The Litigators (17 page)

After a quick dinner, Alisandros stood and began the conversation. The plan was to meet at nine the following morning, in the same room, and get down to business. They should be finished by noon. He had spoken several times with Nicholas Walker at Varrick, and obviously the company was shell-shocked. In its long and colorful history of litigation, it had never been hit so fast and so hard with so many lawsuits. It was scrambling to get some sense of the damage. According to experts hired by Alisandros, the potential pool of injured or dead could be as high as half a million.

This news—of so much misery and suffering—was well received around the table.

The potential cost to Varrick, according to yet another expert hired by Alisandros, was at least $5 billion. Wally was fairly certain he was not the only one at the table who did a quick multiplication: 40 percent of $5 billion. The others, though, seemed to take it all in stride. Another drug, another war with Big Pharma, another massive settlement that would make them even richer. They could buy more jets, more homes, more trophy wives, assets Wally cared nothing for. All he wanted was a chunk in the bank, enough cash to make life enjoyable and free from the daily grind.

In a roomful of considerable egos, it was only a matter of time before someone else wanted the floor. Dudley Brill, from Lubbock, boots and all, plunged into the retelling of a recent conversation with a high-ranking Varrick defense lawyer in Houston, who strongly implied that the company had no plans to settle until after the drug’s liability was tested before a few juries. Therefore, based on Brill’s analysis of a conversation no one else in the room knew about, he was of the firm opinion that he, Dudley Brill of Lubbock, Texas, should lead the first trial, and do so in his hometown, where the jurors had proven they loved him and would fork over huge sums if he asked for them. Brill
had obviously been drinking, as had everybody else but Wally, and his self-serving analysis touched off a furious debate around the dinner table. Before long, several skirmishes were under way, with tempers flaring and insults being traded.

Jerry Alisandros managed to bring order. “I was hoping we could save all of this for tomorrow,” he said diplomatically. “Let’s retire now, go to our separate corners, and come back tomorrow all sobered up and rested.”

F
rom the looks of things the following morning, not all of the trial lawyers went to their rooms and to bed. Puffy eyes, red eyes, hands grabbing cold water and coffee—the signs were there. There was no shortage of hangovers. There were not as many lawyers either, and as the morning dragged on, Wally began to realize a lot of business had been conducted over drinks late the night before. Deals had been cut, alliances forged, backs stabbed. Wally wondered where he stood.

Two experts talked about Krayoxx and the most recent studies. Each lawyer spent a few minutes talking about his or her lawsuit—number of clients, number of potential client deaths versus injuries, judges, opposing counsel, and verdict trends in the jurisdiction. Wally winged it nicely and said as little as possible.

An incredibly boring expert dissected the financial health of Varrick Labs and deemed the company fit enough to sustain huge losses from a Krayoxx settlement. The word “settlement” was used frequently and was always ringing in Wally’s ears. The same expert became even more tedious when analyzing the various insurance coverages Varrick had in force.

After two hours, Wally needed a break. He eased out and went to find a restroom. When he returned, Jerry Alisandros was waiting outside the door. “When are you headed back to Chicago?” he asked.

“In the morning,” Wally replied.

“Flying commercial?”

Of course, Wally thought. I do not have my own jet, so like most
poor Americans I’m forced to pay for a ticket on a jet owned by someone else. “Sure,” he said with a smile.

“Look, Wally, I’m headed to New York this afternoon. Why don’t you hitch a ride? My firm just bought a brand-new Gulfstream G650. We’ll have lunch on the plane and drop you off in Chicago.”

There would be a price to pay, a deal to be cut, but Wally was looking for one anyway. He had read about rich trial lawyers and their private jets, but it had never crossed his mind that he would see the inside of one. “That’s very generous,” he said. “Sure.”

“Meet me in the lobby at 1:00 p.m., okay?”

“You got it.”

T
here were a dozen or so private jets lined up on the deck at McCarran Field’s general aviation center. As Wally followed his new pal Jerry past them, he wondered how many were owned by the other mass tort boys. When they got to Jerry’s, he climbed the steps, took a breath, then stepped inside the gleaming G650. A striking Asian girl took his coat and asked what he wanted to drink. Just club soda.

