Course Section | Columbia Law School

Section Description Provided by Instructor

In large measure this proposed seminar will focus upon what may be characterized as mass tort practice. Accordingly, it will address not only litigation concerning widely dispersed and allegedly injurious products [e.g., asbestos, tobacco, Dalkon Shield, breast implants, Agent Orange, Swine Flu vaccine, Bendectin, Vioxx and birth defects among the offspring of semiconductor workers], but also environmental mass disasters [e.g., Love Canal, Bohpal, Three Mile Island, Buffalo Creek, Exxon Valdez, Woburn, Jackson Township, Hanford, Los Alamos, Rocky Flats], as well as discrete catastrophes such as the Pan Am Lockerbie air crash and the MGM Grand Hotel fire.

The intent of the seminar is to explore not only the important doctrinal changes that have occurred as courts struggle to cope with a tidal wave of mass tort litigation, but also to come to grips with the public policy, ethical and economic consequences of these changes. Lastly, this course will attempt to impart a sense of how the evolution of mass tort doctrine and practice has impacted the practice of law and the structure of law firms on both the plaintiffs and the defense sides of the aisle, examining frankly in this context the interplay between law as a business and law as a profession.