The world of mass torts is ever-changing, and while some torts can take years to develop, others can lose their momentum in the blink of an eye. In this week’s conversation, we review which mass torts have captured our attention in 2021 and which old ones continue to remain relevant and gain even more interest.
While RoundUp, Talcum Powder, and Hernia Mesh are not showing any signs of going away anytime soon, other mass torts have come and gone without having made much of an impact, and in our conversation, we review which ones are those.
Our conversation explores which mass torts are likely to become the next big thing and are still at a very early stage. So if you have been waiting to be ahead of the curve in identifying mass tort opportunities before anyone else, join us!
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Send us your questions at ask@incamerapodcast.com
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Liel: [00:00:00] Collecting, analyzing and selling biometric data was long considered taboo by tech companies, at least until Clearview will launch its facial recognition software. I’m Liel Levy, co-founder of Nanato Media, and this is In Camera podcast where we’re keeping a close eye on the three class actions, complaints filed against Clearview A.I. Welcome to our podcast from Illegal Marketing Conversations, great. Welcome back. How are you today?
Grace: [00:00:57] Good. How are you, Liel?
Liel: [00:00:59] Doing great as well. Thank you so much for asking Grace and ready to get us started in our conversation for today that we’ve been planning for a few weeks now. I think we are long due for our conversation about Mass Torts. Twenty, twenty one. What’s ongoing, what’s new, what we should keep under our radar. And so that’s what this conversation is all about. And so if we’re full disclosure here, neither Graves nor I have agreed on a set of my thoughts here ahead of the recording. So I’m really curious to see what’s on your list or what are the things that you’re actually going to be bringing up and see whether it matches what I put down on my list and take the conversation from there. Sounds good.
Grace: [00:01:45] Sounds like a plan.
Liel: [00:01:47] Excellent. All right, great. Well, let’s have you lead the way, because I know you’ve been experimenting and doing quite a bit of new mastery over the past few months. And so I’d like to hear why don’t we start by talking about the ones that we’ve probably have already mentioned last year and in our previous conversations that are still worth paying attention to.
Grace: [00:02:12] Yeah, let’s start there. That’s a good place to start, I think, to so, you know, we’ve discussed a couple of these that obviously the talk has been out for so many years. And I feel like a lot of people know or have already settled, as we all know, because some of that stuff’s publicly available. So, you know, I feel like Talc may continue going for a little bit longer, but just seeing how it’s kind of panning out, a lot of people are trying to close up on Talc. And the other one that’s very similar in nature to that. And I’m glossing over Talc because you could probably see because we’ve probably discussed it to death and so has everybody else when it comes to that mass tort. Right. So, yeah, right. Yeah. So the next one, I think that people are seeing, it’s kind of coming to the end. That’s Roundup. And we haven’t really touched on Roundup often, but, you know, that’s one of the ones that are definitely coming to a close. And soon it looks like Monsanto and the companies that are involved in the litigation or are being sued, rather, are trying to settle and just they want to be done with it because their stockholders are getting banged up. And, you know, once they all got absorbed by other companies and stuff, they want to end the problem. Yeah.
Liel: [00:03:30] Flush out the problem entirely. And that makes a lot of sense. I actually think like revisiting our conversations for Mass Torts from previous months. I mean, I think Roundup has always been on the status of, like, close this one out. But then as Don Worley on his last visit here to the podcast mentioned, you know, they’re still hearing and taking in new cases from people who have been impacted and damaged by this. So I think that’s another thing to keep in mind, right Grace, because it’s really the commitment that as a law firm, you need to have to a particular mass tort even after it’s starting to reach its end, because it’s not a good business, really be telling people, OK, we know we cannot help you anymore, particularly if you’ve been marketing and you’re being putting a lot of association between your brand, your law firm and that particular mass tort. So that was an interesting point of view that I remember Don Worley brought up when he was talking about Roundup and yes, kind of being towards the end of its lifespan, but still having to, as a law firm, have full commitment to all of the cases that they already have signed in people who are being referred to them as new clients. It’s heading towards the exit door, but potentially it’s going to be around for the next few conversations we’re going to have about these.
