December 14, 2010
Texas, Baltimore and New York City firms will have cases on 2011 Philadelphia asbestos docket
From LegalNewsline.com
PHILADELPHIA (Legal Newsline) – Local law firms seem to make up the majority of Philadelphia’s asbestos docket at the Complex Litigation Center, but some regional and national firms also have a presence in the city.
A list of all trials scheduled for 2011 shows only 10 different law firms will be trying cases in Philadelphia, where a process called “reverse bifurcation” is used. A jury decides damages in the first phase of the trial, and then determines if the defendant is liable in the second part.
Among the big-name law firms who have trials scheduled next year are the Law Offices of Peter Angelos, Baron & Budd and Weitz & Luxenberg.
Forty-three trials are set to take place. In Philadelphia, plaintiffs are grouped for trial by their law firm and their alleged illnesses.
“It’s usually pretty much the same attorneys,” said Stanley Thompson, executive director of the CLC. “It’s the same players.”
As of Oct. 3, there were 631 active asbestos cases at the CLC, which was designed to solve a backlog of more than 7,000 cases. Thompson says the amount of lawsuits filed by these attorneys stays steady at 200-250 every year.
The full LegalNewsline.com article can be found here
The Southeast Texas Record article can be found here