S2 E29: When Mass Torts and Covid-19 Collide

Atty McDonald Worley joins us for a behind de scenes conversation on the most and least talked about Mass Torts in 2020 so far.

Don, shares what leed his law firm to recently open a new office in Fort Lauderdale, what do the recent talcum powder and RoundUp settlements mean, and why is the momentum that Zantac is having justifiable.

We also talk about the first wave of claims coming up as a result of Covid-19, what Don learn during his fight with Covid-19 and how he is leading his team in a time of growth and expansion for his law firm amid a pandemic.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• McDonald Worley
• Leaders in Mass Torts
• MASS TORTS MADE PERFECT

Send us your questions at ask@incamerapodcast.com

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Transcript

Liel: [00:00:00] It has been six months since COVID-19 changed life as we know it, but how exactly COVID has changed the Mass Torts scene is what we are about to explore. I’m Liel Levi, co-founder of Nanato Media, and this is in Camera podcast.

Liel: [00:00:44] Welcome to our podcast, Private Legal Marketing Conversations, Grace, another week we are back. How are you?

Grace: [00:00:50] Good. How are you, Liel?

Liel: [00:00:51] I’m good. I can see by your face, Grace, you’re busy. And that’s always a good thing. I’m happy when I see you busy. I’ve been busy myself.

Liel: [00:00:58] And so, you know, just to keep up with everything happening, we need to be timely with this conversation. Why? Because we have a very special guest joining us Grace, why don’t you do the honors of introducing him to the audience?

Liel: [00:01:11] So I’m super excited to invite somebody back and have him back on our podcast. We are thrilled to welcome back attorney Don Warley from the McDonald Warley Law Firm to our show for a conversation on Mass Torts in Twenty-Twenty. Attorney Morley’s a founder of a personal injury law firm based out of Houston, Texas, with offices in Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Washington, D.C. and New York. He has been listed in both the Times and Newsweek magazines, is a prominent leader in the legal world. Amongst his many accomplishments, he also won a one hundred million dollar judgment on behalf of a client that earned him a place in the Million Dollar Advocates Forum, as well as best attorneys of America. Don, welcome back.

Don: [00:01:52] Thanks for having me.

Liel: [00:01:53] Don, thank you very much for joining us again. Let’s start with where is this podcast finding you now?

Don: [00:02:00] I’m in the Houston office, which is my main office. And also we added an office close to Grace there in Fort Lauderdale, Miami area. We’re covering Miami and Fort Lauderdale.

Don: [00:02:11] But the office is actually in Fort Lauderdale. But we had quite a few mass tort cases there. And also, unfortunately, victims of nursing home abuse. There’s no excuse for elder abuse, as I say. And so we have a lot of those people have called us and needed our help because their loved one had not been taken care of properly in a nursing home. So we had a lot of those in Florida and then also some. I know you’re not going to believe this, but insurance companies did not want to pay claims on someone’s house was damaged by wind damage from a hurricane or rain, and they didn’t want to pay. So they’ve asked for our help in that as well. So we needed our local office there. So we’re now in Fort Lauderdale area.

Liel: [00:02:54] Well, wow, congratulations on the expansion. And I’m sure the market will appreciate your presence there. And so Don let’s start there with what you’re saying, that you identified a surge in cases or claims of elderly abuse in Florida. Does anything have to do here with COVID or with the developments that came up this year with the pandemic?

Don: [00:03:19] Yes, we have a lot of cases where nursing home residents passed away from COVID because no precautions were taken and nursing homes across the country and the owners of nursing homes are rushing to pay lobbyists to try to go to legislators and say, hey, please pass a law that says we’re not liable if someone dies in our nursing home from COVID. And but I will tell you my own mother is in a nursing home who took great precautions not to let COVID, they tested their employees and give policies and procedures to their employees or to help prevent COVID from coming in. And if someone got it, know, keeping them, and segregating them away from the other residents of the nursing home. So basically, if it’s done right, it could have been prevented. But the ones who did nothing to prevent COVID, of course, their elderly patients are going to get it and pass away from it. So that’s what happened across the country. And we have quite a few of those cases.

