Three legal teams that won justice for hundreds of people who had been molested by Catholic clergy in California, abused female prisoners in Michigan, and residents exposed to hazardous pollution in West Virginia have been named finalists for Public Justice Foundation’s 2008 Trial Lawyer of the Year Award.

The teams, comprising 28 attorneys, will be honored at the Annual Gala and Awards Dinner on July 15 in Philadelphia, where the winner will be announced.  Their cases were chosen from a field of 20 nominated extraordinary cases involving a range of issues, from fraudulent pricing practices by a major pharmaceutical and gender bias on Wall Street, to access for the disabled and the rights of Hurricane Katrina victims.

The finalists, listed in alphabetical order of the lead counsel’s last name, are:  

• Raymond P. Boucher and Anthony M. DeMarco of Beverly Hills, Calif.; Katherine Freberg of Irvine, Calif.; Stephen Rubino of Margate, N.J.; Terry Giles of Houston, Tex.; Irwin Zalkin of San Diego, Calif; Timothy Hale of Santa Barbara, Calif.; Laurence Drivon of Stockton, Calif.; and Jeff Anderson of St. Paul, Minn., for winning $1.2 billion in settlements with the Catholic Church for more than 700 sexual abuse survivors. The settlement in Los Angeles Archdiocese and San Diego Diocese Catholic Abuse Litigation, lso required the release of long-secret documents that gave evidence to the Church’s cover-up of the abuse.

• Michigan attorneys Deborah LaBelle, Richard Soble, Patricia A. Streeter, and Shannon Dunn of Ann Arbor; Molly Reno of Whitmore Lake; Michael Pitt, Peggy Goldberg Pitt and Cary McGehee of Royal Oak; and Ronald Reosti and Ralph Sirlin of Pleasant Ridge, for pursuing justice for female inmates who had been subjected to sexual abuse and retaliation by state prison guards. Neal v. Michigan Department of Corrections, was the first case to hold that Michigan’s Civil Rights Act applies to prisoners.

• Mike Papantonio, Virginia M. Buchanan, Ned McWilliams and Brian H. Barr of Pensacola, Fla.; J. Farrest Taylor, Angela Mason, Joseph D. Lane and J. Keith Givens of Dothan, Ala.; and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. of New York, who won a $380 million class action lawsuit against chemical company that spewed hazardous substances into the air and soil around Spelter, W. Va., for decades. Representing 8,000 residents, the team in Perrine v. DuPont de Nemours and Company ultimately forced DuPont to clean up a zinc smelting plant disaster in Spelter.   

Click here to read more about the finalists’ cases.

Click here to order tickets to the Annual Gala and Awards Dinner on July 15^th in Philadelphia.