Grace: [00:04:57] Yeah, definitely. I mean, specifically because of the glyphosate situation, right? Because now they’re taking it to the EPA part, right. Where they, because they’re reapproved glyphosate, which is the main ingredient and that’s the probable carcinogen that they’re claiming is what’s caused cancer for everybody. So, you know, when now that they’re trying to turn it into potentially an EPA issue, that they’re again re approving it and allowing it to be used again, even though there are there’s certain information out there stating that it’s potentially harmful to humans, that could be a potential new kind of spin-off of the roundup to a degree potentially.
Liel: [00:05:41] Yeah, that’s another thing. The spinoffs. Right. Like when just something seems to be dying off then all of a sudden new data becomes available almost kind of like the covid Bryant’s right not to make a horrible comparison there, but it’s just like just when you feel that you’re getting your a hold of one particular issue, then all of a sudden you’re presented with a new set of complexities that you have to deal with.
Grace: [00:06:10] Yeah, that actually brings me to sort of the next one that’s been out for a little bit, but not that long. And that’s fire foam. Right? That’s the PFAS. The poly floral. I forget how you pronounce that whole very long chemical name, but it’s the chemical that’s also in the contaminating groundwater. Right. So that’s one that’s going to be potentially a spinoff of the fire foam cases because they’re saying that these chemicals are forever chemicals and they’re in all of our drinking water and in groundwater and that it’s basically something that’s going to be in our bodies for the rest of our lives. I don’t know how that’s going to turn into potentially a class action or mass tort or what, but there’s a huge probability that it will. Right, because it’s tied to. The chemicals that they’re talking about for fire foam, so there’s a huge probability, but I don’t know what the viability of that actually happening is because it’s going to be difficult to prove. Right? I mean, you know, that you’d have to test the water. And there’s so many other variables involved in proving out a case and making it a mass tort.
Liel: [00:07:20] Does it still make it in our list of things to keep our eyes on fire foam?
Grace: [00:07:26] Fire foam does and PFAS, a lot of people are looking at it and it’s just starting to not consolidate. But the information is starting to come together because of the EPA, as a matter of fact. And some of the organizations that we have in the United States that protect the environment are looking heavily into these specific issues with those chemicals, those forever chemicals. And they’ve actually put out something that says there’s a requirement of parts per million, which is usually how they say how much of a chemical can be in, you know, stuff that’s for human consumption. So they reduce the amount. And so it should be this many whatever parts per million. And I think after testing and finding out that it’s not it’s a significant amount more, I think this is has a pretty viable potential for it to turn into something. A fire foam is one of those that you should continue to look at fire foam. These are firefighters. These people are people that protect us. And so that is extremely viable. And you should still pay attention to that one in particular.
Liel: [00:08:38] Sounds like if you’re saying it, Grace, we’re going to keep on paying attention to this one. I’ve always found a firefighting foam to be such a unique and like hyper niche mass tort, probably one of the most challenging in terms to be able to get to an audience. Even though you already have the segmentation created for you, right, because you know exactly who is using these, there is not a lot of guesswork. You don’t have to go through massive demographic groups to get. But still, it was one of those mass torts, in my opinion, that there was room for 1-2 players to really go in, do a lot of public relations works directly with unions, organizations that work directly with firefighters and then just get themselves in control of the whole situation there and really not the type traditional Facebook YouTube campaign. I mean, it’s very circumstantial. It’s a very, very unique mass tort. My opinion.
Grace: [00:09:42] You’re right. I mean, I personally feel like those make it a little easier, honestly, to target properly because you have a demographic, a behavioral analysis, and you have to necessarily worry about all of those. You just say, firefighters.
