Environmental Law

Hiring Counsel for an Environmental Toxic Tort Case

By Gail Wurtzler

Since I started blogging on environmental toxic torts earlier this year, I received several emails from readers asking me questions about choosing an attorney to represent them in an environmental toxic tort case. Unlike most of the issues I address, there are no cases on point. There probably are no black and white answers either. 

Nonetheless, I have handled environmental toxic tort cases (mostly for defendants) for a number of years and have observed and talked with attorneys and their clients. As a result, it seems to me that whether you are a plaintiff or a defendant in such a case, you need to consider at least three things when you choose an attorney: Expertise, Commitment and Fairness.

In this week’s post, I’ll address the first criterion – EXPERTISE. I’ll address the other criteria in future posts.

Obviously, whether you are a plaintiff or a defendant, you want an attorney who has handled a case like yours before and has done so successfully. By success, I mean either winning in court or obtaining a favorable settlement for the client. But how does a prospective client (plaintiff or defendant) pierce the marketing spiel and get to the facts? Three thoughts:

1.  Ask for identification of specific cases (names of parties, court, date, citations in reporters if written opinions were reported) with successful outcomes, what the outcomes were, and reasons why the outcomes were considered to be successful or not. An attorney interested in representing you should provide copies of verdicts, court orders on the merits, and any public information about settlements in those cases. If s/he does not, you can likely find the details about those cases yourself. But if s/he really wants your case, you should not have to do that.
    
2. “Google” the lawyer and his/her firm. Do not limit your review to the lawyer’s or firm’s website but look at whatever else you find about that lawyer’s practice, articles, presentations and other work on environmental toxic tort issues. As you know, not everything on the internet is reliable, but there is useful information out there.
    
3. Talk to the lawyer’s clients in those cases. Find out whether they were satisfied with the result and whether they had any concerns about the lawyer’s expertise.

Full post as published by Environmental Toxic Torts Blog on October 14, 2008 (boomark / email).