Cannon F. Allen Sr.

Mr. Allen is a commercial litigator with more than 35 years of experience in the courts of West and Middle Tennessee. His practice centers on business disputes and breach of fiduciary duty claims, and also includes mass and complex tort matters. He has tried cases to verdict and handled appeals for both defendants and plaintiffs. His work spans the course of a dispute, from evaluating claims and exploring resolution before litigation to developing litigation strategies, defending officers and directors, and negotiating settlements. He is AV Rated Preeminent.

As a client relationship manager at Adams & Reese, Mr. Allen connects clients with colleagues whose practices address needs beyond litigation. He assembles teams of attorneys and professionals to assist with commercial transactions, employment matters, tax planning, trust and estate solutions, and intellectual property. Those services are provided by attorneys across the firm rather than presented as separate areas of his own practice.

Mr. Allen’s community involvement includes service as a past board member and chairman of Westminster Academy and as founder, board member and president of the Binghampton Fellowship Foundation, which has trained hundreds of teachers and thousands of students in urban and private schools to improve elementary education. He has also served as president and in other board and advisory roles with the Memphis World Trade Club. Beginning in 2010, he directed the club’s efforts to serve Memphis’s transportation and logistics industries and spearheaded the development of several conferences held in the city between 2010 and 2016. An elder at Independent Presbyterian Church since 2014, he has been involved in partnerships between racially diverse churches on community projects.

• Extensive representation of clients in commercial and fiduciary duty disputes, mass torts, class claims, employment disputes, consumer actions, product liability claims, medical malpractice, personal injury, and multi-district litigation before the Sixth Circuit, various federal courts in Tennessee, Mississippi and Arkansas and state courts in Texas, Virginia, Florida, Oklahoma, New York and Utah
• Class claims and mass and complex tort litigation (2006-present)
• Commercial and consumer fire claims (2010-present)
• Commercial litigation and fiduciary duty claims (2006 - present)
• Executive compensation (2015-present)
• Representing pharmaceutical companies in product liability litigation and government investigations by attorney generals in multiple states (2013-2020)
• Representing a multinational biomedical device manufacturer in products and personal injury litigation (2013-2017)
• Representing a major drug testing company in anti-competitive and trade practices disputes (2012)
• Representing product manufacturers in personal injury and product liability litigation
• Representing insurance companies in class and complex litigation, including coverage disputes (2006-2017)

• University of Virginia, J.D. | 1987
• Princeton University, A.B. | 1984

Bar Admissions

• Tennessee

Court Admissions

• Tennessee Supreme Court
• United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
• United States District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee
• United States District Court for the Western District of Tennessee
• United States Supreme Court

Cannon is AV® Preeminent™ 5.0 out of 5 rating by Martindale-Hubbell, a Fellow of the American Bar Foundation, is listed in Best Lawyers® - Mass Tort Litigation / Class Actions - Defendants, and Mid-South Super Lawyers® (by Thomson Reuters) Class Action Defense 2006, 2009-2018.

Canon has been named Best Lawyers® Lawyer of the Year in Memphis - Mass Tort Litigation / Class Actions - Defendants, 2020, 2022, 2024.

• "A Reversal of Fortune: Tennessee Supreme Court Rules Economic Loss Doctrine Only Applies to Products Liability Cases," Tennessee Bar Journal, January/February 2024, Vol. 60., No. 1