Juul e-cigarette or nicotine vapor dispenser being charged, with box and Juul pods on table. Photo: Steve Heap/Shutterstock.com

Hundreds of potential Connecticut litigants want to "Get Carter" to bring suits over electronic cigarettes in  what experts say is a sign of an emerging litigation trend.

The uptick is evident at the Carter Mario Law Firm, whose marketing tag line is "Get Carter." The firm has focused on personal injury and defective product claims, but is now honing its marketing efforts on e-cigarette litigation.

"We've had close to 100 people, if not more, contact us from the ads they saw," said senior litigation attorney Ryan Veilleux.

The Carter Mario Law Firm has long had marketing efforts in the Nutmeg State. Its advertising appeared on television and radio in the 1990s, targeting personal-injury business. But its most recent and ambitious endeavor is a campaign to represent e-cigarette users who claim harm from the product.

The attorneys appear to have picked up on a litigation trend emerging across the country: suits and statewide probes alleging e-cigarettes are dangerous, especially to teenagers. To reach young litigants, they've taken the marketing campaign to social media, and have online advertisements, blog postings and Facebook pages.

The Carter Mario Law Firm has stayed true to what has always worked for it: television. The firm has been airing between 10 and 15 advertisements per day on local television in the past three weeks. The response has been more than anyone at the firm expected, litigator Veilleux said.

Veilleux is one of four attorneys who will be working on e-cigarette cases for the firm, which is also collaborating with other attorneys throughout the country.

"We've certainly conducted a lot of research on this topic. It's all new, but we certainly have a head start over everyone else in the state," he said. "I'm not aware of anyone else in Connecticut who is actively investigating claims right now."

Among the potential targets of these potential suits: San Francisco-based Juul Labs, which is fighting litigation accusing it of marketing to underage users. The legal age to use a Juul product is 21.

Juul was founded in 2017 as an arm of cigarette manufacturer Atria Group Inc., and its subsidiary, Phillip Morris USA Inc. It faces mounting litigation with suits in Connecticut, Florida, Illinois and elsewhere in the country.

No one from Juul's media relations department responded to a request for comment Thursday.

Meanwhile, some court watchers believe e-cigarettes litigation will soon be as common as lawsuits over tobacco products.

"They [Juul officials] are marketing the hell out of this product and, instead of selling them to smokers trying to quit, it turns out most of the e-cigarettes were sold to kids," said Mark Dubois, visiting assistant clinical professor of law at the University of Connecticut School of Law. "Their marketing is geared toward kids."

Dubois, an attorney with New London-based Geraghty & Bonnano, said the e-cigarettes, particularly Juul products, do "not have warnings on them that nicotine is addictive, because the [Food and Drug Administration] gave them a chance to figure out the technology first, but allowed them to market the product without the warning and without medical studies.

"Essentially, I can imagine an argument by an attorney that what this company was doing was, instead of testing on monkeys and rats, they tested on teens," Dubois said. "I can see the arguments, and I can see a lot of litigation."

And what about the Carter Mario Law Firm's strong marketing push in an profession with strict advertising rules?

Dubois sees no immediate missteps. Connecticut's former top attorney disciplinarian and co-author of "Connecticut Legal Ethics and Malpractice" sees no ethical problems related to efforts from the firm or its founder, Carter Mario.

"Carter Mario is a good attorney," Dubois said. "He knows where the lines are, and he won't cross them. He helped write the rules for lawyer advertising."

Related stories:

Legal Fight Heats Up Over Vaping With First CT Fatality

FTC Opens Probe Into E-Cigarette Marketing, Demands Information From 6 Manufacturers

NY and Conn. Governors Team Up to Tackle Cannabis, Vaping