San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Lawyers open marketing blitz to enlist victims of Camp Fire
In a conference room 13 miles from Paradise, Doug Boxer explains to survivors of the state’s worst wildfire why they should choose his law firm to sue PG&E Corp.
He walks a fine line between listening to Butte County victims coping with devastation and promoting the expertise of attorneys based thousands of miles away. Under the law, he says, the dozen or so residents who’ve gathered for this meeting on a Saturday in December have two years to file a complaint. But Boxer urges them not to wait that long, implying that if they sign on now they’ll have a front seat negotiating a payout from the utility.
“If we have the biggest book of cases, who is PG&E going to come to first?” said Boxer, the son of Barbara Boxer, a Democrat who represented California in the U.S. Senate for 24 years.
Dozens of lawyers are vying for the chance to sue the $12 billion power company, even before state investigators have determined the cause of the November blaze in Paradise that destroyed more than 13,000 homes and killed 86 people. Displaced residents living in shelters or temporary housing in nearby towns have found themselves inundated with legal advertising on signs, billboards, radio, television and mailers.
The competition is so intense that some California attorneys who’ve developed a specialty suing utilities over wildfires refer to out-of-state firms as “carpetbaggers.”
Boxer’s Washington firm, Mauro Archer & Associates, made itself stand out by enlisting as its front woman perhaps the most famous person ever to spar with Pacific Gas and Electric Co. Erin Brockovich. Her success in a court case against the utility over water contamination in the 1990s inspired a movie bearing her name that won an Oscar for Julia Roberts, and in turn, helped Brockovich propel a career as an activist, author and consultant.
Mauro Archer and its partner firm, Watts Guerra in San Antonio, now count about 700 clients from the Camp Fire. That includes Kathy and David Terstegen, a couple close to retirement who figure that insurance will cover only about 50 percent of their losses from the incineration of their mobile home, which stood on a third of an acre five miles northeast of Paradise. Many homes in Paradise were underinsured or lacked coverage entirely, which can make the suits more lucrative for lawyers, who generally take a 33.3 percent cut of any uninsured recovery. Overall, insured losses from the Camp Fire stand at about $7 billion, and Citigroup analysts estimate $15 billion in gross liabilities.
Even before Kathy Terstegen attended Boxer’s Dec. 15 presentation, she decided to sign on with his firm based on its connection with Brockovich, which she discovered browsing online. She sent Brockovich a message and was surprised to get a call back. In an hour-long conversation, Terstegen said she found the activist to be a “very gracious lady, kind and compassionate.”
“I know there are a lot of different firms doing this,” Terstegen said. “But I really wanted to be with the firm that Erin Brockovich was connected to.”
To veteran wildfire attorney Mike Danko, whose law firm in Redwood City has partnered with two other in-state firms to represent 925 Camp Fire victims, Brockovich is “client bait.”
“They have the money to hire Erin and somehow clients say, ‘This is the place to go.’ But anyone could’ve done that,” Danko said. “Because Erin Brockovich is not working on your case, it’s the wrong thing to be looking at.”
Suing PG&E is expensive, and there’s no doubt that firms from out of state bring deep pockets to the fight, Danko said. But based on his past experience, he’s dubious that those firms are as committed as he and his local peers are to the “grunt work” of preparing for a trial against a company fighting for its very survival.
“These people from out of state, they end up not showing up, they get shoved aside,