This week’s podcast has Grace and Liel discussing the American Association for Justice 2022 Winter Convention that concluded last week in Palm Springs. They talk about their experience on the exhibitor floor, but most importantly, some of the most and least discussed Mass Torts news that came out of the conference.
The convention took place in warm and sunny Palm Springs, which was the perfect setting for a convention that looked at providing as much outdoor recreation space as possible to balance the intense schedule of talks and presentations. This resulted in the exhibitor hall being forgotten in some dead-end ballroom where instead of hearing conversations between vendors and lawyers, the only sound was the background music at a relatively low volume. Still, despite all this, supporting AAJ felt great.
Join the conversation to learn updates on Elmiron, Zantac, CPAP, and the recently announced deal for a potential settlement from Boy Scouts.
Resources mentioned in our episode:
Send us your questions at ask@incamerapodcast.com
Enjoy the show? Please don’t forget to subscribe, tell your coworkers, and leave us a review!
Transcript
This week’s podcast has Grace and Liel discussing the American Association for Justice 2022 Winter Convention that concluded last week in Palm Springs. They talk about their experience on the exhibitor floor, but most importantly, some of the most and least discussed Mass Torts news that came out of the conference.
The convention took place in warm and sunny Palm Springs, which was the perfect setting for a convention that looked at providing as much outdoor recreation space as possible to balance the intense schedule of talks and presentations. This resulted in the exhibitor hall being forgotten in some dead-end ballroom where instead of hearing conversations between vendors and lawyers, the only sound was the background music at a relatively low volume. Still, despite all this, supporting AAJ felt great.
Join the conversation to learn updates on Elmiron, Zantac, CPAP, and the recently announced deal for a potential settlement from Boy Scouts.
Resources mentioned in our episode:
Send us your questions at ask@incamerapodcast.com
Enjoy the show? Please don’t forget to subscribe, tell your coworkers, and leave us a review!
Transcript
Liel: [00:00:00] The American Association for Justice Annual Winter Convention has not been held in person for two years. It was just a few weeks before the pandemic lockdowns began. The last time it occurred, but A.J. Winter Convention is now back. I’m Liel Levy, co-founder of Nanato Media and author of Beyond Se Habla Español How Lawyers Win the Hispanic Market and This is in our podcast, where we share what we learned from the Twenty Twenty Two A.J Winter Convention. Welcome, to In-Camera Podcast private legal marketing conversations, Grace, welcome back. How are you today?
Grace: [00:01:00] Good. How are you?
Liel: [00:01:02] Good, Grace. Back after A.J., we had the opportunity to meet earlier this week in Palm Springs and this conversation, we’re going to go over our impressions of this winter A.J. Convention, which is the first one that has taken place since COVID started back in 2020. I actually, if I remember correctly, A.J. was the last bigger conversation that took place right before COVID started. That was in New Orleans back in February of 2020. So this was the first winter convention since there was Grace annual convention during the summer in Las Vegas, something that was hybrid kind of model and I was not in attendance there. I know some of your team went there, but I think it’s fair to say that this is the full blown. Conference back in its usual format since then, and I think, you know, it was it was an interesting experience. What are your thoughts? What are your impressions, you know, now that you’re looking
Grace: [00:02:13] Hindsight, right? Yeah, hindsight. So I I liked it for, you know, certain purposes and others. Not so much, right? I mean, we’re vendors as well as a law firm. So taking it from the vendor side, it’s never really that great. Right? I mean, it’s A.J. and you know, we we support A.J. and the committee, you know, the PAC and everything like that. So for us, it’s more about that and honestly supporting them throughout the years. But the, you know, the firm side of things that they’re always have fantastic tracks. You always have the ability to talk about whatever’s going on right now. And that’s what I like always about A.J..
Liel: [00:02:59] Yeah, I think you’re right, on A.J Is a terrific organization. It’s great to support them. It’s great to stand with them in what they do and what they advocate for. And as we’ve mentioned a week ago, when we were recording our last episode, the topics, the tracks, the conferences, the presentations that they cover during this conference are quite extensive. And I think Grace, you know, leaving the vendor experience aside, which, you know, I believe I agree with you that it wasn’t necessarily outstanding and remarkable. And here’s the thing, right? This is not to be blamed on the organizers from the standpoint that they could have done that better. I think there’s a lot of factors that come into play when an exhibit or a whole has traction and when it doesn’t. Sure. Sure. That organizers can certainly think about what events, what happenings can take place inside an exhibit or hole in order to kind of like better integrate that component of the conference into the main events. But I also think that, you know, the location Palm Springs, the fantastic weather enabled for people to just kind of have a wider view of things that they could do right rather than think, OK, I’m going to be in the conferences and then going to the exhibit halls and spending time indoors.