Liel: [00:09:55] It is. It is. But because of that, I think it’s that it’s even more important to go up to a certain extent, extend the traditional route. Right. Like literally go and talk to the people that are centers of influence in these communities. Right. Whether it is are union members or guild associations or whatever, are the different organizations the firefighters belong to? It’s going put yourself at the center of their share a lot of information, share a lot of build a lot of connections and then go that route because, you know, trying to find your firefighters that have been impacted by disease and targeting social media. The pool is so small. I mean, you’re not you cannot just run campaigns on Facebook and say, hey, I just want to talk to firefighters like it doesn’t work that way. You can potentially target people who have interests in firefighting or they’re a volunteer or whatever, but that’s going to give you a bunch of exposure to a bunch of people that there are not eligible. They don’t qualify. They’re probably I haven’t even heard about this up until today. Even this has already been out for years. Right. So it’s just kind of like a good opportunity for me just to explain that there is no one specific formula to follow when it comes down to marketing for mass torts. You need to really remind yourself that there’s different ways to get to your audience, that you need to talk to. Grace, do you have more on your list for the ongoing ones?
Grace: [00:11:32] I think that’s about it at the moment, you know. Oh, no. How could I forget Zantac?
Liel: [00:11:40] I was I couldn’t help it. I really wanted to miss on that, because I was going to say that was the first one I have on my list is Zantac. And I was just keeping my fingers crossed so I can tell you he agrees with you forgot about the most important one about Zantac.
Grace: [00:11:56] Seriously, MDL is here in Florida, right down the street, practically in West Palm Beach. I’m in Fort Lauderdale, so I should really remember that one, particularly since we’re so involved in it. But yes, I guess I forgot Zantac because it is truly ongoing and we are heavily involved in that litigation and obtaining cases and helping these people with those different cancers and stuff going on with it. It’s, um, it’s not quite a moving target. I say moving target when I talk about the criteria, you know, the cancers have kind of been updated and some are taking a couple more while others aren’t taking certain kinds and that type of stuff. So Zantac, we’re very heavy into it. And that one is going to be ongoing for a good minute now for sure. They took it at the I don’t know if anybody knows about the medical record component, but there is a whole census part where you can actually go through lexicons and you can get medical records are trying to put all of it together in one location, which is very interesting kind of concept in the way the mass tort is being handled. So if you guys want any more information about that part of it, just let me know and reach out to us on the In Camera podcast, website or by email, because it’s a heavy discussion and it bears a lot more detail than what I’m giving you right now. But there’s a component to it that’s interesting to sort of discuss. If you guys want to talk more about it offline,
Liel: [00:13:32] I have one more on the list. My list, and it’s Hernia Mesh.
Grace: [00:13:37] Oh, yeah.
Liel: [00:13:39] Fair enough?
Grace: [00:13:40] Fair enough. Fair enough. We are still involved in her, Umesh as well. We just it’s kind of died off a little bit.
Liel: [00:13:45] I think there’s just demand. Right. And I think it’s just also one of that because of the nature of the type of medical condition that it creates or issues that it creates, is has just in different groups, is just having different surges. It’s just coming up as an issue in different people at different stages in their life. And so some people are just coming to realize that now when they are starting to have new discomforts or whatever are the symptoms that you get after you’ve been you’ve gone through a procedure of her own image with one of those Meshes that were causing you issues now. So I think that’s one that we continue to hear and get demand for. So I would keep that on my list.
Grace: [00:14:31] You’re a hundred percent right. And what’s sad but interesting, at the same time, I try to do intakes once in a while. As a matter of fact, I recently did some intakes on hernia mesh specifically. So you would have thought I remember that one. But, you know, like you’re saying, this one is a very unique and that people may have gotten the surgery, let’s say, in 10 over 10 years ago when medical records may no longer be available for them, but then they start having problems and then they require revision 10 years later. Right. And that revision, that’s what’s qualifying them for the hernia case because of the discomfort, pain and or potentially, you know, full-blown surgeries because of it, besides the reimplantation of the hernia. There’s additional surgeries that they’ve had to have because of, you know, the mesh and bedding or even in some cases, some women having full hysterectomy because of the mesh, you know, so it’s one of those things that hernia mesh, I feel like it may continue. And like you said, there’s definitely a resurgence. Feels like every couple of months there’s another like people are again interested in it once, once again, for whatever reason, I’d be interested to see the specifics, like statistically why that happens. Is it because of a certain time frame of year that people start to notice these, or is it when it was implanted, however many years ago that it started to fail this many years after? I’m sure they’re going to figure all of that out while they’re going through all the different sciences and cases that are part of the best talk. I mean, that’s part of it right
Liel: [00:16:08] Now that we’ve covered the ones that we feel that we are kind of like carrying forward. Let’s talk about the new stuff. I’m dying to hear your list. Great.
