CCL President Robert S. Peck made a co-presentation with attorney Deepak Gupta on the results and meaning of the U.S. Supreme Court's latest personal jurisdiction decision, Ford Motor Co. v. Montana Eighth Judicial Dist. Court. The case, both lawyers agreed, was a marked and welcome departure from the past decade of decisions that had substantially narrowed state-court authority over out-of-state defendants.

     Gupta had argued the case before the U.S. Supreme Court and described his strategy of demonstrating the importance of allowing state courts to hear these cases in which the defendant did regular business for the product that had injured the plaintiffs in the state where they resided. He had also recruited amicus support from state attorneys general and small businesses to demonstrate the breadth of interests affected. Peck had written an amicus brief on behalf of the American Association for Justice. In it, he demonstrated that Ford had maintained a relationship both with the owner of used cars, regardless of the state where the vehicle was first purchased and with the vehicle itself through recalls and other notices. He noted that Ford extensively advertised to car owners to use original manufacturer parts, whether the vehicle was self-serviced, serviced at a dealership, or at an independent car shop, under the slogan, "Keep Your Ford a Ford." The unanimous opinion from the Court, written by Justice Kagan, picked that up from Peck's brief, reciting the slogan in the decision's second paragraph.