Jerry Alisandros had a small entourage with him—an associate, two paralegals, and an assistant of some kind. They huddled briefly in the rear of the cabin as Wally settled into the rich leather seat and thought about Iris Klopeck and Millie Marino, and those wonderful widows whose dead husbands had led Wally into the world of mass torts, and now to this. The flight attendant handed Wally a menu. Down the aisle, far away, he could see a kitchen with a chef, just waiting. As they taxied, Jerry made his way to the front and sat down opposite Wally. “What do you think?” he asked, raising his hands to take in his latest toy.

“Sure beats commercial,” Wally said. Jerry howled with laughter—no doubt the funniest thing he’d ever heard.

A voice announced takeoff, and they all buckled their seat belts. As the jet left the runway and shot upward, Wally closed his eyes and tried to savor the moment. It might never happen again.

As soon as they began to level off, Jerry came to life. He popped a switch and pulled a mahogany table out of the wall. “Let’s talk business,” he said.

It’s your plane, Wally thought. “Sure.”

“How many cases do you realistically expect to sign up?”

“We might get ten death cases; we have eight now. Non-death, I’m not sure. We have a pool of several hundred potential cases, but we haven’t screened them yet.” Jerry frowned as if this weren’t enough, not worth his time. Wally wondered if he might order the pilot to turn around or open a hatch somewhere.

“Have you thought about teaming up with a bigger firm?” Jerry asked. “I know you guys don’t do a lot of mass tort work.”

“Sure, I’m open to that discussion,” Wally replied, trying to conceal his excitement. That had been his plan since the beginning. “My contracts provide for a contingency fee of 40 percent. How much do you want?”

“In our typical deal, we front the expenses, and these are not cheap cases. We find the doctors, experts, researchers, whomever, and they cost a fortune. We take half the fee, 20 percent, but the expenses are paid back to us before any split of the fee.”

“That sounds fair. What’s our role in this?”

“Simple. Find more cases, death and non-death. Round ’em up. I’ll send a draft of an agreement on Monday. I’m trying to piece together as many cases as possible. The next big step is the creation of an MDL—multi-district litigation. The court will appoint a plaintiff’s trial committee, usually five or six seasoned lawyers who will control the litigation. That panel is entitled to an additional fee, usually around 6 percent, and this comes off the top and out of the lawyers’ portion.”

Wally was nodding along. He’d done some research and knew the ins and outs, most of them. “Will you be on the trial committee?” he asked.

“Probably, I usually am.”

The flight attendant brought fresh drinks. Jerry took a sip of wine and continued. “When discovery starts, we’ll send someone to help
with the depositions of your clients. No big deal. Pretty routine legal work. Keep in mind, Wally, that the defense firms see this as a gold mine too, so they work the cases hard. I’ll find a cardiologist we can trust, one who’ll screen your clients for damage. We’ll pay him out of the litigation fund. Any questions?”

“Not now,” Wally said. He was not pleased to be giving away half the fee, but he was delighted to be in business with an experienced and deep-pocketed tort firm. There would still be plenty of money for Finley & Figg. He thought of Oscar and couldn’t wait to tell him about the G650.

“What’s your best guess for the timeline?” Wally asked. In other words, when can I expect some money?

A long, satisfying pull of the wine, and, “Based on my experience, which, as you know, Wally, is quite vast, I expect we’ll reach a settlement in twelve months and start disbursing money right away. Who knows, Wally, in a year or so you might have your own airplane.”

N
icholas Walker flew with Judy Beck and two other Varrick lawyers to Chicago on one of the company’s corporate jets, a Gulfstream G650 that was just as new as the one that had so thoroughly impressed Wally. The purpose of their trip was to fire their old law firm and hire a new one. Walker and his boss, Reuben Massey, had hammered out the details of a master plan to deal with their Krayoxx mess, and the first major battle would take place in Chicago. First, though, they had to get the right people in place.

The wrong people belonged to a firm that had represented Varrick Labs for a decade, and their work had always been considered top-notch. Their shortcoming was not their fault. According to the exhaustive research done by Walker and his team, there was another firm in the city with closer ties to Judge Harry Seawright. And this firm happened to have a partner who was the hottest defense lawyer in town.

