Editor's Page.

• Author: Smith, Michael Franklin

It's spring time in my home town of Tulsa, Oklahoma (in the central region of the United States, north of Texas). Spring is my favorite time of year. It comes with the promise of new beginnings and fresh starts. I have a green thumb so every spring I spend my evenings and weekends planting annuals and perennials with their own promise of growth and beauty throughout the season and beyond. Those planting efforts take a little time in the spring but I get to enjoy the fruits of that labor and their beauty well into the fall.

Year round, I also spend time learning new things about the practice of law, whether the subject matter is for more in-depth understanding in my specialty area or learning a new practice area. Like planting flowers, my ongoing educational efforts pay off in the form of making me a better advocate for my clients and allowing me to expand my areas of expertise. You reap what you sow, so I strive to constantly plant new seeds so I can continually enjoy the fruits of those labors. This issue of the Defense Counsel Journal provides four practical articles on topics that offer in-depth review and analysis of topics for every practitioner.

In this issue, we examine recent attempts by plaintiffs' lawyers to invoke the product line theory of liability for imposing liability for allegedly defective products on successor manufacturers who acquired the assets of a predecessor manufacturer responsible for manufacturing the product at issue. The article demonstrates why the majority of jurisdictions in the United States have rejected that theory and then provides a 50-state review of the case law addressing the product line theory.

Second, we take an in-depth look at the rapidly evolving defense of lack of personal jurisdiction since the United...