Lawyers do subtle dance to woo crash clients
Roughly 20 families of Flight 3407 victims have hired attorneys to bring lawsuits
Published: April 05, 2009, 12:30 am
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The 45-day grace period preventing attorneys from soliciting families of Flight 3407 victims has ended, but that doesn’t mean all the gloves are off for lawyers hustling to line up clients for expected multimillion-dollar lawsuits.
Attorneys now are free to advertise and mail marketing materials — even unsolicited—to any of the families who lost loved ones in the Feb. 12 crash that took 50 lives in Clarence Center.
But state ethics rules governing attorneys still prevent lawyers from showing up, unsolicited, on the doorsteps of the families.
“The way New York state ethics rules work, I am not supposed to [personally] contact an injured party or the family of a victim cold,” said Hugh M. Russ III, an attorney representing two of the Flight 3407 families. “I have to have a connection to them.”
But Russ, from the firm Hodgson Russ, quickly added, “I think that may be one of the most violated rules of all time.”
Even before the federal grace period ended last Sunday, local plaintiffs’ attorneys and representatives of non-local law firms specializing in aviation cases have signed up roughly 20 families who lost relatives on that flight, according to several attorneys’ estimates.
And more than half a dozen local attorneys, some working with the national aviation firms, have filed lawsuits or have been retained by Flight 3407 families.
Three of those local attorneys and one from New York City who were interviewed last week had some words of advice for families still looking for legal help:
• The end of the 45-day grace period—part of the Aviation Disaster Family Assistance Act—shouldn’t force people into a quick decision.
The state statute of limitations for wrongful-death cases is two years, so families have until February 2011 to file their lawsuits.
• Before picking an attorney, surviving family members should listen to their own attorneys and financial advisers, and they shouldn’t hesitate to interview more than one attorney before settling on their choice.
“I would say, find somebody you can trust and find somebody who can take this part of the problem off your shoulders, so you can grieve, you can mourn, and you can protect your family,” said Terrence M. Connors, who expects to work with three families, in conjunction with New York City attorney Kenneth P. Nolan.
• Be a bit leery of somebody who has no connection to you, who’s bombarding you with packets of marketing materials.
“If you’re looking for a heart surgeon, and a heart surgeon mailed something to your house, you might think a really good surgeon shouldn’t need to do that,” said Justin T. Green, an aviation attorney with the New York City firm Kreindler & Kreindler. “I think it’s the same with law firms.”
These cases, for several obvious reasons, are highly coveted by plaintiffs’ attorneys.
First, the settlements are expected to be costly.
Several aviation-law experts said they would be surprised if any of the families got less than $1 million. Another cited a decade- old study that found average settlements in commercial air crashes at about $2.7 million.
“It’s attractive, generally, to lawyers, because you have a case that garners a lot of attention, and at least in this case against the air carriers, you’re not going to lose it,” Green said. “You have a high-profile case that is going to be successful.”
But trying to gauge the likely settlement range for the Flight 3407 lawsuits is too tricky.
Green, whose firm already represents seven families from the Clarence Center crash, cited a few of the variables that could factor into any specific settlement.
Those include the applicable laws in the state where the victim lived, the victim’s family circumstances, including the number of dependents, and his or her future earnings.
Green mentioned the hypothetical case of two unmarried twins, sitting next to each other on a doomed flight, with similar jobs, but one living in Connecticut and the other in New York.
Because the two states have such different criteria for awarding damages, the Connecticut case likely would yield a substantially higher award, Green said.
The Flight 3407 cases also have the advantage of having a well-publicized investigation already under way by the National Transportation Safety Board. That doesn’t mean these attorneys won’t do their own investigating, but the Safety Board findings won’t hurt.
The lure of high-profile airline crash cases may explain some of the completely unethical behavior that has surfaced after previous plane crashes, including attorneys sneaking into family support-group meetings, others posing as Red Cross volunteers or attorneys finding someone to brazenly knock on the doors of grieving family members.
In this case, the U. S. Justice Department already is looking into allegations that at least one attorney prematurely contacted a victim’s family before the 45- day grace period ended. Federal authorities, however, have said that violating the law can lead to civil violations and fines up to $1,000 — but not criminal charges.
One question that grieving families may have as they look for an attorney is whether to retain a national firm specializing in aviation or a local firm with a better handle on the local court system and laws.
James T. Scime, from the firm Lipsitz Green Scime Cambria, has seen both sides of that argument. He is representing two families, working with the Kreindler firm in one case.
“The families that I’ve spoken to understand the importance of strong counsel from this area, because they understand the importance of familiarity with the local courts, their procedures, the jury pool and the nuances of the law with respect to damages in New York,” Scime said.
Another national firm, Clifford Law Offices, a Chicago aviation firm, filed a lawsuit in federal court in New York City on Tuesday, on behalf of another family.
That lawsuit cites some accusations leveled in other lawsuits, but also includes claims that the defendants failed to have an advanced air-speed warning system or an auto-throttle that controls a plane’s air speed.
Different families have different motives in their lawsuits, and no one can deny that money is a factor for many.
But Connors sees a common denominator among the families he has met.
“Plainly and simply, people want to do whatever they can to make sure this doesn’t happen to anybody again,” he said.
gwarner@buffnews.com
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