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Frederick Martin Baron (born 1947 in Cedar Rapids, Iowa) is a trial lawyer best known for representing victims of toxic and chemical exposure. He has also been an active figure in politics as a fund-raiser for the Democratic Party.

Career

Baron is one of America’s most prominent trial lawyers. He is a founder of Baron & Budd, P.C., a Dallas, Texas law firm and a former president of the Association of Trial Lawyers of America. His firm has become one of the largest firms in the country representing victims of toxic and chemical exposure particularly claims of asbestos exposure.

One academic estimated that Baron & Budd, along with Ness Motley, was one of two firms responsible for half of the hundreds of thousands of asbestos litigation claimants in the country. In the controversial asbestos litigation, Baron successfully convinced the United States Supreme Court to de-certify nationwide class action settlements involving future claims of people who are not yet ill, but who may later develop asbestos-related illnesses. The decertification addressed the problem that asbestos-related illnesses like mesothelioma (a fatal cancer of the lining of the lung), have a latency period of 20-40 years from the date of exposure.

Politics

Baron has been an active figure in politics as a prominent fund-raiser for the Democratic Party and fellow trial lawyer, Sen. John Edwards. Baron was the finance chair of Edwards' 2004 presidential campaign before co-chairing the Kerry Victory '04 committee, a joint effort of the Democratic National Committee and the Presidential campaign of John Kerry. Baron gave $1.7 million to the Texas Democratic Trust in the last two years and is also heavily involved in Edwards's 2008 presidential campaign, moving to North Carolina to head up fundraising there.

Resignation from Baron & Budd and litigation

In 2002, Baron left Baron & Budd along with his wife, Lisa Blue. The separation from the firm he founded has not been without controversy. Baron sued his former firm for breach of contract; Baron & Budd counterclaimed alleging that Baron and Blue breached contractual, fiduciary and legal obligations to the firm by failing to receive prior consent from Baron & Budd for plans to form a new firm.

The Script Memo Controversy

In 1997, a first-year associate at Baron & Budd accidentally produced to defense counsel a twenty-page memo titled "Preparing for Your Deposition." Senator Jon Kyl called the memo a "a startling insight into how asbestos claims are created"; in a Senate Report, Kyl writes that the memo:

gives clients detailed instructions how to credibly testify that they worked with particular asbestos products. The memo also instructs clients to assert particular things that will increase the value of their claim, without regard to whether those things are true. The memo even informs clients that a defense attorney will have no way of knowing whether they are lying about their exposure to particular asbestos products.

Clients were also instructed by the memo to deny that they ever saw warning labels on product packages. The Script Memo was so detailed and comprehensive that Eugene Cook, a former Texas Supreme Court Justice, said at the time that "With this document, you could almost go down the street, get a homeless person, spend a couple of hours with him, and he would be prepared to testify."

Academics disagree as to the ethical implications of the memo. Professor Lester Brickman has called the memo "subornation of perjury." Others argue that it is merely "zealous representation."

Baron & Budd has admitted that the memo was produced by its employees, but denies that the memo instructs clients to lie, and has argued that statements from the memo have been taken out of context by the press. The firm retained a University of Texas Law School professor, Charles Silver, who wrote an opinion that the use of the memo was ethical, based on the sworn affidavit of paralegal Lynnell Terrell that she was solely responsible for the authorship of the comprehensive memo and that the memo was rarely used.

However, the Dallas Observer conducted an investigation of the memo, and found that "a number of former Baron & Budd employees say that the information and techniques contained in the memo are widely used, even taught to employees" and that the "memo was not truly an aberration, but a written example of how the product-identification staff works at Baron & Budd."

State District Judge John Marshall referred the memo to the assistant district attorney for criminal prosecution; the Dallas Observer reports that because of "politics", the local DA dropped it, requiring the prosecution to be transferred to the Clinton Administration in 1998. Baron & Budd and ATLA made political contributions to the Congressional campaign of the U.S. Attorney's wife, Regina Montoya Coggins, and Paul Coggins recused himself from the case as a result; the Dallas Observer quotes critics who say that the Democratic administration soft-pedaled the case, which was never investigated. Judge Marshall had been re-elected twice without opposition in 1992 and 1996, but in 2000, Baron & Budd successfully targeted Judge Marshall for defeat; the Dallas Observer reports a lawyer close to the case saying that "No judge in Dallas will cross Baron & Budd after what happened in that election. They are scared to death." Local Texas judges blocked civil discovery into the production and use of the memo. Attorneys for private clients who attempted to investigate the memo found that both they and their clients were targeted heavily by Baron & Budd. The defendants agreed to replace the attorneys who had investigated Baron & Budd with new attorneys who would not pursue the matter further. And the Dallas Observer reported that the firm responded to its reporting with "a pattern of intimidation and paranoia such as the Observer has never seen before."

