Our work in the area of asbestos litigation has spanned more than two decades. Our team has established groups of experienced practitioners in each of our offices who are prominently involved in this specialized practice. Because our attorneys and legal staff have been working for years on the front lines of asbestos defense, they are able to provide our clients with the best and most cost-effective defense possible.
Our team defends products and premises clients in tens of thousands of cases involving asbestosis, lung cancer, gastrointestinal and esophageal cancers, and mesothelioma conspiracy to defraud through manipulation of scientific literature about the effects of asbestos and market-share liability. Our team manages thousands of asbestos cases from initial responsive pleadings through trial.
Our attorneys have compiled extensive in-house and online research on asbestos issues, and have assembled our own broad toxicological library. We regularly interview and depose cancer researchers, chemists, engineers, risk assessment and related experts from around the world. Members of the firm have undertaken considerable research and have written on the issues of fear of cancer and increased risk of cancer. They have also presented papers at professional conferences on these topics.
Complex Case Resolution
Following the onset of asbestos premises liability litigation in California in the early 1990s, asbestos attorneys represented several oil refining companies in a joint defense group. Because the same plaintiffs (generally employees of independent contractors that worked at several industrial facilities) often sued more than one company in the same case, the joint defense afforded the companies substantial cost savings. The success of this joint defense over several years led to the formation of a “matrix” case processing agreement with one of the more prominent plaintiffs’ firms, in which the claims were not litigated, discovery was informal, and the companies resolved the plaintiffs’ claims according to case values based on disease and exposure information. Our clients resolved thousands of cases pursuant to the matrix agreement, resulting in reduced settlement values and litigation expenses for even the most serious high exposure cases.