Liel: [00:04:32] I think a lot of people was we’re trying to make the most out of their off time by going and playing golf, going for a hike, you know, enjoying the outdoors, being in the swimming pool. And that’s fair enough. I think after the year that or the two years that were coming out from, I can totally understand someone wanting to take a break from the traditional model of the conference. And so I’m perfectly fine with it. But Grace, as you said, this event was unique because there were some really interesting tracks, some that are of great interest to us here because we talk a lot about mass torts and there was a lot of consumer protection conferences taking place during the the convention. So Grace. Why don’t we go over some of the notes that you were able to gather from the from these different tracks?
Grace: [00:05:20] Definitely. So. You know, for us, a big focus is always on the on the mass torts tracks that they have because I mean, they have all kinds of tracks there, right? The deposition tracks the trial tracks and so on and so on. But you know, for me, it was always the focus of attending the specific case types that we like to look at. And one of them, and the first one that I want to talk about is Elmiron. For those of you that don’t know about Elmiron, it is a bladder medication that is primarily actually women tend to be using it, and it’s supposed to be helping them with their bladder problems and, you know, basically so that they don’t use the restroom constantly. It is apparently causing severe macular degeneration, which is basically issues with the eyes. And it’s kind of an interesting case type because when you’re past 40, obviously a lot of times your vision may. I mean, you just have age related vision issues. It’s just the way it is, right? All of us get a little older and our eyes get a little weaker. So Elmiron, though it’s been so far so far, the they’ve they’re saying that the science is showing that this macular degeneration is significant enough for them to start going after it. So what happened and what they basically spoke about at the conference was that the New Jersey MDL was approved. And so that just means it’s being consolidated in New Jersey.
Grace: [00:06:52] The cases and then there’s going to be a science day which this to me. I mean, I’m a big nerd, so I love this part of it. March twenty fifth is their science day, so that’s kind of when they go over all of the different things that are, if this happened, can we try to create a causal link, right? So now they’re looking at the actual science of Elmiron and how it could be linked to macular degeneration. Super interesting to me because of that. And then they actually established a statute of limitation. The two year SOL is June, so statute of limitations for those of you that may or may not know, it’s just has to do with how quickly you have to get these things filed, you know, based on some rules, there’s again, I’m not a lawyer guys. So if you want anything specific, you need to speak to a lawyer. But based on my knowledge of the way cases work, the statute of limitations is two years. And that means you have two years to basically get this done and filed because now they should know about it, right? And that’s kind of the. Idea of discovery and all that now that people know about it, you have a certain finite amount of time to file a case to claim that you had a problem with Elmiron.
Liel: [00:08:10] All right, Grace so Elmiron thinks moving forward and I believe that mass tort that you’ve been involved with. Yes. So I guess that’s great news right now. What other updates do we got?
Grace: [00:08:26] So the next one that I attended was Zantac, and there’s a lot of you that I’m sure have. Oh yeah. Then got involved in Zantac, right? I mean, there’s a lot of people that take Zantac, so the Multi District Litigation or the MDL is moving along. They’ve reduced the cancer’s list. For those of you that don’t know, there was like 10 to 12 cancers initially, and then they just keep reducing the amount of cancers, and the criteria keeps changing each time that they find things out and or litigations are coming. So that means basically they originally had things that were not related necessarily to the stomach. Now they’ve removed prostate cancer and some of those other cancers that in their mind, don’t necessarily match up to Zantac and its ailments. So that is the major thing that’s happened with Zantac cancers being narrowed down from 10 to seven to now. I believe there’s only like a handful, maybe four or five that they are, that they have such a finite list of cancers for Zantac. And again, for those of you that don’t know Zantac, they dropped the generics a while back. You know where you can only have taken Zantac brand versus the Zantac and or ranitidine. So this, you know, for it to have been carved out and then reduced and constantly reduced like this, you know, you’re going to have a lot of drop off, obviously, but that is honestly how a lot of these things work.