No member of Baron & Budd "has been convicted of wrongdoing, disciplined, or sanctioned" for the use of the Script Memo. But no one ever deposed the paralegal who wrote the memo, her immediate supervisors, or the clients who supposedly were prepared with the memo to testify. Baron does not take the position that these court decisions in his favor "absolutely vindicate that the memo was proper," but he does insist that "the document cannot be evaluated properly without ‘context,’ and points to Terrell’s sworn statement that she always orally instructed clients to tell the truth and that she never gave the memo to clients without also handing them a copy of a second article that admonishe them to testify truthfully."

Honors and Accomplishments

• Fred Baron has been honored as a lawyer who helped shape Texas law during the 20th century in Legal Legends: A Century of Texas Law and Lawyering (Texas Lawyer commemorative publication, June 2000).
• Named as one of the nation's top plaintiff's lawyers by Forbes magazine (2001).
• Named one of Dallas' top lawyers by D Magazine (May 2001 and May 2005).
• In 2001, The University of Texas School of Law endowed a chair in his name.
• Past president of the Association of Trial Lawyers of America (ATLA);
• A member of the Board of Governors of ATLA, as Chairman of the Public Affairs Committee on the Board of Governors, and Chairman of its Section on Toxic, Environmental and Pharmaceutical Torts;
• Past president of Trial Lawyers for Public Justice;
• A member of the Board of Directors of The American Constitution Society;
• A member of the American Law Institute, serving on the Products Liability sub-committee;
• Vice-Chairman of the Toxic and Hazardous Substances and Environmental Law Subcommittee for the American Bar Association;
• Member of the American Board of Trial Advocates;
• Life Fellow of the Texas Bar Foundation and Dallas Bar Foundation;
• Former member of the Board of Advisors to the Toxic Law Reporter (B.N.A.);
• Former Trustee for the Civil Justice Foundation;
• Member of the Advisory Board of Texas Citizen Action;
• Director of the Texas Law Review Association;
• Director of the Irving Selikoff Foundation (Charitable Trust);
• Trustee of the Manville Victims Special Trust (Charitable Trust);
• Trustee of the Democratic National Committee;
• On the Texas Advisory Board of the Environmental Defense Fund;
• Ranked as one of nation's top plaintiff's lawyers in Forbe's Magazine in 2001.

External links

• Baron & Budd
• Sen. Jon Kyle (AZ) commenting on Baron & Budd during asbestos hearing
• Business Week editorial on asbestos lawsuit fraud
• Dallas Observer, "Toxic Justice"
• Columbia Journalism Review "Baring Baron."
• San Antonio Express News column - "City climbs into legal/lucre bed with Democratic trial lawyers"

References

1. Association of Trial Lawyers of America
2. Samuel Issacharoff, ‘‘Shocked’’: Mass Torts and Aggregate Asbestos Litigation After Amchem and Ortiz, 80 Tex. L. Rev. 1925, 1930 (2002).
3. Amchem Products, Inc. et al., v. George Windsor et al
4. Asbestos News
5. Cornell
6. Democratic effort helped by lawyer's $1.7 million, Austin American-Statesman, 12 Nov. 2006
7. Brenda Sapino Jeffreys, Baron & Budd Alleges Ex-Shareholders Breached Duties by Planning Vioxx Venture With Lanier, Texas Lawyer, 11 Dec 2006
8. ^ Lester Brickman, "On the Theory Class’s Theories of Asbestos Litigation: The Disconnect Between Scholarship and Reality", 31 Pepperdine L. Rev. 33 (2004).
9. ^ Additional View of Senator Kyl, Senate Report No. 108-118 at pp. 81-184 (21 Jul. 2003) (reprinting memo in full).
10. Lester Brickman, Asbestos Litigation: Malignancy in the Courts, Civil Justice Forum of the Manhattan Institute no. 40 (Aug. 2002)
11. W. William Hodes, The Professional Duty To Horseshed Witnesses—Zealously, Within The Bounds Of the Law, 30 TEX. TECH L. REV. 1343 (1999); Charles Silver, Preliminary Thoughts on the Economics of Witness Preparation, 30 TEX. TECH L. REV. 1383, 1398-1401 (1999)
12. ^ Julie Lyons, Patrick Williams, Thomas Korosec, and Christine Biederman, "Toxic Justice", 13 Aug. 1998
13. ^ Thomas Korosec, "Homefryin' with Fred Baron", Dallas Observer, 29 March 2001
14. Julie Lyons, The Control Freak, Dallas Observer, 13 Aug. 1998.
15. Mary Ann Thomas and Ramesh Santanam 2002. "Lawsuit against ARCO, BWXT rolls on". Valley News Dispatch.
16. Baron & Budd: Toxic Tort Lawyers
17. "Chair established to honor Frederick M. Baron, '71" (2001)

• 1947 births
• Texas lawyers
• Living people
• University of Texas at Austin alumni