Berger & Montague enjoys a nationwide reputation for its pioneering work in mass tort and complex environmental litigation. Lawyers from Berger & Montague were among the principal counsel in the trial of the Exxon Valdez oil spill, which culminated in a record-setting punitive damage award against Exxon. The firm also served as lead counsel in the historic "school asbestos" class action litigation, in which secondary and elementary schools from around the country recovered over $300 million to defray the costs of asbestos abatement, in the first national mass tort property damage action ever certified. More recently, Connecticut selected Berger & Montague to represent the state's interest in the well-known tobacco litigation, which settled for over $200 billion dollars nationwide.

Mass tort and environmental cases can pose some of the most demanding challenges in modern litigation. Effective representation in this area depends on counsel who:

• work to stay abreast of rapidly evolving legal standards, as well as the state of current scientific and technical knowledge;
• have the experience and background necessary to handle sophisticated legal and procedural issues in a wide variety of forums;
• possess the resources and commitment to litigate difficult cases to successful conclusions; and
• are sensitive to the unique concerns that mass tort and environmental litigation can present, both for individual claimants and for institutional and governmental clients.

The firm's present caseload reflects the diversity of the firm's practice in the mass tort and environmental fields, including cases ranging from oil spill litigation in California to radiation cases in Colorado, Oregon, and Washington State, from coal slurry litigation in Kentucky to lead paint lawsuits in Philadelphia and Chicago. The firm's practice embraces the prosecution of significant claims ranging from personal injury to commercial losses to property damage to environmental response costs, in class actions as well as other complex litigation, on behalf of individuals as well as businesses and governmental claimants, in both state and federal courts.