Don: [00:04:15] In addition to this, the normal what I call elder abuse, where they didn’t monitor them, they had bedsores, they fell because they were not monitored, is basically it really boils down to an understaffing issue. They just don’t spend the money to have enough staff there to monitor and take care of the residents.

Liel: [00:04:34] Right. And so this was one of the things that we’ve been talking about. Right. You know, the impact that COVID may have in the new type of cases and claims that may come as a consequence of the pandemic and COVID-19.

Liel: [00:04:48] Don, are there any other areas where you are starting to see claims that are related to the actual pandemic or other areas, not necessarily nursing homes, other places?

Don: [00:04:59] Yeah, we have a lot of restaurant owners who some of them even went out of business, unfortunately. And you may have seen that in your community where your favorite restaurant’s no longer there. And they had purchased what’s known as business interruption insurance that says, hey, if something happens to my business and it’s interrupted, they’ll pay me. Well, they’re not paying. And those are really, really difficult cases. I’m taking them just to try to help them. Some of them were my friends, by the way, who owned these restaurants. We’re trying to help them. But the insurance companies are saying, well, there’s no physical damage to your property, so we don’t have to pay or we put in there that if it’s related to a virus, we don’t have to pay. So typical insurance companies not wanting to pay and I mean, even leadership in our country. And a lot of legislators have said, hey, the insurance companies should really pay because they paid premiums for this coverage. Now, they’re not even in business and they’re not getting any money from the insurance company. So that’s a it’s a tough road because the language of the policy, some cases have been allowed to continue, some cases haven’t. But we’re trying to fight for it. But, yes, that’s another issue that came up from COVID as businesses that that purchase business interruption insurance and then the insurance company refuses to pay. And so they’ve unfortunately closed their doors.

Liel: [00:06:16] And since we’re already in the topic here of COVID and the pandemic, do you foresee are you starting to see opportunities on areas that have not yet started to file claims that have not necessarily it hasn’t been that evident that they may be subject to litigation as well. But do you anticipate that this is just the starting point, like there’s going to be more coming through, whether it’s again in the restaurant industry, people at some point, will there be able to say, hey, well, I went to dine at the restaurant and I don’t I didn’t see people taking enough precautions to protect me against COVID. And I got COVID there will not be something that may potentially generate new types of cases.

Don: [00:06:57] Well, it will. But those you know, those are tough also because it’s really hard to pinpoint where you got COVID. So those are tough. But yes, some have arisen in the workplace area. That said, I got COVID, you made me come to work and I got COVID because you didn’t take the right precautions. But those are difficult cases because you can’t really a nursing home resident only got it at the nursing home because they didn’t go anywhere else. So, yeah, if you go out to a restaurant and you’ve been to 12 restaurants and you’ve been to a bar and you’ve been to the pool and you’ve been to your friend’s house for a party, it’s hard to say where you got COVID. So those will be tougher cases. But yes, some workplace issues are starting to come up now. I have not seen any against restaurants, mainly because there’s really no money to get from restaurants right now. And the insurance is not paying. So those are going to be really tough cases. I haven’t seen any against third parties. We call them like restaurants, et cetera. I’ve really only seen them in the workplace and arise in the workplace and also arising from the restaurants for non-payment of the business interruption insurance.

Grace: [00:08:03] I had sort of like one more question and it was a little bit related, but maybe not. I’d heard something very interesting. Have you ever seen anything with regards to Med Mal? And the reason I’m asking that specifically is because I know that they were talking about how COVID reduces your immune system. Right. And so what if they gave you medication because you have psoriasis or you didn’t have or you said you have something that will further lower your immune system? Have you seen anything related to that? I just heard it briefly. And it’s more of just a question on my end, to tell you the truth.

