Two kinds of seminars are being conducted in several locations along the Gulf Coast from Louisiana to Florida in the aftermath of the BP oil spill disaster. They are being conducted for or by Bottom-Feeders eager to get their grubby hands on BP’s billions.
In one type of seminar, experienced tort litigators are teaching lawyers who have paid big bucks to learn how to successfully sue the oil giant. In the other type, lawyers are conducting ‘seminars’ for potential plaintiffs in an obvious attempt to solicit a vast pool of clients.
With billions of dollars to be made, lawyers are fighting each other like a pack of hungry hyenas fighting over their prey - in this instance people who may want to sue BP. And of course, they are not above soliciting clients whose claims are dubious at best. There is no end to which these Bottom-Feeders won’t go. Some lawyers are even planning to file civil racketeering actions "alleging a corporate conspiracy with the Bush administration."
"First the Spill, Then the Lawsuits" is an article by John Schwartz which was published in the June 10th issue of The New York Times. Here are some excerpts from that Times article:
"Oil spill damages? You May Be Entitled to Compensation," reads a billboard in LaFourche Parish, Louisiana.
It is just one of the tactics lawyers are using to sign up clients to sue BP, along with running advertisements on Gulf Coast television stations, buying Internet addresses like GulfOilSpillLawFirm.com, and holding informational seminars — with free food and drinks — for those who feel the oil company owes them something.
Lawyers across the nation have filed nearly 200 lawsuits so far related to the April 20 oil disaster, including death and injury claims for those aboard the rig, claims of damage and economic loss for people whose livelihoods are threatened by the slick, and shareholder suits over BP’s plunging stock. Cases have even been filed on behalf of the oil-coated fish and birds. Lawyers also plan to file a civil racketeering action alleging a corporate conspiracy with the Bush administration.
Seasoned Texas litigators like Brent W. Coon, who fought BP over the 2005 plant explosion in Texas City, are likely to be deeply involved, as will experts in mass tort litigation from around the country who have taken part in enormously complex suits involving tobacco, pharmaceuticals, accelerating Toyotas and defective Chinese drywall.
The plaintiffs’ lawyers are eager to fight the oil giant, just as soon as they get past fighting one another.
They are still involved in the scrum at the beginning of most multidistrict litigation, trying to get the largest number of clients and earliest filings in hopes of winning influence in steering the consolidated litigation.
Mass tort litigators and the specialists do not think highly of each other. Mr. Smith, an environmental litigator in New Orleans who has sued oil companies for much of his career, scoffs at the generalist approach to mass tort lawyering. "If you need brain surgery, you don’t go to an orthopedic surgeon," he said.
The mass tort litigators do not pretend to be experts in every field of law required in every case. Asked whether he had experience in the arcane maritime law involved in the spill, Stephen A. Sheller, a mass tort specialist from Philadelphia, said, "I go on a cruise boat occasionally."
But the mass tort lawyers argue that their experience in prior multidistrict cases is essential to building the ad hoc law firm that will take on the large defense firms that the corporations retain.
"That’s the David-and-Goliath dynamic," said Richard J. Arsenault, a lawyer in Alexandria, La., who represents plaintiffs in many BP cases.
The question that is likely to dominate much of the litigation, wherever it lands, is the extent of liability for BP and the companies it worked with.
The most straightforward cases are those involving direct impact — compensation to the families of the dead and wounded on the rig, and the effect of the spill on people like commercial boat operators, fishermen and others whose livelihood could be destroyed, and landowners whose property is fouled.
Beyond those cases, there are shades of gray, including for businesses that have not been touched by oil, but still feel its impact.
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