Grace: [00:16:19] I’m going to bring one up that you brought up the last time. But we so briefly discussed that I feel like there’s a lot more conversation because it’s so close to one of the other ones where you’ve been dealing with. And that’s paraquat. Right. Which the generic is or the off name is Gramoxone. I’m hoping I’m pronouncing that correctly, but like you said, paraquat is another emerging tort and at this time, it’s it’s very similar to Roundup, right? It’s a weed killer. The thing with this in particular paraquat, it’s a commercial weed killer.
Liel: [00:16:59] Yeah, correct.
Grace: [00:17:01] So recently, the reason that this may potentially come up as a mass today is because in October of 2020, the EPA reviewed or began to rereview paraquat. So basically every 15 years they review chemicals that are out there, particularly at the commercial level, to see its impact on the environment and people. Right. And so at this 15 year cycle, they realized that they’re looking to see if paraquat should be reregistered based on its impact on humans and the environment. And it looks like it’s been causing serious issues in people and poisoning them. And they kind of implemented a safer, quote unquote, way of applying it. They said they require certain applications, you know, has to be done a certain way because it’s a commercial, extremely toxic chemical. So that’s one that’s really big. Well, I think it’s going to be really big because of Roundup as the kind of example. Right. What would you do? I think very similar to that.
Liel: [00:18:12] Yeah, I see this as something just by the use and the demographics of where this product is potentially being used, start having that potential exposure. I don’t know, though, whether it’s going to reach the extent of Roundup because Roundup is just more widely used and was more accessible, whereas this seems to be what seems to be more a product that it’s directly supplied to enterprises. But with that being said, that could also be an advantageous point. Right, because what we saw with Roundup is how hard it became to actually prove make the connection between people who use Roundup without necessarily having the full documentation to support the records of buying and exposing themselves like smaller businesses and such. Right. Or individuals who feel that they may have gotten cancer because of the exposure or used roundup, but without having the direct association of. Well, they were an employee for these organization that it was making them use this product for X amount of hours a day, years, whatever. Right. And so that’s probably one of the advantages here in Parkwood. And another thing that I feel you may have mentioned, you may have not is like paraquat, surprisingly, was one of the first mass tort inquiries the night that I was approached earlier this year, for exploring a potential campaign. And I remember one of the things that I was mentioning was that it’s primarily used by railroad workers or by people who are in the business of giving maintenance to railroad tracks and such. So I’m assuming some sort of weed killer to keep the tracks clean and all that stuff. So that’s one niche market for that. We’ll see. But there has been a lot of attention being paid to it. It was not the last time that I heard about paraquat. And it seems like, you know, people are starting to jump on this, some of them very seriously.
Grace: [00:20:24] Yeah, no, definitely. One hundred percent. Right. Because, I mean, literally within a day of us talking about it, the last time we discussed paraquat, I got an inquiry, you know, not because of our talk, but just in general. So I could tell that whenever you talk about something, it’s obviously trending. And that’s what’s happening right now it’s going to continue trending, I feel like. And yeah, I could very well be since this commercial only and the commercial roundup cases were a lot easier, obviously, because they had proof of use and time and it was used at the commercial level. So it was a little easier to show usage. At the very least, paraquat is all commercial. So it may or may not be a positive thing. Like you said.
Liel: [00:21:08] Time will tell. Grace, let’s move on to your next one.
Grace: [00:21:11] So my next one is Belviq. This one’s kind of going in and out in terms of how difficult it’s been for people to actually get a hold of those who have used Belviq and know the connection between Belviq and the potential for it. At this moment, what they’re claiming is that it’s causing three common cancers or the most common cancers it’s causing are these three cancers, and that’s pancreatic cancer, colorectal and lung cancer. So the reason behind this one was actually in February 13 of 2020. So just last year, February, the FDA specifically requested a voluntary recall of Belviq or generic lorcaserin from the manufacturer because the safety clinical trials showed an increased occurrence of cancer. And as we most of you guys may or may not know, the way it works is if the benefits I’m sorry, if the risks outweigh the benefits of the specific drug, it will be recalled or not approved. Right. Depending on the clinical trials. So in this case, between the placebo being given and the actual drug being given of Belviq, they saw a significant enough of an increase to require them well to request a voluntary recall.