Don: [00:08:40] Yeah, those are difficult because I will tell you that I had COVID and I went to Methodist Hospital here in Houston, Texas, based on a recommendation of a doctor a few months ago, and they gave me a blood plasma transfer, which is blood of someone of my blood type who had already survived COVID and had the antibodies. They gave it to me one night. The next morning I was fine walking around in my room saying, hey, when can I go? And they discharged me at noon. But I had to sign that I was part of a study because the FDA hadn’t approved that yet. Now, Grace and I and, here on the call to we’re all in the business of making sure pharmaceutical drugs are safe and medical devices are safe. But I didn’t see why blood plasma would not be approved. I mean, the worst-case scenario, in my opinion, I’m no doctor. I’m a lawyer, but blood clots. But they give you a blood thinner when I give it to you. So I don’t know why this wasn’t being done, but the FDA just approved it. I think last week I could be wrong. Maybe it was two weeks ago. But within the last two weeks, the FDA came out and said, OK, we approved blood plasma transfers for COVID. I just need to understand why it wasn’t used on other people. And I think it could have saved a lot of lives by putting the antibody in your body. It just makes common sense as well. But with that said, if the FDA hadn’t approved all the treatments yet, these doctors were just trying all kinds of different things. And so I think a medical malpractice case is going to be difficult because there was no set Cure for COVID, you can’t say the cure was X and you didn’t give it to me because it wasn’t clear and it’s still not clear as we sit here today. Yes, blood plasma work for me. But is it going to work for Jim or John or Jamie? I don’t know. Maybe it won’t work for them. And then they have to have alternative treatment. So unless there’s you know, it’s easy to say, Mr. Doctor, you had surgery on me and you left a sponge inside of me and gave me an infection and caused more problems. I had to have another surgery to have it taken out. That’s one thing. But you didn’t give me the proper COVID care. I don’t know who’s going to testify that the standard of care for COVID was X, Y, Z, because it’s still unclear.

Grace: [00:10:51] The standard of care. We learned a little bit about that last week. That makes sense.

Don: [00:10:56] If you don’t know what Senator Kerry is, it’s hard to prove that you breached it.

Grace: [00:10:59] That makes perfect sense. OK, so that kind of brings me to what the whole conversation’s really going to be about, which is the recent settlements and what’s going on with Mass Torts this year. Right. So the recent Talc and roundup settlements, can you just tell me a little bit about that? And let’s start with Talc, because I know that’s still going. And they pulled it off the shelves. They voluntarily pulled it off the shelves. They didn’t recall it. They haven’t done anything specific as to say that we did this. Johnson & Johnson. So do you mind just talking a little bit about that and what’s going on with it?

Don: [00:11:34] Right. I mean, there has been no Johnson and Johnson settlement. Just to be clear, there is a supplier by the name of Imus who set aside one hundred and thirty two million dollars to put into bankruptcy court as sort of a bankruptcy trustee, to pay out to individuals to kind of control their liability in the whole situation. But Johnson and Johnson has not yet settled these cases and not sure what all has happened. But yes, there has been some money set aside for victims who got ovarian cancer by using talcum powder. So there has been some money set aside. It’s going through just recent bankruptcy. So it’ll take a while to get it all done. But that was a supplier who put the money in. So that’s what you read about in the paper about a settlement. That’s what’s happening so far.

Grace: [00:12:21] I see. OK. And then I also saw a little bit of information about Roundup. And I know that’s kind of closing out. I hear some people saying it’s closing out, others saying it’s done. Can you tell me a little bit about Roundup and what’s going on with that?

Don: [00:12:36] Yeah, that’s a little. Monsanto and Bayer can’t really decide if they want to settle these cases or not, but they did announce a settlement, as everyone read in the newspaper. Ten billion dollars is set aside. And then some of you read recently that they’re saying, well, wait a minute, we don’t really want to settle in some settlements are falling apart and from what I understand, we are moving forward with ours, but what I understand is that the settlement discussions are not being very fruitful now because they’re offering way less money than everyone anticipated that they’re going to offer. So that’s what is happening. That’s what you read about in the paper of some of the settlements are falling apart or not going through. So I guess they just need to, as the quote said from another lawyer, other than me, that is indecision is their biggest problem. They need to decide what they want to do. And whoever owns shares in the hedge fund that owns the most shares is trying to push all this through. They need to just tell the officers and directors that we need to settle this case. So that’s what needs to happen. If not, then just start trying the cases again and go back and don’t say don’t announce to the world your settlement if we’re not really doing it. So that was a quote in the paper. I’m not saying anything that someone else has not already said, but yes, they did set aside money and there are settlements going forward and that’s where we are right now.

Liel: [00:13:54] So, Don, is it fair to say that Roundup is kind of like done, right? There’s no more to explore there. Whatever it’s already on the table may or may not come to the desired resolution, but there’s really no more digging further to find out more cases for that. Right.

