Professional Experience

Since beginning his practice in 2004, Marts has handled more than 100 appeals in the Arkansas and federal appellate courts, providing oral argument in many of those cases. Those cases span the broad range of substantive law areas in which WLJ practices, including bankruptcy, commercial disputes, products liability, insurance coverage disputes, employment disputes, intellectual property, and personal injury cases. Marts has also represented Wright Lindsey Jennings clients in several class actions, obtaining dismissals of several matters at the outset and defeating class certification of both national and state-wide classes in other matters.

Marts’ most notable recent experience includes the following:

• Appellate counsel in patent infringement action involving industrial equipment, winning reversal of summary judgment against WLJ’s client before the Federal Circuit and defeating a petition for certiorari to the United States Supreme Court.
• Counsel for an international oil and gas company in several state and federal cases resulting from a release of oil from an interstate pipeline, defeating certification of a multi-state class, obtaining summary judgment on the class action, and briefing and arguing the case successfully on appeal to the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals.
• Counsel in two false advertising class actions for major pharmaceutical company, defeating certification of both national and state-wide classes in the first action and winning dismissal of the complaint in the second action.
• Counsel for an equipment rental company in a class action involving damage liability waivers, obtaining summary judgment on the principal claims that compelled voluntary dismissal of the remaining claims.
• Appellate counsel in a medical device case that established federal preemption of medical device claims in Arkansas courts.
• Trial and appellate counsel in litigation over a life insurance policy pledged to a bank as collateral for a loan, securing a judgment of more than $1 million for WLJ’s bank client.
• Appellate counsel in several products liability matters for an automobile manufacturer.

Recognition

Marts is a member of the American Bar Association, the Arkansas Bar Association, the Pulaski County Bar Association, the Defense Research Institute, and the Arkansas Association of Defense Counsel. He also serves on the Appellate Advocacy Committee for the Defense Research Institute.

Since 2021, Marts has been selected for inclusion in The Best Lawyers in America^© in the fields of Appellate Practice and Mass Tort Litigation / Class Actions – Defendants. Marts has been recognized as a Mid-South Super Lawyer in the area of class action and mass tort since 2017 and before that honor was recognized as a Mid-South Super Lawyer from 2010 to 2016.