Grace: [00:22:34] So for those of you that don’t necessarily know about how some of these liability things kind of come about. They can require recall or they can tell them, you know, issue a voluntary recall, so if it’s voluntary, in theory, they have the opportunity to decide that they want to recall that particular product. So in this case, they decided that’s what they were going to do, that they were going to agree with the FDA and actually pull it off the shelves. So that’s why this one is going to turn into a mass tort. And it kind of has come together. There’s no model at this time, at least not from I think I would say maybe two or three weeks ago from the last time I looked to see there’s no NDA at the moment and no verdicts or settlements. But this is once you see a recall, sort of like what happened was Zantac, generally speaking, you see something happen after that in terms of a message or how
Liel: [00:23:29] Your campaign will be coming along. Great.
Grace: [00:23:32] We did some tests and not a lot. It kind of went the way of Millmerran. And for those of you that heard my rampage about Amron the last time, it’s been very difficult to get qualified people because it doesn’t seem like they can make the connection with Amron between the diagnosis of eye disease and the fact that they took a bladder medication. And since Belviq is a weight loss drug that’s prescribed, I don’t know why it’s been difficult for people to get these at this time. I think we just need to run some more tests and check out the demographics and behavior sort of like we always do. Right, Liel, for anything that’s kind of new or too new.
Liel: [00:24:14] So our first campaign on Belviq was really end of twenty nineteen, if I’m not mistaken, like really, really early days. And it was a battle uphill. It was really, really hard to get the good cases right. There were inquiries coming through, but there were no real cases coming out of it yet. And so I think it’s maybe one of those mascots that needs to mature a little bit more grace. And the other thing, again, is I think with these particular Mass Torts I sometimes the mistake that’s being made is that we go down the road of going for high-end users when the market is not there yet. Right. Like we’re we are we’re always trying. And then it makes sense. If you want to sign up clients, it makes all the sense of the world for you to start off by talking to those who are ready to hire you. But the problem is that when you’re dealing with these type of super, super brand new masters that are stealing the progress of B, of becoming a mass stored data, awareness is not there. They’re not ready to hire because they don’t even know this problem exists. And so it’s very, very important and very critical to do the labor of creating awareness and creating awareness.
Liel: [00:25:36] You really have to commit yourself and put resources and invest in it. Right. Because these are campaigns that you’re broadcasting to. Yes. A particular segment of particular audience. But you’re not targeting them specifically because you know that they’ve potentially been using Belbek, but they potentially could have. And so you’re just telling them, hey, in case this is happening, slowly but surely funneling them up until they become intent. And I feel that that’s something that, you know, it’s going to have to be like these Belviq must work. And even Elmiron, if those are buzzwords that are going to gain a lot of strength. There’s not going to be shortcode on creating the awareness unless they blow up and there are super huge study, start getting evening news coverage, which always helps, always helps, because that was one of the biggest igniters that got round up and where they were. So all of those massive articles and news segments that were created around the lawsuits that were being generated around this, that just kind of like made everything boom. And so that’s why it’s it’s important how much people know about this. Like, does your average person know this is your average belviq user knows this? Maybe yes. Maybe not.
Grace: [00:26:56] Yeah. And for me, that’s always been the biggest problem is a new tort, right? You’re the one unless you’re a law firm, you know, like in the case of a marketing agency, you might want to run a test, but you’re not necessarily going to want to spend money on the awareness phase of something unless you’re being paid to do that because you’re a digital marketer, right? That’s your job. That’s your money. That’s what your income comes in. So but as a law firm, if you know there’s an emerging trend and you’ve been in Massachusetts for a while, it pays to create a landing page to create the content, the brand awareness cycle. Right. The funnel and start telling your people, your current clients. Right. Maybe you have current clients that you can let them know. Maybe they took Belviq, maybe somebody took Elmiron on for bladder medication. You don’t know. So it’s worth it as a law firm, in my opinion, if you’re involved in mass talks to start putting information out there to make people aware of it. I’ll tell you an example.
