Christopher S. Randolph, Jr.

Chris is a Birmingham, Alabama plaintiffs’ lawyer experienced in personal injury, mass tort, class action, and appellate litigation.

Chris exclusively represents individuals and small businesses who have suffered personal injury or financial loss as a result of others’ wrongdoing or negligence. In his single event practice, Chris focuses on catastrophic personal injury and wrongful death cases. He has handled multiple cases that arose from eighteen-wheeler and commercial vehicle wrecks that occurred on Alabama’s highways. Chris, however, does not limit his practice to a narrow subject matter. He’s willing to put forth the effort to learn about new subjects to represent clients’ whose injuries present more unusual facts or legal claims. For example, he worked with other Hare Wynn lawyers in representing the survivors of a couple who died of carbon monoxide poisoning, in representing an artist asserting claims for secondary copyright infringement against the operator of a Chinese e-commerce company, and in representing landowners in an eminent domain proceeding.

Chris has extensive experience in the class action and mass tort arena. Chris and other Hare Wynn lawyers spent years representing American corn farmers who suffered financial losses when a seed company’s negligence depressed the market price of corn. See In re Syngenta AG MIR162 Corn Litigation (MDL 2591). The team’s hard work paid off in June 2017 when, after a three-week trial, a Kansas jury awarded a $217.7 million verdict in favor of a class of over 7,000 Kansas corn farmers. This verdict was one of the ten largest jury verdicts in the United States in 2017. A federal court subsequently approved a $1.51 billion global settlement benefiting corn farmers nationwide. Chris has worked on other mass tort actions in both state and federal courts, taking a role in all phases of the litigation, ranging from discovery, to trial, to the claims process.

Chris devotes a large portion of his practice to legal research and writing. He has briefed and argued multiple appeals in the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals and has authored hundreds of briefs at the trial court level. A number of his cases have led to precedent-setting court decisions. In 2024, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals appointed Chris to serve on the Court’s Lawyers Advisory Committee.

Chris is a member of the Alabama Association for Justice, where he serves on the Journal Committee and is a co-chair of the Amicus Committee. He regularly publishes articles on topics related to complex litigation that have appeared in publications including the Alabama Lawyer, Alabama Association for Justice Journal, Kentucky Justice Association Advocate, and Defense Counsel Journal. He was also a member of the Birmingham Bar Association’s 2016 Future Leaders Forum.

Chris grew up in Calhoun County, Alabama, and is a graduate of Vanderbilt University and Harvard Law School. Before entering private practice, Chris clerked for Honorable William H. Pryor Jr. of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. He then worked for a large Birmingham firm where he focused on complex and appellate litigation before joining Hare, Wynn, Newell & Newton in early 2015.

• Vanderbilt University, B.A. summa cum laude (2007)
  • Founder’s Medal for First Honors in the College of Arts and Science
  • Phi Beta Kappa
  • Alexander Heard Award (top graduating political science major)

• Harvard Law School, J.D. cum laude (2010)
  • Joseph H. Beale Prize for Conflict of Laws
  • Dean’s Scholar
  • Submissions Editor, Harvard Journal on Legislation

Chris was part of the team of lawyers from Hare Wynn and other firms that represented corn farmers in litigation against Swiss agribusiness company Syngenta. In this multi-district litigation, Chris had the rare opportunity to serve on the trial team for a class action trial. After a three-week trial in 2017, a jury awarded $217.7 million to a class of over 7,000 Kansas corn farmers. A $1.51 billion global settlement benefiting a nationwide class of corn farmers later received court approval.

Representing the survivors of a service member killed in an airplane crash, Chris successfully argued, in a case of first impression in the Eleventh Circuit, that appellate jurisdiction was lacking over a district court’s denial of a motion to dismiss the action under the political question doctrine.

Chris helped litigate a shareholder derivative suit in the Delaware Court of Chancery that resulted in a $27 million settlement.

As court-appointed appellate counsel, Chris, following briefing and oral argument in the Eleventh Circuit, obtained reversal of a summary judgment entered against a habeas petitioner.

Chris litigated a multi-million dollar commercial dispute in related proceedings in Indiana and Tennessee, obtaining summary judgment in favor of his client.

Chris helped litigate an appeal in the Eighth Circuit that presented a question of first impression over the calculation of the amount in controversy in a federal petition to compel arbitration.

• Alabama (2010)
• Kentucky (2020)
• U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
• U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit
• U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit
• U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama
• U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Alabama
• U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Alabama
• U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky

• Alabama Association for Justice
  • Co-chair, Amicus Committee
  • Member, Alabama Association for Justice Journal Committee
• Alabama State Bar
• Birmingham Bar Association

• Best Lawyers in America “Best Lawyer”
• National Trial Lawyers “Top 40 Under 40, Plaintiff Civil Litigation”
• SuperLawyers Mid-South “Rising Star”
• B-Metro Magazine “Top Lawyer”
• Birmingham Business Journal “Rising Star”