A Civil Action Attorney Speaks to UR About His Experiences
November 21, 2006
This article was written by first-year student Maggie Dodd and appears through the courtesy of the Law School's news publication, Juris Publici.
Jan Schlichtmann didn't mind too much when he first learned that he would be portrayed by actor John Travolta in a movie based on the most critical litigation of his life.
"As my mother put it, a handsome Italian boy playing a nice Jewish boy-what's not to like?" he joked. "John Travolta made more money playing me than I made playing me!"
The film, based on the best-selling novel A Civil Action, by Jonathan Harr, recounts the controversial legal battle in which Schlichtmann represented eight families from Woburn, Massachusetts in a suit brought against two large corporations. The families claimed that W.R. Grace and Beatrice Foods dumped toxins that leaked into the town's wells, contaminating the drinking water and causing a series of illnesses, including several cases of leukemia in their children.
Schlichtmann, a Cornell Law School graduate and infamous personal injury lawyer, spoke to several different groups at the University of Richmond School of Law on Wednesday, November 15. In addition to addressing University Torts and Civil Procedure classes, he gave a speech to a mixture of students, faculty, and others on "Environmental Justice in the Courtrooms." The event was sponsored by the Robert R. Merhige Center for Environmental Justice.
Schlichtmann covered a range of topics, including toxic tort litigation, the rules of Civil Procedure, and the important role of today's lawyers in the ongoing evolution of the law. He referred to the Woburn trial as a "unique, therapeutic experience," one that ultimately changed his views on the role of a lawyer.
Schlichtmann claimed that before the trial, when life was good and he had it all, he thought this role was to gather the power of the law and use it to destroy the power that was destroying his client. After the Woburn journey, he realized that the opposite was true. Lawyers have a "sacred obligation" to use the power of the law to civilize the power of others.
It was indeed a long, hard journey for Schlichtmann to come to this revelation. The Woburn case lasted nearly a decade and cost over $2.4 million dollars, causing him to file for bankruptcy after it was all said and done. The result? A not-guilty verdict for Beatrice Foods, an $8 million dollar settlement from W.R. Grace, and a controversial Rule 11 sanction for Schlichtmann.
But the zealous, good-natured lawyer has few regrets. After the trial, it took him a long time to regain his passion for the law. However, he soon found himself enriched by the experience.
"Even bankruptcy was enriching," he claimed.
Schlichtmann stressed that the most important issue was to seek justice. "The first casualty of conflict is the truth, but we need truth to find justice."
He recalled one Woburn mother's words, "Our children are choking to death on the lies. We need the truth."
And that is just what they got. The Environmental Protection Agency, armed with all the information from Schlichtmann's discovery as well as its own reports, confronted the two companies shortly after the trial. W.R. Grace and Beatrice agreed to write a $70 million dollar check to clean up their mess. In 1996, the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry determined that the toxins from the water had indeed caused the leukemia and other illnesses that devastated the Woburn families.
Since the Woburn trial, Jan Schlichtmann has become an advocate for alternative dispute resolution as a means to settle conflicts. Although he recognizes that there has been an improvement in the administration and organization of complex litigation, he believes that mediation is the next step in the evolution of the law.
"When we add litigation to the mix, we are often adding more conflict," he insisted, adding that there is a need for a more human dimension of problem solving. Schlichtmann's focus was on viewing lawyers as "healers of the law," referring to conflict as a "legal pathology" that lawyers must seek to cure. He stressed that this is an important time in the history of the profession of law, as well as in the nation's history, and lawyers must gain experience from the past.
"We are in a dangerous place," he said, "and lawyers must take us from where we are to a healthier, safer, better place."
Click here to listen to an interview with Jan Schlictmann and Merhige Center Director Noah M. Sachs, conducted by Charles Fishburne for Richmond's WCVE-FM.