Don: [00:14:11] It’s still being sold every day and there’s still cases being filed. So there’s still a lot of lawyers signing them up and taking them and prosecuting them. So I don’t know that that’s true.

Don: [00:14:21] I think if you once you settle your cases as a law firm and a lawyer and all your clients, you said, we’re going to take this and you can’t go out and do any more. But there’s a lot of firms that have not settled their cases and are still taking them and prosecuting them. And it’s not like they pulled it off the Home Depot or Lowe’s shelves. They’re still selling it.

Liel: [00:14:37] The reason why we’re treating it that way is because we’ve seen quite a significant decline in the interest of round up cases in search term, volumes over the past few months, both through Google Organic and Google ads. And so that’s kind of like leading us to the conclusion that there is less interest from law firms in general for a Mass Tort that a few years ago or even up to a year ago, had a lot of hype behind it. So is it fair to say that at least it’s losing momentum?

Don: [00:15:08] I would say yes. And I’ll tell you why. At least the plaintiff lawyers, as we call them, lawyers like me who represent the individuals that are harmed by Roundup, we are making a good faith effort to resolve these cases. And so it doesn’t look good for me to go on TV and say, on the one hand, to be trying to negotiate a settlement and say, let’s get this closed out and let’s get these clients their money and let’s get all this passed us. And then for me to go on TV saying, have you been injured by Roundup and have ovarian cancer in my case? So we’re making a good faith effort, joint effort to try to get this resolved on our side. That’s what that’s why the cases are being signed up and prosecuted by our side.

Liel: [00:15:47] Understood. Now, those are the Mass Torts that may not have a lot of momentum going on, but what about my thoughts that are gaining momentum? Right. So we’re really seeing since the end of twenty nineteen, by the beginning of twenty-twenty, a real interest on Zantac. Where are we with regards to that mastoid? And you see, that’s promising, as it seems.

Don: [00:16:10] It’s really just getting started and MDL with multi district litigation, it was consolidated and set up that as recently happened, which will help it move a little faster because all the cases will be in one place now over with one judge overseeing the process. But it’s still a very new, you know, a new toward a new campaign, a new litigation. So it’ll take a while.

Don: [00:16:33] You have to have, you know, what’s known as a D’Albert hearing, or some people might say pronounce it a different way other than me. But that’s how we say it in Texas. Now, we’re hearing that to get all the experts on each side to testify and our side will say, yes, it caused these cancers. And there’s also I know it didn’t. And then the judge will decide whether it gets to go forward or not. And then if the case survives the D’albert and it goes forward, well, then that’ll be good news for the people who have been harmed by Zantac. But we still have to have that. And then they’ll be what’s known as a bellwether trials where each side picks certain cases that are going to go to trial as an example, as a sample case, to be tried in front of juries to see what juries think about it.

Don: [00:17:14] So there’s still a long way to go in the process, you know, unless, of course, the manufacturer decides to put it all behind them and work out a deal now. But so far, that hasn’t happened.

Liel: [00:17:24] Zantac, as you say, it’s an early stage, but a lot of factors are pointing out that there is that there could be potential there. Now, are there any other Mass Torts that have recently emerged over the past few months or this year that are not getting that much attention yet you’re seeing potential in them that they’re coming strong? I mean, we have recently talked about firefighters’ foam. We have talked about Boy Scouts of America. We have talked about quite a few things happening right now. But we don’t really know if any of these really have some meaningful behind them.

Don: [00:17:58] Meaningful potential as far as opioid cases, individual opioid cases and boy scout cases of Boy Scouts who are young boys who were abused when they were member of Boy Scouts organization by a leader and Boy Scouts, those have money that has been set aside in bankruptcy court, the same as what we talked about a few minutes ago about Talc, Boy Scouts of America. They have only so much money, they have insurance, but they put money. They set up a bankruptcy court. They filed bankruptcy. It’s in bankruptcy court. And the claims are being processed. And I believe it’s going through October now or maybe November. I don’t know the exact date of the final deadline. And the opioid if you were an individual and you took opioid and became addicted to it, more harm by any painkillers that are considered opioids that had a bankruptcy action set up. Also, the deadline came and went on June 30th for those claims. But yes, that’s a viable when there’s money set-aside in bankruptcy, how much will each person get? We don’t know, but we’ll get something if they meet all the requirements of the claim. So, yeah, those were two things that were we were working hard on the opioid.

