High-Powered Trial Attorneys Compete for Toyota Litigation Friday, March 26, 2010
Scores of high-powered U.S. trial lawyers pursuing Toyota in court over the car company's wide-ranging safety recalls gathered Wednesday to compare notes, strategize and jostle for a prime shot at the legal bounty.
The conference at a San Diego hotel came a day before a special panel of U.S. District Court judges meets nearby to hear arguments on the consolidation of hundreds of federal lawsuits against Toyota into a single case, or a handful, for pretrial proceedings.
"Everybody's trying to size everybody else up and divide into teams and see who's going to lead the charge where,'' said Mark Lanier, a Houston trial lawyer whose legal team secured over $300 million from Merck & Co. in litigation over heart attack deaths blamed on the painkiller Vioxx.