Grace: [00:28:00] Gacovino and Lake, JUUL, was very specific, specifically important to him because of his son, and he was addicted to JUUL at 15 years old. So, you know, to him and to your point before about getting involved with the associations, he got involved with the New York school board. He was giving talks on Google. He was giving them helping them with figuring out the best policies to rid the school of Google because bathrooms became joule rooms. I mean, it was insane. So rather than, you know, essentially become grassroots, right? That’s what it is. It’s about being at the base level, because this is something that’s important to you, regardless of what’s going on. And so if you can create that content and start that awareness phase with your law firm as the backer, to your point before about Roundup and committing going forward years later, you’re still going to be involved in it and people are going to keep coming back to you because they know you help inform people of what’s happening and what’s potentially harming them right now.
Liel: [00:29:09] Kind of like goes hand in hand. Grace, if you were going to be in M.D. and you’re going to commit yourself to one and you have to have the vision, you need to understand, are you willing to make the investment of time, resources and network to actually build these to where it has to be to gain that momentum, grace and decisions that need to be made early on? Because if you played right, the benefits are really going to pay off. Ask the law firm who decided to go after asbestos and mesothelioma. So, Grace, let’s move on. We have room for maybe one or two more. So what do you have on your list? I think we’ve gone Belviq, we’ve Elmiron and we don’t paraquat. What else do we have?
Grace: [00:29:55] Um, well, you know, this one is it’s not really new and it’s not really even old. And that’s Truvada. You know, Truvada prep is that HIV medication that’s supposed to prevent you from being able to get HIV or helps prevent it? You know, they’re saying it’s causing an increase of bone cancer and kidney cancer and specific cancers. I say big, not big coming and going. Kind of like in a way, HURNEY eMESH, to a degree, I guess in terms of sometimes it pops up and people are interested. Sometimes it’s kind of goes by the wayside again. But that’s my kind of next one would be Truvada. What are your thoughts on.
Liel: [00:30:41] Yeah, Truvada has come up before. I think, Grace, earlier this year we just did kind of like a quick conversation as well as to my thoughts to look up for this year. And I think Truvada got there in the least, got squeezed into the least Grace. I have a few that I’m just going to throw out there at you so I can hear what are your thoughts on them so. The first one I have is Valsartan, have you heard about that one?
[00:31:11] I have. We’re not really touching it at the moment, though.
Liel: [00:31:14] No? Any reasons.
Grace: [00:31:16] We like to wait a little bit before we get involved. Oh, at the moment. Yeah. For us, it’s not hard for me to say it this way, but you’ll understand when I say it’s not that important right now for us.
Liel: [00:31:29] Just to give a little bit of context here for our audience. So the lawsuit is about individuals who receive the medications to treat their health issues and got diagnosed with cancer. And it alleges that some batches of the medication were contaminated with NDMA.
Grace: [00:31:45] Oh, so like Zantac.
Liel: [00:31:47] Yeah. Which is known as a potential carcinogen. Yeah. So it is estimated that there is over three million people in the US who receive this medication and that’s obviously making the pool big enough for it to catch people attention in twenty eighteen to recall the batch, creating a wave of investigation and over one thousand lots were recalled from that point on. It looks like it’s moving to an MDL. And this is something that we’ve just kind of like pointed out on our list of potential Mass Torts to keep our eyes on Grace. I have more to share. I have Paragard.
Grace: [00:32:29] Yeah, Paragard. We are dealing with Paragard.
Liel: [00:32:31] What’s to know about Paragard?