Her name was Nadine Karros, a forty-four-year-old litigation partner who had not lost a jury trial in ten years. The more she won, the more difficult her cases became, and the more impressive her victories. After chatting with dozens of attorneys who had faced her in court, and lost, Nick Walker and Reuben Massey decided that Ms. Karros would lead the defense of Krayoxx. And they didn’t care what it would eventually cost.

First, though, they had to convince her. During a long teleconference,
she had seemed ambivalent about taking charge of a major case that was expanding daily. Not surprisingly, she already had too much work on her desk; her trial calendar was booked; and so on. She had never been involved in a mass tort case, though as a pure litigator this was not much of an obstacle. Walker and Massey knew her recent string of courtroom wins included a wide range of issues—groundwater contamination, hospital negligence, the midair collision of two commuter planes. As an elite courtroom advocate, Nadine Karros could handle any case before any jury.

She was a partner in the litigation section of Rogan Rothberg, on the eighty-fifth floor of the Trust Tower, with a corner office with a view of the lake, though she seldom enjoyed it. She met the Varrick crew in a large conference room on the eighty-sixth floor, and after everyone had a quick gawk at Lake Michigan, they settled in for what was expected to be a two-hour meeting, minimum. On her side of the table, Ms. Karros had the usual complement of young associates and paralegals, a veritable entourage of grim-faced minions ready to say “How high?” when she said “Jump!” To her right was a male litigation partner named Hotchkin, her right-hand man.

L
ater, in a phone call to Reuben Massey, Nicholas Walker would report, “She’s very attractive, Reuben, long dark hair, strong chin and teeth, beautiful hazel eyes that are so warm and inviting you think this is the woman I want to take home to meet Momma. A very pleasant personality, quick with a nice smile. A deep, rich voice like one you’d expect from an opera singer. Easy to see why jurors are so taken with her. But she’s tough, no doubt about that, Reuben. She takes charge and gives orders, and you get the impression that those around her are fiercely loyal. I’d hate to face this woman in court, Reuben.”

“So, she’s the one?” Reuben asked.

“No question. I found myself looking forward to the trial, just to watch her in action.”

“Legs?”

“Oh yes. The package. Slender, dressed like something out of a magazine. You should meet her as soon as possible.”

I
t was her turf, so Ms. Karros quickly assumed control of the meeting. She nodded to Hotchkin and said, “Mr. Hotchkin and I presented your proposal to our Fee Committee. My rate will be $1,000 an hour out of court, $2,000 in court, with an initial retainer of $5 million, nonrefundable of course.”

Nicholas Walker had been negotiating fees with elite lawyers for two decades, and he was shockproof. “And how much for the other partners?” he asked calmly, as if his company could handle anything she threw at them, which in fact it could.

“Eight hundred an hour. Five hundred for associates,” she replied.

“Agreed,” he said. Everyone in the room knew the cost of defense would run into the millions. In fact, Walker and his team had already pegged their initial estimate at $25 to 30 million. Peanuts, when you’re getting sued for billions.

With the air clear on what it would cost, they moved on to the next important matter. Nicholas Walker had the floor. “Our strategy is simple and it’s complicated,” he began. “Simple, in that we pick a case from the myriad of those filed against us, an individual case, not a class action, and we push hard for a trial. We want a trial. We are not afraid of a trial, because we believe in our drug. We believe, and we can prove, that the research being relied upon by the tort boys is deeply flawed. We are convinced that Krayoxx does what it is supposed to do, and it does not increase the risks of heart attack or stroke. We are certain of this, so certain that we want a jury, one right here in Chicago, to hear our evidence, and soon. We are confident the jury will believe us, and when the jury rejects the attack on Krayoxx, when the jury finds in our favor, the battlefield will change dramatically. Frankly, we think the tort bar will scatter like leaves in the wind. They’ll cave. It might take another trial, another victory, but I doubt it. In short, Ms.
Karros, we hit them hard and fast with a jury trial, and when we win, they’ll go home.”

She listened without taking notes. When he finished, she said, “Indeed, that’s pretty simple, and not altogether original. Why Chicago?”