Don: [00:19:03] Now we’re working hard on boy scout, because the deadline is coming up for anyone who was sexually abused while they were boy scout. So, yes, those are that’s what we’re working hard on right now. And we’re still working on hard on a hernia mesh, which was used to repair hernias and those were those have been found to be defective and proven to be defective and were moved forward on those, and we’re still prosecuting all those cases and they have not been formally settled yet. So there’s still no deadline. And we’re taking those. And there’s MDL set up for different types of manufacturers, different types of the devices set up in different places. So I would say the long answer to a question is yes, it was opioids this year and now it’s Zantac, Boy Scouts and hernia mesh. And there are IVC are still open as well. IVC filters have shown to be not more harm than good because they can break inside your body and cause all kinds of problems or be where they’re not supposed to be.

Don: [00:20:03] And so those IVC filter, Hernia mesh. Zantac and Boy Scouts are all moving forward this year in addition to the ones we talked about already on the show.

Liel: [00:20:14] How about Juul? Right. Juul also last year had a tremendous hype at some point. We’re standing right now.

Don: [00:20:22] I’m not heavily involved in that. I’m not saying that I will. But we are, our firm as we work with other attorneys. And so other attorneys send us their cases and we work on them together and we’re the handling firm or the trial firm. And so a lot of those firms you see that are advertising, they get the cases originally and a lot of them have not joined forces with us yet on those cases. We have a handful of them. But it seems like most of the cases that are coming across are people that became addicted because it’s you’re injecting more nicotine than you are in regular cigarettes. And so a lot of young people have come heavily addicted to it. And there’s also some that have been physically injured. There’s this, people’s lungs have been injured and they’re still trying to figure it all out medically and scientifically about why that happens, that some people’s lungs are affected by it. And then also there’s just some of them explode and they’re harm with when it blows up in their mouth. So there’s several different theories that are going around right now.

Don: [00:21:22] I’m not the expert on it, but that’s what’s going on with it. But I can’t give you an update on it because our firm is not one of the leaders in that litigation.

Grace: [00:21:29] Ok, that kind of leads me to the next question or session of what we’re talking about here. And that is what kind of Mass Torts are, what do you feel the ones that are not sort of living up to the hype?

Don: [00:21:40] The ones that we’re involved in heavily are working out the way we thought they would. I mean, some of them have run into some difficulties. I mean, like the way I see things, the way they work out are not always the same. But like when I saw an IVC filter, for example, if the FDA says it really should come out because it does, does it really benefit you in any way? And it can harm me basically. It’s like a ticking time bomb inside of you. But the defendant, some have argued, well, if you have no personal injury, if there’s nothing wrong with it right now. So there’s been I never anticipated that because it’s basically a ticking time bomb. The FDA said it needs to come out. And so basically it’s going to be hard for people that haven’t had it removed yet to recover any kind of money. And it’s just scary because it’s left inside of them. And so I didn’t really see that coming. I thought that and there is some compensation on the settlements that are being negotiated now for what we call implant only. In other words, it’s inside your body. But you know what I tell the clients all the time, it’s not we don’t take that position. But at the end of the day, this is a defective product case. And if you keep the defective product inside of you, then you’re not really going to get much money. It’s like if you bought something at Wal-Mart and you took it back and said, hey, this is defective, I’m going to keep it, but I want you to give me some money back too, that’s not how the world works, unfortunately. So if you keep a defective product, you’re just not gonna get much of a settlement and the jury is not going to give you much money because I say if it was so bad, you would have taken out of it. So that’s the tough reality of it.

Grace: [00:23:09] Yeah, that’s true. And how certain things might shake out, not a hundred percent. I mean, you can always know science and everything behind it, but yeah, I guess I could see what you’re saying. It’s just some things that just don’t pan out exactly what you were expecting them to. So to be mindful of your time, I thank you so much for everything that you’ve we’ve discussed.