Grace: [00:32:33] So Paragard there. It’s been a little iffy with Paragard only because it’s similar to the fact similar to Essure in that it was premarket approved. Right. So there’s a little bit of some people are interested in it, whereas others are saying, let’s not get near it. We are involved in Paragard for us. For those of you who don’t know, Paragard is an intrauterine device. That’s for you to stop people from having children in pregnancy. The issue is it’s a T-shaped device and the T is essentially breaking off at removal or breaking off while it’s in there and embedding and migrating. So, you know, I have some people saying that the only difference between Essure and Paragard is or it’s and it’s a pretty big difference is easier was meant to be a permanent birth control device, whereas Paragard is not. And so the expectation was that they should be able to remove the IUD Paragard and still have children, whereas with Essure, again, if it was that, you know, obviously them their pain and suffering of dealing with a potentially a full hysterectomy after Essure migrates and having problems with it, the idea was that they were never wanting to have children. So in theory, it wasn’t as severe a problem as what Paragard is doing because these women did, in fact, potentially want to have children after however many years of using the IUD. So that’s Paragard is different in that sense. And for us, you know, Paragard has been an interesting case and the criteria is just simple is that it needs to break at the arm and it needs to have to have been removed surgically because of the breakage.
Liel: [00:34:23] Yeah, for us it’s closer to our attention, primarily because of the significant growth in search volume that it had pretty much since the last quarter of last year and the first few months of this year, which pretty much double it went from being a four thousand search volume lawsuit to, what, eight thousand search volume lawsuit. So that’s quite significant. And for us, it flags that there is starting to be enough awareness. A high search volumes are Zantac that has twenty four to thirty thousand search queries per month and so forth and so on. So when we start seeing something that is scaling up from four to eight thousand search queries per month and potentially going further, that starts causing our eyes. And so we’re seeing that happening with Paragard. Now, Grace, I have my last one and with that one will end it’s Clearview AI. Have you heard about this one?
Grace: [00:35:17] So it’s funny you mention that because I actually have a white paper open up in front of me that Lindsy, our social media person or content person did for us. And yes, she just very recently created this because there’s no at this moment, at least not that I know of. There’s no MDL, but Clearview AI, I yeah, I do know about that one. It’s an American tech company that makes facial recognition software. It’s used by private companies, law enforcement, et cetera, et cetera. And the idea is that it accurately identifies faces for many different uses. Right. And what they’re saying is they’re being accused essentially for allegedly violating privacy laws in various states that they were using it to collect, generate and sell consumer biometric information without their consent. So as we know with the new GDPR laws, with all the privacy laws and everything that’s been popping up because of us going remote for the whole world and even before that. Right. Everybody needs privacy and, you know, their own information shouldn’t be shared without their consent. That’s basically what it’s about. Do you have any more info on it?
Liel: [00:36:30] Well, Grace is exactly what you’ve just mentioned here. And the reason why we’ve got it all up in our list here is because it’s a great example of super early stages Mass Tort. One of those that if you want to, it’s still so fresh, so brand new, and there is very little certainty as to where this is going to go, how it’s going to develop. We felt it meets well, the criteria of here is something for maybe those who are a little bit more risk-friendly and are willing to make bigger gambles or feel that this type of issue matches well with a walk into type of cases that the law firms represent. Right. So it’s unique in that sense. And from our standpoint, it’s unique as marketeers it is unique from the standpoint that I think it’s a topic that it’s in everyone’s mind, like you’ve just said now, like, whether you know about Clearview or not, you certainly do know about the way that tech companies are potentially abusing your privacy through their applications, through their data collection practices and so forth and so on. So it’s a topic that triggers a lot of emotions for a lot of people. And so this can actually just take off like a rocket whenever if this actually turns out to grow. So that’s the one reason that we included in here, because there could be potential still very early stages. It can be a gamble. But I think it’s a good also example of potential torts that are going to come as a consequence of just what you said. Right, like privacy, privacy violations.
Grace: [00:38:10] Yeah, I mean, just like you said. Right. And we’ve talked about it a few times when it comes to security, privacy, and all those different things, it’s so important. And you’re 100 percent right. This could be a big thing down the road. And if that’s part of your core beliefs as a law firm, you know, if you’ve dealt with the data breaches, right?
Liel: [00:38:33] Yeah, exactly.
Grace: [00:38:34] The breach and all of that, then this is right up your alley because privacy and protection of somebody’s rights as you know, as a citizen, private citizen to not have their information sold or used in a way that they didn’t accept or consent to.
Liel: [00:38:49] That’s yeah. That’s great Grace. So quite a bit. I think we’ve covered a good number of already existing and under-development mass torts Grace. So let’s bring it down to a few takeaways. You have something to get us started with.
