Bob Van Voris

September 18, 2000 | Law.com

At hearings about defective Firestone tires, lawmakers lamented the evil effects of confidentiality agreements between plaintiffs' lawyers and lawyers for Ford Motor Co. and Bridgestone/Firestone Inc. The secrecy agreements may have ultimately led to 88 American deaths. It's a point of view that plaintiffs' lawyers and safety advocates have been pushing for at least a decade.

By Bob Van Voris and Matt Fleischer

9 minute read

November 03, 2000 | Law.com

Carbonless copy paper is familiar to anyone who has signed a credit card slip. But some people say the chemicals the paper contains have ruined their health, and they want to prove it. Appleton Papers Inc., the industry's biggest player, is in federal court trying to block publication of industry documents that some claim contain important public health information that must be revealed.

By Bob Van Voris

8 minute read

September 13, 1999 | Law.com

Rarely does a lawyer get the chance to leave $4.5 billion on the table. But when plaintiffs' lawyer Brian Panish proposed to forgo most of the punitive damages his client had won in a suit against General Motors, he joined a small but significant trend: offering to trade big punitive damages for a corporate defendant's promise to make changes that may prevent future injuries. All this adds up to plaintiffs' lawyers behaving contrary to the greedy lawyer stereotype and giving up money to promote safety.

By Bob Van Voris

6 minute read

November 08, 1999 | Law.com

Despite a 1996 federal law prohibiting lawyers from contacting relatives within 30 days of a plane crash, it may be that families of the EgyptAir crash victims are not as well protected from unethical lawyers as they could be. It's unclear whether the law applies to the crash, which occurred outside the territorial waters of the U.S. And keeping an eye out for overreaching lawyers does not appear to be a high priority for the agencies charged with looking after the families in the wake of the tragedy.

By Bob Van Voris

4 minute read