John M. Restaino, Jr., D.P.M., J.D., M.P.H. (Epi) is an attorney-at-law, podiatric surgeon and epidemiologist by training. Dr. Restaino practiced reconstructive surgery of the foot and ankle in Orange County, California before getting his law degree in 1986. John earned a Bachelor of Science degree from Farleigh Dickinson University in New Jersey, where he graduated cum laude in 1974. He then earned a medical degree in podiatric medicine (D.P.M.) in 1978 from California College of Podiatric Medicine in San Francisco, California, and a Juris Doctorate in 1986 from Western State University in Fullerton, California. Dr. Restaino also earned a Masters Degree in Public Health from the Department of Epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, the number one ranked School of Public Health in the country. He is licensed to practice law by the California State Bar and admitted into federal courts across the country.
Dr. Restaino’s first 16 years of legal practice was spent in Orange County, Ca. as a partner in the firm of Lopez, Hodes, Restaino, Milman & Skikos. Dr. Restaino then joined the firm of Burg, Simpson, Eldredge, Hersh and Jardine as a shareholder until opening his own boutique firm limiting his practice to the legal representation of the severely injured and mass tort litigation.
Dr. Restaino’s legal career has been spent working on mass tort litigation, including Breast Implant, Diet Pill (Fen-Phen), Propulsid®, Rezulin®, phenylpropanolamine (PPA), Ortho Evra® birth control patch, Vioxx®, Zyprexa®, Yaz/Yasmin®, Gadolinium/NSF and the DePuy hip prosthesis. He is, or has been, the chair or co-chair of the national Science and Expert Witness Committees for each of these national litigations. Dr. Restaino is recognized nationally as one of the best when it comes to grasping and putting together the science needed to prevail in mass tort cases and in getting world class experts to testify on behalf of the mass tort clients. John’s experience in the Diet Pill Litigation led to a book chapter in Alicia Mundy’s “Dispensing with the Truth” about his experience with rat hearts in France and cardiotoxicity.
In September 2011 Dr. Restaino was appoint Associate Adjunct Professor at the University of South Carolina College of Pharmacy in the Department of Clinical pharmacy and Outcomes Sciences. He was a Clinical Instructor in Orthopedics at the University of Southern California from 1982-1986, and was the Director for the Podiatric Surgical Residency Program at Circle City Hospital, 1982-1985. Dr. Restaino was an Oral Examiner for the American Board of Podiatric Surgery in 1988 and a Special Investigator/Consultant to the California Board of Medicine, 1986-1990.