Grace: [00:10:05] Once they find these things out and as they go along, people will drop off because they no longer fit the criteria that’s being accepted at the during, you know, the multi district litigations and as they go along. So they also have some state court or state court venues that are available, and that includes the California, JCCP, Tennessee, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Texas. So for those of you that are in those states or near those states and you’re able to file within those states, those are state court venues that you currently have available to you to file again. For those of you that aren’t 100 percent comfortable and or know about mass torts, I say, just always reach out to someone like us or a company that understands what that means and how they can help you best file the cases to get your compensation for your clients because it depending on how you file where you file. If it’s MDL or state court venue, it’s going to affect the case, potentially. And if you’re part of the MDL, you could benefit from it. And then there’s other benefits to filing at the state court level. So again, I’m not an attorney, but they are. There are things that you need to be very aware of, and that’s kind of why Liel and I are talking about these different case types and what’s happening with
Liel: [00:11:36] Them just to complement what you were saying there. According to social media, right now, the average cost per case on social media, particularly for a Zantac case, is around fifteen hundred. Maybe a little bit more, maybe a little bit less. So I guess, you know, due to the popularity of its the mind and of its used and how widely known it is, it’s an actual case type that can be. Acquired for a very reasonable cost, so if you were to compare that to a mile on, it’s way more expensive because obviously it’s a lesser known drug and the cost per case here it’s at $6000 for one.
Grace: [00:12:22] Yes. Case and that’s correct. Sure.
Liel: [00:12:25] Yeah, they’re they’re harder to generate and potentially also harder to qualify. So Grace. What other updates do we hear in different tracks, in different panels?
Grace: [00:12:39] So the next one that you know, I kind of was super interested in because we’re heavy into it is CPAP, right? So that’s the sleep apnea device for those of you again that don’t know what that is. And it does seem it was interesting because it does seem like a couple of people weren’t aware of CPAP and that this was a new mass tort. So the Philips devices were recalled and it was just about every single one of them. And what’s happening is that the foam is degrading over time, and the foam is a basically a noise dampener inside of the Philips device. And so as it degrades, it’s releasing these particles into the air where it’s you’re breathing right? Because it’s a device that goes over your mouth, nose, mouth and helps you sleep and helps you breathe while you sleep. It’s for sleep apnea. So when that degrades and the particles are released, it goes into your lungs into, you know, in all parts of your body because it’s helping you breathe. So they discussed some of the additional injuries, and that was very interesting to me because I thought that, you know, when you have asthma or certain lung related diseases already, a lot of times it makes it difficult to link it to, you know, particulate that’s now being released by the device, rather than the fact that you already had asthma and you’re using this device because you have asthma. So when they came out and they added a couple of more injuries to the what they call off gassing and particulates, they includes inflammation of the lungs. Mm hmm. Pulmonary fibrosis. Sarkozy, sarcoidosis or sarcoidosis, blood cancers, which that’s pretty bad, obviously, I mean, any of these are horrible, but I mean, a blood cancer is it’s yeah, sucks. I mean, because this this having these particulates and that gas that it gets released because of the foam, it’s really terrible.
Liel: [00:14:44] Well, yeah.
Grace: [00:14:46] And then there’s my little plastic syndromes and other blood disorders, and then they just kind of go down the list of nasal facial, head, neck, thyroid, sinus, tonsils, liver, kidney, right, lung. Right. I thought it was mostly lung, but I guess with the particulates and it actually floating around your body, it makes sense that the kidneys and the livers and your liver could potentially be affected. Right? And then they added asthma. I have a caveat to the asthma. I believe it’s it should be chronic asthma that would be a little easier for your your potential client to have it proven and create a link between the issue and the device and their injury. Right? And that that is, if you had a chronic asthma or you didn’t have asthma or very light asthma at all before you started using the device, and now you have chronic asthma, that’s what you kind of want to be looking for now. And then there’s just one more that I wanted to add, and that was pneumonia.
Liel: [00:15:50] So Grace from what I’m hearing here. And basically, you know, now they’re kind of like trying to blame each other. And so that means that like so clean is claiming Philips and Philips blaming so and so yeah,
Grace: [00:16:03] We became aware.
Liel: [00:16:05] Right. And so what does it mean in terms of being able to to pursue building the case and such that kind of like put things on hold? What what’s the implications of all of this?
