This Minneapolis Star-Tribune article explains that, after 15 years of litigation, attorneys’ fees totaling $1.3 billion have been approved for the Minneapolis firm of Faegre & Benson and several dozen other law firms that represented 32,000 Alaskan fishermen and business owners who were harmed by the Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989. Faegre & Benson was one of the lead law firms in involved in the lawsuit against Exxon Mobil Corp. which resulted in a 1994 award of $5 billion in punitive damages.
Although some practices of plaintiffs’ lawyers in large tort cases are open to valid criticism, plaintiffs’ lawyers are more often the unjust target of the demagouges of tort reform. The risk-taking and dedication of the type that the plaintiffs’ lawyers in the Exxon Valdez case exhibited are not often noted in the debate over tort reform. At considerable risk, these lawyers provided a valuable service to thousands of clients who otherwise would have had limited or no means to any legal recourse. These lawyers should be congratulated for a job well done.