerous federal and state leadership roles, including her current appointments as co‑lead counsel in the Depo-Provera Products Liability Litiigation; the Exactech Polyethylene Orthopedic Products Liability Litigation and co‑lead counsel in the In re JUUL Labs, Inc. Marketing, Sales Practices and Products Liability Litigation. Her work has contributed to major settlements on behalf of consumers and government entities harmed by corporate misconduct.

She is a Cornell University and Rutgers-Newark Law graduate, certified by the New Jersey Supreme Court as a Civil Trial Attorney and has been repeatedly recognized as a “Super Lawyer,” a “Best Lawyer,” and AV‑rated by Martindale‑Hubbell. Ellen is licensed in New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, the District of Columbia, and numerous federal courts.

On July 21, 2025, she was joined by more than 1,000 plaintiffs’ lawyers at the AAJ Annual Awards Luncheon, where she received the AAJ Lifetime Achievement Award in recognition of her extraordinary contributions to the civil justice system and her unwavering commitment to protecting the rights of injured individuals.

Within NJAJ, Ellen is a valued member of the Board of Governors and an active leader in the Mass Tort & Class Action Section, where she serves as Co‑Chair. Her career reflects a deep commitment to justice, mentorship, and elevating the next generation of trial lawyers.

Q. What year did you join NJAJ?
A. 1999

Q.  Why did you join NJAJ?
A. I was already an active AAJ member and appreciated how important it is to support and learn from fellow trial lawyers and support our clients' rights by advocacy of the trial lawyer associations, Since I also practice in New York, I also was a member of NYSTLA.

Q. Why did you become involved in the WTLC?
A. When I began practice forty years ago, there were very few women trial lawyers, so it is great to be part of this supportive family.

Q. Why did you become a lawyer?
A. I was a high school debater and always loved social studies. Also, I wanted to represent consumers of dangerous products, as I had a mistrust of big pharma from a young age, which began when I learned that I was spared the fate of being a DES daughter. DES, formally diethylstilbestrol, was a synthetic estrogen given to women in the 1950s to prevent miscarriage. It was prescribed to my mother, but my father, a dentist with medical training, persuaded her not to fill the prescription because he believed it caused his first wife’s terminal breast cancer. Years later, when the female offspring of mothers given DES tried to have children and could not, a malformation called T-shaped uterus was discovered, and it became a medical horror story.

I learned about this when I was in my teens.  I am proud to say that the first pharmaceutical liability cases I handled were representing DES daughters.  In later years, my father was proved to be even more prescient when it was proven that DES also caused breast cancer in the women who took it during their pregnancies. And to add insult to this horrible injury, it turns out DES was never even effective.

Q. What do you like to do in your free time?
A. Babysit my grandson, Jack, spend time with my family, enjoy art and museum going, travel, read novels, and indulge in a good TV streaming binge here and there.

Q. What is your favorite quote?
A. “The institution of Little League is as American as the hot dog and apple pie. There’s no reason that part of Americana should be withheld from girls,” from Judge Sylvia Pressler's landmark decision to allow girls to play in Little League at the national level. A formative part of my legal career was clerking for the brilliant, kind, and incredibly witty Sylvia Pressler.