Grace: [00:16:16] So you know how we said that there’s going to be a science day for a Elmiron? Well, you know, that stuff has to come down the pipeline for CPAP as well, right? So they’re going to have to create what they call a causal link between the device and the injury. And so they want to stick. They being the Philips CPAP device makers want to stick something in between right to reduce any and or get rid of any potential liability. And that is what you’re referring to, which is the so clean ozone based cleaner. They are stating that Philips is the one at fault, and Philips is stating the reverse that the ozone cleaner is the one that is after using it is actually degrading the foam. So this is definitely become going to become a slinging fight, right? Throat he who throws poo. So based on allegations that the cleaner degrades the foam rather than the foam itself is being degraded, it’s going to be difficult because it always is right. I mean, there’s never a clear path on these torts, really. You’re lucky if there is, but. So this is going to add a complexity to the situation that’s already going to be somewhat complex because these devices are being used by people, right? So they yeah, depending on how they clean it at home, if they clean it regularly, religiously, if they bring it in to be cleaned, you know, if they’re so clean. Ozone Cleaner was approved by Philips and they were showing how to use it. There’s there’s a lot of potential pitfalls in all of that. So those are all things that are going to have to be looked at as this case goes along. Yeah, to lay blame, right? Or maybe it’s on both. I don’t.
Liel: [00:18:05] Yeah, I guess this one seems kind of like a little bit more cut and dry since there was a voluntary recall and so forth. And so, you know, now with the whole drama going on about Stokely now apparently being put the blame of its effect in creating the system to, you know, work the way it does and therefore releasing these dangerous particles. So Grace, just, you know, to recap what we’re having in terms of CPAP. It’s a campaign that I think for mass tort is probably one of the most cost effective ones. The cost per leads are relatively low at treat between 30 and sixty five dollars, which is very, very much the same to what we’ve mentioned a few a few weeks ago when we had our latest episode on mass torts and the cost per leads are under $1000 and they can come as low as four hundred dollars. So it’s relatively not a difficult mass tort, I guess, primarily due to its popularity due to the fact that, you know, we’ve just mentioned four million devices were recalled, half of them were in the United States. So there is quite a significant amount of patients using this here in the United States. And so. Well, and and and again, you know, like with all mass torts media coverage, how widely known has this been mentioned and discussed in the media? And this, I guess, primarily being a Phillips mass torts. It just really got a lot of attention at the national level, which amplifies the reach and the impact, and therefore it makes it sometimes easier to run this type of mass torts. So really, really meaningful Grace. So Grace, do we have any other updates with any other insights that we took from A.J.?
Grace: [00:19:59] So yeah, actually, I do. You know, these were more about the tracks, but I did actually attend a couple of the opening reception and a couple of the in between receptions, including the president’s reception. I think it was called and that one was really interesting. They had a couple of speakers and essentially they were talking about the different communities. And because that’s what A.J. is about, right? It’s about supporting the Political Action Committee for Justice. The whole idea is justice and justice reform for all. And so they were mentioning, you know, about LGBTQ rights and you know, and some of the, you know, those types of all of those rights. And so that that to me was interesting, that they made it as a reception and it was very well attended, actually. Everybody kind of went for initially, I believe the food as usual, right? Which is quite good. But they stayed for the conversation and there were two or three different speakers on stage talking about rights and our need to join together to help continue the fight for justice and the fight for the rights of those who don’t have rights right or are have their rights being taken away, taken away. So I thought that was very powerful and it was a very good conversation.
Grace: [00:21:28] It was a presentation in a speech, but when they came down from on the stage, they mingled with everybody and I do feel like it was. It wasn’t eye opening because I know about these, you know, being female and and a minority myself. And, you know, I’m very aware of the glass ceiling and certain things that happen when it comes to the working world, right? So it was nice and very refreshing to continue hearing that that, you know, that they are continuing to fight for the justice of those who are underserved and don’t have the rights that they should have. And just kind of put it out there, whether you want to hear it or not. And truthfully, that is the way it should be, you know? I mean, we should all face these things regardless of whether we’d like to or not. You it being a lovely conference at all doesn’t matter, you know, like these are things that we should all fight for. And so for me, that was my kind of take away from the A.J Conference was, you know, I I love seeing that and I’m glad that they still keep bringing it up, whether it’s cool to do so or not, right? I mean, this is important. So.
