Cari K. Dawson is a Partner in Alston & Bird’s Litigation and Trial Practice Group. She chairs the Class Action & MDL Practice Team and has a winning track record defending Fortune 500 companies as lead counsel in high-profile enterprise litigation nationwide, including the VW Clean Diesel, Takata Airbag, Home Depot Data Breach, and the Prescription Opiates MDLs. Cari assists clients with crisis preparedness and management and regularly serves as a national coordinating counsel.
In 2021, Dawson was named, for the seventh time, one of the “Top 250 Women in Litigation” in the U.S. by Benchmark Litigation, and in 2019, she was featured as one of Harvard Law School’s distinguished alumnae.
Chambers USA consistently recognizes Cari, and in 2018, the NBLSA awarded her the Sadie T.M. Alexander Women in Leadership Award. In 2015, Savoy magazine named Cari one of the country’s Most Influential Black Lawyers. In 2013, the National Law Journal named Dawson one of the “100 Most Influential Lawyers in America” for her work as lead class action counsel in the Toyota Unintended Acceleration MDL.
Dawson received her A.B. from Princeton University and her J.D. from Harvard Law School.
