Insurance Dispute Lawyer Blog
Licensed attorneys in New Orleans were asked which attorney they would recommend to residents in the New Orleans area. Attorney Jeffrey Berniard, of the New Orleans-based Berniard Law Firm, LLC, was named one of the best mass litigation and class action attorneys in New Orleans in the November 2012 issue of the magazine. Propelled into success by holding insurance companies accountable in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, Berniard has built the Berniard Law Firm into one of the premiere personal injury law practices in not only New Orleans, but the entire state of Louisiana. Since Hurricane Katrina, Berniard Law Firm has focused on insurance disputes and class action litigation.
Jeffrey Berniard has been involved in several high-profile cases, solidifying his expertise in complex high risk litigation. He worked on the highly publicized Deep Water Horizon oil rig case in the Gulf Coast, representing a very large group of individuals affected by the sinking oil rig. In 2008, Berniard Law Firm secured a $35 million dollar settlement for a class of 70,000 members seeking bad faith penalties for tardy payments by a Louisiana insurance company in the wake of Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita. In 2009, the Berniard Law Firm participated in five class actions against insurance companies and corporations. In the process of these major claims, the firm also helped many residents of the Gulf Coast with their personal injury concerns, insurance claims and business disputes.
– What is Mass Tort Litigation? –
Mass tort litigation involves a class of civil actions involving multiple plaintiffs who are injured by a defective product, a hazardous substance or some type of disaster. Mass tort actions can be against one or many defendants in either state or federal court. This type of litigation allows several attorneys or even a group of attorneys to represent several injured parties within an individual case. This becomes a much more effective form of litigation that allows for the pooling of resources and ideas.
Mass tort typically involves a smaller group of individuals typically limited to a certain geographic area. This differs from the class action, which is one lawsuit that is filed by an individual or a small group acting on the behalf of a large group. Class actions tend to be much larger suits and are represented by one class representative who represents the entire class. In mass tort, each individual is treated as such–as individuals. In a class actions, the entire class is treated as one individual. Attorney Jeffrey Berniard and the Berniard Law Firm have extensive experience with both class action and mass tort litigation.
Contact the Berniard Law Firm today at (888) 550 5000 if you feel that your rights have been violated.