Liel: [00:22:39] Yeah, Grace. I stand with you, I think A.J does a lot of great things. They give a space and voice to a lot of very important causes that are being sometimes pushed to the side or ignored. And for that reason, it’s, you know, it’s great to be part of that. Grace. Just to close up here, the conversation before we’re moving to takeaways, I think while it may not have been something that was specifically related to the track scene, A.J., it is definitely important since we’ve talked about this a lot, particularly up until last year. That was the Boy Scout sex abuse lawsuit, right? Which was really popular, mass tort up until I believe November Grace of 2020 was when they stopped taking in more cases. Am I correct or with a with a timeline? But I remember that there was a very, very specific specific limit at the time to file here these claims. Well, the news here are that last week it appears that a potential settlement of two point seven billion dollars has been agreed to go to the victims of sexual abuse by the Boy Scouts Grace. And so it looks like here there’s going to be a hearing later this month to potentially move this forward. But I think this is a massive step in bringing this lawsuit to its end. And hopefully, you know, giving some relief to the victims of it that they’ve been waiting for a long time for this moment to come. So yeah, that’s something that has that pretty much developed during and right before A.J. And so it’s, you know, it’s very relevant. You guys have been involved on that one, right?
Grace: [00:24:36] Yes, we have. You know, as you know, we’re involved in almost every single mass tort there is out there right now.
Liel: [00:24:41] So Grace, all right, now that we’ve covered talked a little bit about A.J., the conference A.J., the updates on mass torts. What takeaways do we have here to share with our audience,
Grace: [00:24:55] Whatever mass tort you’re involved in? My first take away is obviously you probably are. But if you’re not, you need to make sure that you attend to conferences like this or, you know, at least take the presentations or something because as you all of us know, things can change and they don’t normally change often, right? Not when it comes to torts. Because they get there, they take a while. But if they do, you need to be very aware of that, you know, because you could lose your your clients could lose out on quite a bit if they are no longer eligible and they still think they are. So my first takeaway is just, you know, be on top of the case type that you’re working so that your clients can benefit or, you know, at least be told that they no longer are eligible for something.
Liel: [00:25:46] That’s right, Grace.
Grace: [00:25:48] So my second take away would be kind of what we usually say, right? And that is attend a conference, whether it’s virtual or not. You know, MTP has great webinars that they do, that they’re only about two hours long. They’re empty AMP Connect webinars on updates en mass torts and updates on different things. So attend sessions, you know, it’s going to be very helpful if you don’t have time to attend sessions schedule calls weekly with the company that you know, like and trust like Liel, you know, or like myself, where you can have a weekly consult about what’s going on and you know, and talk about it. Because if you don’t have time to at least attend something conference or something like this, you still need to keep abreast of what’s changing. And the only way to do that is through either marketing, notifications, a conversation with somebody or attend the conference.
Liel: [00:26:49] Really? Yeah, absolutely. go, Grace, go Grace. If you need updates about what’s what’s happening with mass torts, someone who’s keeping their hear her ear to the ground to know everything is Grace. That would be the right person to talk about that. Grace. I agree with you, right? You know things. Things starting to slowly but surely go back to a new normal normal. You name it, however you want to. And it’s a good reminder that going back to normal doesn’t mean that we’re going back to how things were before, right? Things have changed. We’ve changed our way of seeing and interacting and doing certain things. So be mindful about that and adapt, right? Most importantly, adapt don’t have just expectations that everything is going to just kind of like pick. Up where it left back a few years ago and trying new things, whether that’s going to be diversifying into mass torts, whether that’s going to be marketing in a channel that you haven’t done before, whether that’s going to be by revisiting some of your client experience journey and doing things a little bit differently. So to find a better way to to to meet your client’s needs, be curious and just keep challenging yourself to do things slightly differently and most importantly, engage your your team into into being part of all of this, right? I think that’s another very important thing.
Liel: [00:28:16] Specifically, when you’re going to conferences, when you’re participating, getting all of these ideas, creating all of this awareness, how do you bring that back to the rest of the team and get them excited and aware about all of that, right? So, you know, ideally there would be part of it. You want them to be as involved as possible in the process. I think that’s one of the things Grace that I see with your team, which is really great. You have a very diverse team of people coming from the lake law firm. You have lawyers, you have sales people, you have marketing people, there’s you. And so, you know, by the end of the day, when you guys go back to the office, there is a very cohesive energy about what what you guys took away from the from the conference. And so I think that’s great. All right. So we have some good takeaways. We have some great updates on mass torts, which, you know, it’s been kind of like back to back episodes on it. And we’re going to be back Grace, Next week with more episodes with a special guest. And it’s going to be fun, right?
Grace: [00:29:18] And sure will. It always is fun when we all go out there
Liel: [00:29:22] And we all Grace. All right. Think carrying, have a great rest of
Grace: [00:29:25] Your week. You too Liel. Bye
Liel: [00:29:30] And if you like our show, make sure you subscribe. Tell your coworkers. Leave us a review and send us your questions at: ask@incamerapodcast.com. We’ll see you next week.
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