Superlawyer Dan Webb, recently profiled in the New York Times, is profiled again by Susan Beck in the American Lawyer in a piece called "Being Dan Webb."
Having met Dan, I can say he doesn't look as much like Steve Buscemi as the photo that accompanies the article suggests. The part of the profile that caught my eye was this snippet about Madison County and one of the fen-phen cases I posted about yesterday:
If you were Dan Webb, you would have spent much of January in Madison County, Illinois. You would have set up shop in the infamous plaintiffs haven in the southern part of the state to defend Wyeth in another fen-phen case. You would be going before the very same judge, Circuit Court Judge Nicholas Byron, who 10 months earlier imposed a $10 billion award in a bench trial against your client Philip Morris . . .On the day that jury selection is scheduled to begin, Webb studies papers in a binder. Judge Byron picks up a file and smashes a bug on his desk. After some preliminary matters, Webb approaches the bench. "Something extraordinary has happened," Webb tells the judge. "[The plaintiffs] have pled a brand-new cause of action that is not in the original complaint." Webb asks to postpone the trial, and the judge obliges. Instead of rushing off, Webb plants his arms on Judge Byron's bench, and for a half hour the two trade war stories like old chums, even though they'd never met before.
As one of the lawyers for the plaintiff in that Madison County case, I'm in a position to nitpick Susan Beck's account. For example, there was only one plaintiff in the case, and she didn't plead "a brand-new cause of action." On the other hand, it is true that Webb traded war stories with Judge Byron for quite awhile. As I think I've written before, for a defense lawyer, Webb's not a bad guy. And if you read the linked profile, you'll see he's got a lot of war stories, too.
[Below the fold: Links to other posts about Dan Webb.]
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