August 16, 2010
Baron & Budd and Cozen O’Connor Score Assignments in BP Oil Spill Litigation (Law.com)
Law.com is reporting that Baron & Budd and Cozen O’Connor Score Assignments in BP Oil Spill Litigation
From the story:
“Burton LeBlanc of Baron & Budd announced Friday that Louisiana attorney general James “Buddy” Caldwell has hired him and his firm to advise the state on damages it’s owed from the spill. LeBlanc, a former president of the Louisiana Trial Lawyers Association who is based in Baton Rouge, said Baron & Budd has a “tremendous familiarity with the ecology of the Louisiana coast.” (The Dallas-based firm apparently gained that tremendous familiarity when it acquired LeBlanc’s former firm, LeBlanc & Waddell, in 2008.)
Jindal has not always followed Republican orthodoxy when it comes to trial lawyers. According to Fisher, Jindal supported an effort to reverse a Louisiana law limited state contingency fee deals with outside lawyers. But that doesn’t explain the state’s hiring of Baron & Budd, which still gives heavily to Democrats. According to the AP, Jindal brushed aside questions about Baron & Budd’s hiring.
“I don’t care–to me it’s not about partisan politics,” Jindal said. “I don’t care if it’s a Democratic firm, Republican firm. The trustee agencies [and] the AG’s office looked across the country. They have found experts, they have found advocates that are the nation’s best. Certainly it is a positive thing that they’ve been able to identify some firms that have Louisiana roots, that have Louisiana connections, that know this coast, that know these wetlands. At the end of the day, this is all about being aggressive about defending our coast.”
LeBlanc said that Baron & Budd is already working to assess the damage Louisiana endured as a result of the spill. He said that after the assessment, he will present the state’s damages case to BP, specifying claims under federal and state laws. If the parties are unable to come to a resolution, he said, the state could pursue litigation.
In other oil spill litigation news, the BP victims compensation fund has hired Stephen Cozen of Cozen O’Connor. According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, which broke the story, Cozen will draft new rules on how the $20 billion BP has pledged to the fund will be doled out. Kenneth Feinberg of Feinberg Rozen, who is overseeing the Gulf spill compensation process, told the Inquirer, “There is no one else in the nation who has Steve’s grasp of these issues or his experience.”"
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