Editor’s note: This article is the first of a two-part series.

Preparing hundreds, if not thousands, of civil cases related to child sex abuse dating back several decades has presented challenges, but attorneys preparing that litigation under the Child Victims Act in New York say they’re ready to move a high volume of litigation beginning this week.

The law, passed this year, will open a one-year window starting Wednesday for victims of child sex abuse to pursue civil claims against their alleged abusers or the institutions that allegedly harbored them.

Two law firms, who’ve partnered together on the litigation, have already prepared more than 500 cases on their own. Those firms, the Marsh Law Firm in White Plains and Pfau Cochran Vertetis Amala in the state of Washington, don’t expect the demand to stop when the one-year window opens this week.

“I think it reflects a sea change in attitude toward child sex abuse, toward rape, toward all kind of bodily violations,” said Jennifer Freeman, senior counsel at the Marsh Law Firm.

As of last week, they had approximately 550 clients ready to file suit Wednesday. Cases don’t have to be finished when the window closes, they only have to be filed by that time.

Nearly half of their cases, alone, are targeted at Rockefeller University in Manhattan, where a former faculty member is alleged to have sexually abused hundreds of children when he worked there for about four decades until the 1980s. That faculty member, Dr. Reginald Archibald, has since died.

Rockefeller University, for its part, is already bracing itself for those claims. The institution filed a lawsuit against its insurers last week, after they refused to immediately cover settlements and legal defense related to claims brought under the Child Victims Act.

Freeman said that won’t change their legal strategy against Rockefeller University, but that it could affect the settlement amounts offered to victims over time.

The same could be true for victims pursuing litigation against the Catholic Church after the Archdiocese of New York filed a similar lawsuit against its insurers in late June. That litigation is ongoing.

Attorneys from Marsh and the Seattle-based Pfau Cochran represent about 175 victims who are expected to file lawsuits related to the clergy, said Michael Pfau, a name partner at the latter firm. Another 75 victims they represent have targeted their litigation at the Boy Scouts of America. Pfau said, as the year goes on, he expects their caseload to grow.

“Because there’s been so much press about the Boy Scouts and the Catholic Church, I think that might account for why we have a high number of those cases,” Pfau said. “My guess is that as the year progresses … I think we’ll end up representing more Boy Scout and clergy abuse victims.”

Many firms, including Marsh, have built a relatively large caseload related to the Child Victims Act targeted at institutions, like Rockefeller University, rather than individual abusers, like family members.

Weitz & Luxenberg, one of the state’s leading personal injury law firms, announced Monday that it planned to file more than 400 cases in various state courts in New York City alone this week. Those cases, according to the firm, will be brought against churches, schools, hospitals, and other organizations and institutions.

The firm said Monday that it represents a total of 1,200 survivors of child sex abuse across New York state.

Other firms have a smaller caseload, but with the same focus. The Zalkin Law Firm and Barasch McGarry Salzman & Penson said Monday they plan to file two lawsuits against the Jehovah’s Witnesses in Brooklyn this week. The world headquarters of that institution is based in Orange County, but was formerly in Brooklyn.

Jayne Conroy, a shareholder of Simmons Hanly Conroy in Manhattan, said she wouldn’t be surprised to find out that half of the cases filed during the one-year window were targeted at the clergy or other religious institutions. She said her firm is handling about a thousand potential cases, with 100 ready to file.

The firm has received calls from victims for years now, Conroy said, hoping the state’s laws on child sex abuse litigation would change. The interest in litigation wasn’t a surprise, she said, it was how open victims are compared to as recently as two decades ago.

“I think many people have felt much more support in coming forward and telling a story,” Conroy said. “I would never say it’s been made easier for victims, but at least it’s not as shrouded. People were just incredulous 20 years ago when people would tell these stories.”

That doesn’t mean preparing this kind of litigation has been without its challenges, attorneys said, for them or the victims.

Before the window opens, attorneys have limited power to investigate and prepare their case beyond what they’re told by their client. Having the power to subpoena institutions and interview witnesses after a lawsuit is filed will provide them with more support, Freeman said.

“All we can do is work with the information we have, which is mostly from the plaintiff, and mostly from the victim,” Freeman said. “You don’t get to talk to the perpetrator. You don’t get to get their files.”

In some cases, it’s also difficult for the victim to share their story, even in a private setting. Conroy said, in some of these cases, it’s the first time the victim has ever shared their experience out loud. That can make it difficult for both the victim and the attorney to prepare a case, but Conroy said that will get easier as the litigation pushes forward.

“This didn’t happen in a cave. People were aware of this,” Conroy said. “People were complaining about these things and filing complaints. It’s just that it wasn’t as recognized or accepted as it is now.”

One advantage they’ve had, based on the nature of the caseload for each firm, is corroboration. Because Marsh and PCVA are handling hundreds of cases involving Archibald, for example, many of the victims are able to support each other’s allegations, they said. The same is true in cases of clergy members and other institutional officials accused of abuse.

Conroy said, once the window opens up, they’ll have stronger tools to match their clients’ stories with what they find in decades-old documents.

“We look for employment records, where someone may have lived, complaints that were made in communities or to police departments or employers,” Conroy said. “In the clergy cases, complaints were made in the parish level, in the diocese level.”

But it’s unclear, as of now, how the litigation will evolve over the next year. In many cases related to child sex abuse, the individual or institution is usually willing to engage in good-faith settlement negotiations, Pfau said. That’s how many of these cases are resolved.

The institutions they plan to target, Pfau said, haven’t actively pursued those discussions as of yet. The running theory on their end is that each institution is waiting to see how much litigation they’ll face during the one-year window, and how much they could choose to pay out.

“I think the defendants either have some sort of global strategy or are acting like a deer in the headlights,” Pfau said. “They don’t know what to do, so they need time to figure out what their total exposure is.”

Pfau predicted that many institutions, including the upstate dioceses and the Boy Scouts, will file for bankruptcy at some point. That’s happened in other states with similar measures, according to Pfau. That won’t mean an end to the Catholic Church, or the Boy Scouts, just changes to accommodate the flood of claims, he said.

“We’re talking about corporate restructuring,” Pfau said. “We’re not talking about any of these entities being liquidated.”

Rarely do these cases go to trial, Pfau said. But for the institutions that may try to go that route, he had a warning.

“Across the country, most cases settle. But, on occasion they do go to trial,” Pfau said. “And when they do go to trial, it doesn’t end well for the perpetrator.”

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