ROBERT SIEGEL, Host:
And the fight is not only with the carmaker. There's also a battle behind the scenes among lawyers who were vying for a prominent role in these lawsuits. Dionne Searcey is a national legal correspondent for The Wall Street Journal and she's written about that battle. Welcome to the program.
DIONNE SEARCEY: Thank you.
SIEGEL: And first, how many lawsuits, or how many class action lawsuits around the country are there against Toyota nowadays?
SEARCEY: Well, I think there are roughly about 80 seeking class action status, and most of those have to do with some accusing the company of making the value of owners' cars go down because of the recalls.
SIEGEL: And these suits are going to be organized by the courts in some coherent way?
SEARCEY: Right. A lot of the suits, even the wrongful death and serious injury suits could get kind of lumped into just a few number of cases. And there'll be a hearing, the first in a process, next week in San Diego.
SIEGEL: So the question is who gets to be on the legal team representing all of those suits when they're combined into some kind of big class action?
SEARCEY: Well, that's the question on a lot of lawyers' minds right now across America. There are dozens and dozens of lawyers who will be going to this hearing next week and trying to say their piece about why they should be the one who gets to argue this case. And it could be a handful of cases, so we could be left with, you know, maybe a dozen lawyers or so. But that's winnowed down from a pretty large group of them out there who filed suits.
SIEGEL: And this isn't just for bragging rights at the law firm. The lawyers who are lead attorneys get a piece of the action here.
SEARCEY: That's right. I mean, I think bragging rights are a pretty considerable part of it, but also they get a lot of money. It's a big payday for whoever ends up arguing these cases. Basically, the lawyers that are sent to the sidelines will chip in to a pot and that'll go to the big lawyers who are arguing the case.
SIEGEL: And who gets to decide who will be the big lawyers arguing the case?
SEARCEY: Well, it's kind of a long process. But what happens next week is a panel of judges will hear arguments about which venue the cases should be heard in. And then those cases will be doled out to various venues and the judges in those venues will be the ones. And so I think if you have a good relationship with the judge in a venue that gets picked to hear a Toyota case, you could be looking good.
SIEGEL: And as you've reported, there are lawyers - some with experience in big class action cases, some with experience suing Toyota - who are, in effect, running for these jobs.
SEARCEY: You know, a lot of this gets sorted out between the lawyers themselves. There are a lot of dinners and seminars and meetings being planned right now, where attorneys are really hoping to win that position.
SIEGEL: Well, which is the stronger case here, that you led a big class action against, you know, a pharmaceutical company or tobacco company, or that you really know cars in lawsuits against a carmaker?
SEARCEY: I'm not quite sure. I think it depends on the case. Maybe for the cases that say that your car lost value, it's not that important to know that much about Toyota or auto torts. But if in some of these cases with wrongful death or serious injuries that are blaming the electronics, it might really be important for the lawyer who's heading up a group of litigation about those kinds of issues to be familiar with, an engineering background or to know a lot about, you know, the mechanics of a car, how auto defects cases have been settled in the past.
SIEGEL: Dionne Searcey, thanks a lot for talking with us.
SEARCEY: Thank you very much.
SIEGEL: That's reporter Dionne Searcey of the Wall Street Journal, talking with us about lawsuits against Toyota.
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