There will always be vestiges of the iconic lead paint public nuisance litigation which dominated legal circles from the late 1990s until the Rhode Island Supreme Court tossed it Download Statev.LeadIndustriesAssoc.,Inc.
The latest is the allegation that Motley Rice, the law firm hired on contingency by plaintiff in RI litigation, gained access to a document from Sherwin-Williams that it shouldn't have. Motley Rice has appealed to an Ohio judge Sherwin-Williams' demand for discovery. The case is "Sherwin-Williams v Motley Rice LLC, et al." Case No. CV 09 689237, Court of Cuyahoga County, Ohio.
Even I got in the loop of this continued legal fall out. In fall 2010, I was deposed in New Haven, Connecticut by lawyer Luis Manuel Alcalde representing Motley Rice. By accident - that is, no seeming bad faith - legal documents had been passed to me by a defense lawyer associated with the RI litigation. I sense I won't be a witness if there is a trial. To do that, plaintiff lawyers would have to contend that I received material information from the defense lawyers. That seemed to be the secret agenda in Alcalde's line of questioning. Of course, I'm not important enough for any of the defense legal teams to consider me when it came to funny business. Should I become a witness, that's more copy for this blog.
Meanwhile, the litigation did some players well.
Head lawyer for plaintiff Jack McConnell is a federal judge.
Jones Day which represented and still represents Sherwin-Williams had nice bragging rights when the lawsuit was tossed. Now it is playing in the sandbox of the Santa Clara, California lead paint public nuisance litigation. Should the plaintiff win, that model could be adopted throughout the rest of the state for lead paint litigation. Jones Day could be busy for years.
Sheldon Whitehouse, who authorized the first trial, is still enjoying a nice political career in Washington D.C.
I who blogged the second trial and its aftermath continued the legal education I had begun when I attended Harvard Law School in the mid 1980s. That has paid off big time. This blog is syndicated, carried by Kindle and housed in the Library of Congress [Download LibraryofCongress.] And leveraging this ability to manage issues related to litigation, regulation, and legislation has brought in consulting work. Inserted in my pitches is, "The edge I bring is my proven experience positioning and packaging whatever intersects with ....." Hey, that's all that counts in this Darwinian marketplace.
Incidentally, for those trying to figure out the new normal in business, an emerging best practice is trying and failing. My Plan A after the RI lead paint trial was pitching my services to the marketing departments in law firms. No way, Jose. Then I tried blogging. There has been a growing demand for that among lawyers but little money. So much for Plan B. Plan C - the indirect approach outside the legal sector per se - has worked like a charm.
Of course, just as I'm doing now, I will continue to exploit any development in the lead paint saga for my own journalistic and commercial self-interest. Lesson: It's not the experience you have gained or are gaining but how you promote and leverage it. In the new professional normal, we are all in charge of creating our own career reality. There is no "is." There is only what we frame "it" as.
Comments