Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty

Notable New York law firm Debevoise and Plimpton hosted a significant legal deposition. The lead attorney for the defendant, Mary Jo White, “wasn’t cheap, but if you found yourself in a lot of trouble, and you happened to have a lot of money, she was the lawyer you called” (1). A former federal prosecutor, White made her career and reputation representing large corporations. Her current client was accused of contributing to hundreds of thousands of deaths—an oblique reference to the Sackler family and the opioid use disorder epidemic. The opposing attorney, Paul Hanly, felt strongly that the “White’s clients were ‘arrogant assholes’” (2).

The deposition begins with the questioning of Kathe Sackler, a member of a family of billionaires. The Sacklers were best known for philanthropy, rarely mentioning their business interest in pharmaceuticals. The deposition established that Kathe’s professional career was at Purdue Pharma, a privately owned pharmaceutical company. It also found that Purdue’s profits from the painkiller OxyContin had resulted in “some $35 billion in revenue” (4), along with a new public health crisis of addiction and overdose deaths.

The Sackler deposition was one of several attempts to hold corporations accountable for harm caused by their products, most notably in suits against the tobacco industry for addiction and lung cancer deaths.