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Lawdragon Q & A with:Stephen HermanAsked whether he considers the $7.8 billionsettlement he helped obtain as co-lead counsel in the2010 BP Gulf of Mexico class action a defining momentin his legal career, Stephen J. Herman hesitates. “It’scertainly the largest case where I’ve played a primaryrole,” says the 43-year-old partner at Herman, Herman,Katz & Cotlar in New Orleans. “[But] the Scott v.American Tobacco case is certainly the greatest accomplishmentthat I have been associated with. I was one ofmany, but I played a significant role.”The Scott case is considered a seminal case fortobacco class-action litigation. The case was first filedby Herman’s father, the legendary Russ M. Herman, in1996 when Steve Herman was in law school, workingas a paralegal at the historic firm founded by hisgrandfather. The case concluded in 2011 with a U.S.Supreme Court ruling affirming the $240 million awardagainst major tobacco companies to cover the cost ofhelping qualified smokers in Louisiana quit smoking.“It took us a total of about three years to try, 18months to pick a jury; it’s one of the few class actioncases against tobacco to go to trial, and it’s the onlyclass action verdict that has withstood appeal all theway to the U.S. Supreme Court,” Herman says. Thecase not only defined his career path, but it alsobecame a chapter in a book he wrote while in lawschool published in 1998, “America and the Law:Challenges for the 21st Century.”“The BP oil spill case really presents a very broadchallenge because you’re dealing with a very broadnumber of people across a fairly significant geography,and it’s an intersection of a lot of different laws. Soit’s challenging for all those reasons,” Herman concedes.Still, he believes, it was the tobacco litigationand past high-profile cases such as the Chinese drywalllitigation, the Schultz v. Texaco case, and theMarchesani v. Pellerin-Milnor Fifth Circuit decisionthat really solidified his career as a plaintiffs lawyer.“I was lucky enough to be involved in a number of highprofileand complex cases and all of that experience preparedme to deal with the things that I had to deal within the BP oil case,” he says. “All that experience puttogether was all the preparation I needed for this case.”LAWDRAGon: How has the BP oil spill case affectedyour practice and your personal life, or has it?STEPHEn HERMAn: It has been all-consuming. As mywife and kids will attest, I have never really had a “dayoff” since early May 2010. Even when not physicallybY Xenia Kobylarzdoing work, I am always pre-occupied with issues, formingto-do lists in my head, drafting would-be filings, orresponding to e-mail, (which I check constantly).LD: Anything interesting in the case that you can sharethat hasn’t been written about?SH: I’m not sure if it is really a “secret,” but theframing of BP’s failure to maintain source control asa separate quantification of fault was, in my opinion,critical to shifting the focus from errors on the rig inthe heat of the moment to systemic failures by management.LD: What was the first thing you did that you couldn’tdo while you were immersed in this case?SH: I cleaned up my yard, in anticipation of a partythat my wife and I threw the next weekend for all ofthe attorneys and staff who had been working so hardpreparing for trial.LD: Like many other massive plaintiffs cases, therewas an intense battle to win lead-counsel. How do youthink you earned your spot on this one?SH: I’m not sure, exactly. I think the Court likely recognizedthat Jim Roy and I would work well together, andthere was a fairly broad consensus among the lawyersinvolved for Jim and I to serve as co-liaison counselfairly early on. After the Multidistrict Litigation (MDL)Panel transferred the case to New Orleans, we werefortunate enough to have an all-star Plaintiffs SteeringCommittee appointed, as well as the cooperation ofalmost 100 additional firms contributing to the commonbenefit effort.LD: What do you consider the most challenging aspectof being a plaintiffs attorney?SH: Trying to keep your head up, take the long view,and not get sucked into a battle over something that’snot worth fighting about.LD: How did you end up in this area of law?SH: When I finished clerking for [former LouisianaSupreme Court] Justice [Harry T.] Lemmon, the firmwas involved in a number of class actions. I worked onthose, with some success, and then began teachingcomplex litigation at both Tulane and Loyola. Becauseof our experience in Propulsid, Vioxx and ChineseDrywall, our firm had demonstrated an ability to managethese larger multi-district cases.LD: Do you have a hobby or something you do for funoutside of work?SH: I used to write a lot, but now I am mostly reducedto e-mails and briefs. See the full Q&A at www.lawdragon.com/lawyer-limelights/stephen-j-herman.500Photo by: Robby KleinL A W D R A G O N 177 I s s u e 13