Grace: [00:39:04] I do actually. If you want to get involved in mass torture and it’s not something you’ve ever gotten involved with, you need to talk to people. You need to talk to a network. You need to talk to someone like Liel, someone like me. You need to get into the conversation to understand how it truly works and where you want to fall, whether you’re risk-averse or high risk. There’s somewhere in between for you to get involved in a mass tort. OK, I’m not saying everybody should. I’m just saying if this is something of interest to you and you have the funds to put into it. You should get involved in it and but just pay attention, take a look, talk to people and diversify your portfolio. And I tell people all the time, diversified portfolio, you do that with stocks. You should do that with mass tort cases because you don’t always know how it’s going to pan out.
Liel: [00:39:59] I’m going to piggyback on that one, Grace, to make it to take away number two on the diversifying part. I would just say, you know, by diversifying, we’re not just meaning like, OK, you have your law firm and into cases that you handle and then you invest in mass versus. Well, we’re past that. Right. You should have already started doing that two years ago. But what we’re seeing now here is like the type of message that you get involved in diversify their right go for some that are already very well established and they’re kind of like proven to generate returns, but also go for ones that are still early stages, get early, really be able to get a better cash-out opportunity when these things start moving forward, because that’s probably what you’re already doing for your normal law firm. Right. You don’t know when you’re going to get an average case and when you’re going to get a life-changing case for your practice. So you need to be playing at both ends and see and try different things until you can actually get something that can potentially really yield terrific returns. Of course, everything with a balance. That’s what we’re saying. Diversify. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket, but certainly get out of your comfort zone a little bit. It’s worth it. Do your research again, have conversations with experts on the matter like race and make decisions based on the information that you’re gathering. One more takeaway. What do you think?
Grace: [00:41:32] Yeah, we’ll call it a third takeaway. But I think for me, the last takeaway would be besides do your research and diversify yourself if you’ve not been involved in anything mass tort-related. And this is really one in two, the same thing, don’t just jump in. I mean, I know most lawyers don’t do that anyway, but if you really have a question about certain things and there’s tons of conferences out there, attend the conference at the very least, I mean, we have national trailers coming up in Miami in May. We have
Liel: [00:42:11] Mass torts made perfect
Grace: [00:42:12] Next week, virtual.
Liel: [00:42:15] In Las Vegas, virtual Las Vegas is back.
Grace: [00:42:17] Nice virtual Vegas. Exactly. So, you know, just attend something like that. And start taking a look around. And if you don’t already have it as part of your strategy at this time, include it as a content strategy at the very least, like we were saying, to try and get in at the beginning on some of these that are important to you. So if it’s Clearview AI and security and the use of someone’s data is important to you, put something out there, take a look, do some research, look up with the information, talk to people and start getting information out there and become making people aware of it so that you can get in at the ground level.
Liel: [00:42:58] Yeah, I agree. I totally agree with you. And again, this week, when this podcast is getting published, is mass torts made perfect taking place, which is again a virtual seminar. So if you can and you have a few hours to invest over the next week, I think the main sessions are happening between Thursday and Friday or Wednesday or Thursday. Anyhow, this is a great starting point and you don’t have to commit to traveling to do all of the major logistics you would be doing if this conference was happening in person like it usually does, and potential is going to happen again in the fall. You still have the convenience of getting really, really valuable information without necessarily having to make a big commitment, neither in terms of money or time and again, talk to people who know about this. If mass torts made perfect is not the right venue for you right now because you don’t have the time or the days available right now, you have plenty of resources. As I’ve said, you have leaders in mass torts, you have Grace, they’re all just an email or a phone call away from you. So if you’re not doing it is because you don’t want to be part of it, right? Grace. There’s no excuse. All right.
[00:44:14] OK, well, Grace. Thank you so much. And we’ll be back next week. Another conversation.
Grace: [00:44:19] Thank you, Liel.
Liel: [00:44:23] If you like our show, make sure you subscribe. Tell your co-workers, leave us a review, and send us your questions to ask@incamerapodcast.com. We’ll see you next week.
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