Grace: [00:23:29] But normally at the end of our conversation, we have what we call three takeaways we’d like to ask you for three takeaways, three actionable items that a law firm paralegal and another attorney can take from this conversation and either act on or just mull over. What are three kind of takeaways from you that you feel we can.

Don: [00:23:52] We talked about COVID earlier, and I know everyone’s tired of hearing it. And actually, now that I’ve already had it and been over, I feel like it’s sort of in my rear view mirror. So when I go to places like California and a hotel still not open or a restaurant, it’s not open on the inside. I’m like. Because I feel like it’s in my rearview mirror, but it’s not, it’s still here. So I would encourage those people that we’re still protecting other people from COVID and so few law firms open and everyone’s working at your law firm or you work just wear a mask. I do. I even have one that says Don works here. I have got our logo on our phone number. I’ve already COVID. But I wear it everywhere I go, including the office when I’m walking around the office when I do that to be an example for everyone else and also to make everyone else feel comfortable. Because if I’m around them with no mask, they don’t know I’ve already had COVID. So be respectful of other people and. Wear, wear a mask, wash your hands and do the things that you’re supposed to do, regardless of whether you’re not concerned about it, you’ve already had it or you just don’t think you’re going to get it. And so that’s we talked briefly earlier in the podcast about organizations taking steps to keep people from having COVID. That’s one of the things you can do yourself, especially if you’re the owner of the firm or one of the lawyers. The firm is just play by the rules, wear your mask, wash your hands, and encourage your staff to do so.

Don: [00:25:12] And that’s one takeaway that we can do is play by the rules. And the other takeaway is that. You know, if you’re looking to get into Mass Torts, then the ones that we talked about, there’s still time to help Boy Scouts out. There’s still time to help people that have been harmed by Hernia Mesh. There’s still time to help people at harm by IVC filter. So still some time to help people that have been harmed by talc. And so if you want to get into it, that’s one way that some of the cases you can get involved in now.

Liel: [00:25:45] Well, thank you so much, Don. First of all, we’re sorry to hear that you have to go through COVID, but we’re happy to hear that you are now doing great, looking great as always. And we are hoping that we, well, next time we’ll get to see you in person at either one of your events or one of the conferences is where we potentially can go there at the same time. But until then, thank you again for so much insights and knowledge and stay safe.

Grace: [00:26:11] Thank you, bye.

Liel: [00:26:16] Grace, it’s always great to talk to Don, right?

Grace: [00:26:21] It’s always illuminating. He has the whole other perspective on some of these things.

Liel: [00:26:25] Yeah, I agree. And he’s a straight shooter, right? Like, he makes this point very clear and very fast. And that’s why a conversation with him, even when it’s a short one, it’s very effective and you learn a lot. So I certainly have a lot of things to take away with me as part of this conversation, Grace, and also kind of comes to show. Right. How us from the marketing side after a Mass Torts, for instance, has reached a certain point, like we kind of detach from it. But that doesn’t mean that the Mass Tort’s done right. Like, it was interesting to hear how much work and how much effort is still going into, for instance, roundup, right, for many of us that we’ve been marketing for it. And we’re no longer out, it’s kind of like it’s done and dusted and nobody’s heard about it for months now. And it’s not really the reality. Right. It’s still an ongoing thing happening. And there’s people that are still hoping to be able to benefit from a potential settlement. So, Grace, what takeaways do you have?

Grace: [00:27:25] So I think I’d like to just revisit that one at the very beginning. Again, COVID, be COVID safe. I know we’re all tired of it. I’m super tired of it. I’m in Florida. You’re in Texas. He’s in Texas. You know, I think we’re all a little exhausted of the same over and over, but. You still got to be safe, we don’t know what this thing is, we still have to be safe. And even if you had it like Don did, as he said, you’re being safe for other people, too. You’re being conscious of what other people are going through. You’re being conscious of everyone around you. So just be COVID safe in your office, wherever you are, whatever you’re doing, try to make sure that you just maintain the rules and regulations as best you can in the way that you’re supposed to. That’s all.

Liel: [00:28:12] Yeah. Grace, nothing to add there, a little effort makes such a difference. Right. Let’s hope that we can all pull through together and make this a thing of the past in the near future.

