A diverse set of about 50 lawyers have thrown their names out to lead the multidistrict litigation over Juul e-cigarettes—and some are even taking the cases personally.

Ellen Relkin, of New York's Weitz & Luxenberg, one of 22 lawyers on a proposed leadership team that could spearhead more than 55 lawsuits filed against Juul, wrote in her application that her youngest daughter, a high school teacher in Ithaca, New York, told her about the "rampant and disturbing vaping trend."

"I remember her telling me when she was a student teacher three years ago in middle school there was a kid literally charging his Juul in the classroom," said Relkin in an interview. "They've suspended a number of kids for getting caught vaping in the bathroom."

Khaldoun Baghdadi, of San Francisco's Walkup, Melodia, Kelly & Schoenberger, said he was raising two teenagers, "and my family encounters the issues in this case on a daily basis." Mikal Watts, of Watts Guerra in San Antonio, wrote, "I learned in August that my only son became a teenage Juul user because of social media directed to him with the pervasive message that it is safer than smoking."

U.S. District Judge William Orrick of the Northern District of California, who is overseeing the Juul multidistrict litigation in San Francisco, plans to hear arguments about the leadership applications on Nov. 8.

The applications come as Juul on Thursday agreed to stop selling its fruit-flavored e-cigarettes, which some believe targeted children. Juul also reached a legal settlement with California's Center for Environmental Health that puts limits on its marketing to kids.

It also comes as new lawsuits hit Juul, including by school districts that allege its products have caused increased costs in suspensions and addiction treatments, and the first claim of wrongful death. The lawsuits focus on Juul's marketing, particularly to children, and injuries caused by its products, which includes addiction, pulmonary disease and seizures.

On Thursday, the U.S. Centers for Disease and Prevention also updated the death toll associated with e-cigarettes to 33, with 1,479 cases of lung injuries.

On Oct. 2, the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation sent all the lawsuits to Orrick's courtroom.

About half the lawyers who filed applications are part of a proposed team that is among the most diverse in multidistrict litigation. It includes 10 women and at least three attorneys who are minorities. The group also could add two additional women.

'The legal community has emphasized increasing the number of qualified, diverse candidates in MDL leadership roles," said Sabita Soneji, a partner in Tycko & Zavareei's office in Oakland, California, and one of the additional women proposed to join the group. "The leadership group should be structured to provide these opportunities and experiences to a broader cross section of the legal community, including those like me who have provided extensive support to others but never been selected herself to serve in MDL leadership."

Christopher Gold, a partner in the Boca Raton, Florida, office of Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd, emphasized the need for diversity in his application.

Gold, a first-generation Brazilian-American attorney, noted that he had attended an inaugural certification program this year at Duke Law School's Bolch Judicial Institute designed to encourage women and minority attorneys to get leadership roles in multidistrict litigation, a field traditionally dominated by the same white, male attorneys.

In an interview, he also said many of the lawyers on the proposed slate, like him, are younger attorneys at firms that have worked well together before. For instance, Sarah London, a partner at San Francisco's Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein, would serve as liaison counsel.

"A huge problem that has been recognized is when talking about MDL leadership you frequently see repeat players, often name partners, appointed to these leadership positions," he said. "While that's great, that leaves younger partners like myself and Sarah London and others without the opportunity to build our resume and get appointed in our cases. Even when name partners get appointed, younger partners like myself and Sarah London do a lot of the work. To have us there, and have an opportunity to be appointed to these panels, it's good for the MDL bar in general and, at the end of the day, the clients still have the support and resources from our firms."

Under the proposed slate, two attorneys, Adam Gutride, of San Francisco's Gutride Safier, and Michael London, of New York's Douglas & London, would serve as co-lead counsel. Gutride is leading a class action filed against Juul last year, and London has brought smoker cases against Big Tobacco.

The slate also would include an executive committee and a plaintiffs' steering committee.

"The overall size of the proposed steering committee is in line with those in cases of similar importance and complexity," Gutride wrote, such as the multidistrict litigation over the Volkswagen emissions scandal and opioids.

In her application, Lieff Cabraser's London, like many others, referenced ties to lawsuits filed against the tobacco companies. Altria Group Inc., the parent company of Philip Morris, owns 35% of Juul and is an additional defendant in some of the lawsuits.

"This case is an emergency. We are in the midst of a public health nicotine addiction and vaping crisis among kids, and cases should proceed to trial without delay," wrote London, who said she has litigated more than 3,000 tobacco cases in Florida for the past five years and helped reach a $100 million settlement with Big Tobacco in 2015.

Some lawyers submitted individual applications for a seat at the table, which could get bigger.

One of them was Scott Schlesinger, of Schlesinger Law Offices, who noted "substantial similarities" between the Juul cases and smoker lawsuits in Florida, the "epicenter of litigation against the cigarette industry," where his firm is based in Fort Lauderdale. On Oct. 11, Juul brought a motion to enforce Orrick's stay of discovery in the multidistrict litigation against Schlesinger, who has subpoenaed its CEO, K.C. Crosthwaite, and co-founder, James Monsees, in a smoker's case against Philip Morris. A judge in that case has allowed an Oct. 23 deposition of Monsees.

Juul attorney Austin Schwing, of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher in San Francisco, in his motion to enforce, called the move a "fishing expedition" and an "improper end-run around federal court orders."

Schlesinger, in a response this week, wrote that the stay does not pertain to his smoker's case, which is in Florida's Broward County Circuit Court. Evidence involving e-cigarettes is relevant, he said, because the tobacco industry has insisted it has changed.

"Now that we know the opposite is true, it is the plaintiffs in Florida's cigarette class action litigation who seek to introduce evidence in order to establish that, in fact, punitive damages continue to be warranted because these companies behave reprehensibly, intentionally selling harmful products from which they can earn millions," he wrote.