Early in my practice I litigated a number of cases involving pipelines and pipeline failures. This included a case against Yellowstone Pipeline and Conoco on behalf of a number of farm families that suffered severe surface and groundwater pollution and wildlife and livestock damage from the rupture of a gasoline pipeline causing thousands of gallons of leaded gasoline to flow into the Butler and LaValley Creek watersheds, their agricultural fields and aquifer. Relying on experts in pipeline engineering, veterinary toxicology and pathology, groundwater and soil sciences, and economics, we were successful in obtaining a substantial settlement.

I also successfully represented the Montana Environmental Information Center and the state AFL-CIO and state Laborer's Union in environmental and safety litigation entailing two separate two week trials to the court and Public Service Commission against the Montana Power Company regarding construction of a 200 mile large diameter natural gas pipeline. That litigation resulted in an environmental injunction halting the construction until environmental safeguards were put in place and an administrative injunction requiring large portions of the pipeline to be dug up and re-built for reasons of safety.

In 1981, I represented Trout Unlimited in a case involving a Montana Power Milltown Dam hydroelectric facility. The power company proposed to do a major drawdown of the dam which we were able to halt on the basis of threatened impact to downstream water quality and fisheries. We were able to demonstrate that many years of mining and smelting activity upstream from this dam had resulted in very substantial heavy metal contamination of the sediments behind the dam. Eventually, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency did further investigation of this site and declared that the holding pond behind this dam was part of the largest Superfund site in the country due to the heavy metal contamination which was first brought to light in our case.

In 1990, I was retained as co-counsel for trial of a large class action case against the Boeing Company on behalf of workers, including Montana workers, exposed to electromagnetic pulse radiation. This was the first lawsuit of its kind addressing the health risks associated with exposure to electromagnetic fields. This lawsuit required developing expertise in the physics and medicine of electromagnetic fields. The settlement on the eve of trial included, among other things, funds from the Boeing Company to create a trust for medical monitoring more than 500 exposed workers in the class.

From 1991 to 1993, I was a member of a four member team of lawyers that litigated and tried to verdict, after seven weeks of trial, a pollution damage class action case on behalf of a class of 500 low income homeowners in Denver against a cadmium refinery. The result was a jury verdict for approximately $28 million that led to a settlement resulting in monetary awards to all families for the loss in value of the their property and the total clean up of the homes and soils of the entire surrounding area.

In 1989, I was retained by a number of national environmental organizations in the EXXON VALDEZ OIL SPILL litigation seeking a trust for natural resource damages caused by the oil spill. In 1991, I was designated by the Co-Lead Counsel and Executive Committee of the consolidated litigation to take responsibility on behalf of all private plaintiffs, including more than 15,000 fisherman in the individual and class actions claims in the case, for marshaling the evidence and experts necessary to prove natural resources and fisheries damages and to defend against the scientific evidence presented by defendants Exxon and Alyeska. In 1994, I was selected to participate as a member of the 15 member team of lawyers that tried the consolidated class action and individual fisherman cases to verdict in the federal district court in Anchorage. That trial began in May 1994 and in September 1994, the federal court jury awarded more than five billion dollars to the plaintiffs.

On February 11, 1995, I successfully completed a three week trial of a complex medical negligence birth injury case which resulted in a jury verdict over $3,000,000, the largest single personal injury verdict in Montana history.

From 1996 until January 2000 I was lead counsel in representing a class of more than 100 individuals who were exposed to toxic fumes, particularly chlorine, when a number of railroad tank cars derailed and split open, causing one of the largest spills of chlorine gas in the history of the United States. In January 2000 we were successful in settling all those claims, on the eve of the first federal court trial, resulting in compensation for the physical and emotional injuries and property loss caused by the derailment, chemical exposure and emergency evacuation from their homes.

For more than twenty years a substantial portion of my practice has been litigation of cases involving defective products. During this time I have litigated approximately 75 claims to verdict or settlement against the manufacturers of defective appliances and equipment, pharmaceuticals, aircraft and, particularly, automobiles. In automobile litigation I have and continue to litigate a significant number of rollover cases, defective brake cases, crashworthiness cases, defective occupant protection cases, and fuel fire cases against General Motors, Jeep/Chrysler, Toyota, and Ford. In pharmaceutical litigation, my firm has been counsel for more than 400 individuals injured by consumption of diet drugs.

I have represented in the past and continue to represent today many railroad workers for injuries from exposures to workplace toxic materials, including asbestos, lead, cadmium, chromium, manganese, creosote and a wide variety of solvents. I also work with numerous industrial unions to investigate and represent industrial and construction workers for injuries they may have sustained from workplace exposures to toxic materials or radiation.

For many years a large percentage of my practice included litigation of medical negligence claims. I believe I have tried to verdict more medical negligence cases than any other Montana attorney. Because of the requirement that every medical negligence claim in Montana must before filing go through a medical review board hearing, I have litigated more than 100 such review board hearings in the course of my practice.

In addition to the environmental cases described above, I have also been actively involved with numerous state and national citizen groups in litigation over the course of my law career. In that regard I have been counsel in these additional significant cases: obtaining declaratory judgment that Department of State Lands and ASARCO violated Montana Environmental Policy Act in their EIS for a large silver and copper mine, mill and tailings pond; settling Clean Water Act case against ASARCO for violations of CWA at that same mine and tailings pond; halting construction by BPA and Montana Power Company of twin 500 Kv power lines through wilderness areas and obtaining major concessions and trust for the environment in settlement; and obtaining a permanent injunction against logging critical redwood habitat of an endangered species by Pacific Lumber.