Grace: [00:28:23] So I think the second take away, at least for me and, you know, feel free to add, of course, Liel, with this whole thing with Mass Torts just in general. It goes back to what you just said before, the COVID comment and takeaways that we just gave. And it’s you don’t know if it’s done. It may not necessarily be done unless it’s been pulled off the shelves or unless, you know, really there’s a lot of variables that go into Mass Torts. So don’t think it’s done necessarily. Reach out to your resources, reach out to Gacovino and Lake, reach out to people like that that know what’s kind of going on, can help you kind of decide where to go and reach out to companies like leaders in mass torts that will give you information on what’s happening with the tort. If there’s a D’Albert or D’Albert, that’s what he was referring to in terms of the litigation that goes on for the Mass Torts and why he said that is pronounced differently. But D’albert, so there’s a lot of things that have to go on before a mass tort is quote unquote viable perse and MDLs. Right. So you don’t know if it’s done yet.

Grace: [00:29:34] And so don’t think of it as, oh my goodness, it’s done. Like, I can’t do anything anymore. Now also do think obviously, like he said, round up the reason they may not be going after certain ones, let’s say maybe not roundup specifically, but a specific tort because they want it to be settled. Right. They want it to settle. They want to help the people that got harmed by it. And so to go out and after they already said meaning, Bayer and Monsanto have already said that they are going to settle as a law firm to go out and continue advertising for something that is supposed to be settling. It’s not only not a good look necessarily, it’s just you are not showing that you have faith in what’s happening and they can then turn around and make it a problem for you as a law firm, then you might not be able to help your clients to the best of your ability. So that’s just kind of another way to look at when a mass toward is happening, when it’s ending and everything in between. Pay attention, you know, ask questions and research.

Liel: [00:30:37] Absolutely, I mean, if one thing that has come up every single time we talk about Mass Torts is that they’re complex and you definitely need to have a lot of inside information in order to be able to make good decisions. Right. I can’t stop being amazed by the complexity of Mass Torts and how complex and thorough is the process of taking them leave alone through their entire cycle, but just from one stage to another stage.

Liel: [00:31:05] Right. And so that’s why I always whenever a conversation like this comes up, I always refer to Gacovino and Lake and really associations that can actually guide you through that. Otherwise, it’s really not that viable, as you’ve said, Grace.

Grace: [00:31:24] Yeah, it’s not easy.

Liel: [00:31:25] To find out your way on your own there.

Grace: [00:31:28] It really isn’t. Yeah, you do. You became an attorney to help people. Right. And you had to go through a lot of schooling to understand this. Mass Torts is another side and the process of mass torts is its own animal and beast. And so you need to understand it. And in understanding it, you can help your clients better, too. And you can help yourself. Right. Because that kind of leads me to my last takeaway. And actually, it just came up with it as we were talking, because it’s something I tell people all the time whenever they, you know, talk to us about mass torts and diversify, diversify, diversify, do not put your eggs in one basket. Do not put all your time, effort in money and helping all of Zantac because you don’t know what’s going to happen with Zantac you need to diversify yourself across a different portfolio of cases to make sure that your firm can continue to help all the people that need the help without completely putting all of your assets into one particular. Diversify.

Liel: [00:32:28] Yeah, Grace, absolutely, I mean, that’s another one that has come up so frequently here in so many different contexts, but at the end of the day, you’re right. Right. It’s not enough. Just diversifying your marketing as a whole and just getting into one Mass Torts. It has to be a selection of Mass Torts, needs to be a few of them, because while some may perform well, some may not. And I honestly, you know, I perform here almost kind of like taking away terminology from the stock market into the Mass Torts, because it’s so impressive, the similarities that there are between Mass Torts and the stock market that I can stop being amazed by it.

Grace: [00:33:13] You have to mitigate your risk, right. Mitigating your risk. And that’s basically what we’re talking about.

Liel: [00:33:18] I agree. Grace. Well, Grace thing you and Don for another great conversation, we’ll be back next week.

Liel: [00:33:26] Something new to talk about.

Liel: [00:33:30] Bye, have a great week.

Liel: [00:33:32] If you like our show, make sure you subscribe. Tell your co-workers. Leave us a review and send us your questions at ask@incamerapodcast.com. We’ll see you next week.