Mass Tort Lead Generation

Lead generation and mass tort cases are the lifeblood of law firms that pursue defective drug and medical device claims for their practice. More attorneys and law firms pursue mass tort cases which leads to increased marketing competition, making it more difficult to find qualified claimants and driving up the cost per acquisition. Often, these proceedings result in large verdicts or settlements. For example:

In October 2020, Johnson & Johnson paid

$100M

to settle their talcum powder litigation.

In June 2020, Bayer agreed to pay

$10.9B

to settle 125,000 potential claims relating to its weedkiller Roundup.

In October 2019, a jury awarded

$33M

for defectively designed inferior vena cava (IVC) filters.

In March 2019, Johnson & Johnson and Bayer settled thousands of lawsuits over Xarelto, an anti-clotting drug, for

$775M

Ongoing Litigation

Several mass tort cases have been filed regarding various products throughout the United States.

Ongoing litigation includes:

Suits over 3M’s defective CAEv2 Military Earplugs
Complaints related to vision loss from Johnson & Johnson’s
Elmiron
Hernia Mesh lawsuits
Lawsuits related to Bayer’s Roundup, which already includes a potential $10.9 billion settlement
Complaints regarding the link between ovarian cancer and talcum powder.
Litigation over Zantac and cancer

The Distinct Advantages of Mass Tort Cases

Mass torts have reinvented the way that many attorneys think about tort claims. In a typical tort case, an individual is injured and seeks damages to recover for that injury. However, with the rise of large-scale products, more injuries have risen from the same underlying cause. These injuries may affect thousands, if not millions, of individuals. If courts tried each tort independently, the courts and the defendant would be locked in litigation over each case for years. Often, each case would involve the same key witnesses and experts. If those individuals would have to appear at every trial, then litigation could take a lifetime. While plaintiffs seek to recover as quickly as possible, large corporations prefer to have their employees and executives working rather than sitting in a courtroom. Thus, the MDL addresses those issues by reducing and consolidating proceedings before trial.

The plaintiffs have a distinct advantage: when more suits are brought over any individual product, the companies feel more pressure to settle.

For example, in the Bayer Roundup litigation, which now includes a proposed settlement of $10.9 billion, this effect has shown its impact. The World Health Organization declared that Roundup’s key ingredient, glyphosate, is “probably carcinogenic.” In 2019, the number of plaintiffs in the Roundup litigation skyrocketed. Attorneys have signed up plaintiffs through heavy ad spending. According to the Wall Street Journal, Bayer officials attribute this heavy ad spending to the large number of plaintiffs involved in these cases.

How do MDLs work?

Mass Torts arose in the early 1960s. Since then, an elaborate legal procedures system has been developed through multi-district litigation (MDL) – which was initially judicially created but then implemented by the statute. Through MDLs, several cases relating to the same underlying injury, such as a products liability claim against a drug or manufacturing company, undergo combined proceedings to decide preliminary procedural issues. Most claims settle during an MDL before they are sent back to the originating court for trial on the substantive matter.

Marketing and Lead Generation is Key

The first step, and an ongoing process throughout litigation, is identifying and acquiring potential plaintiffs. However, doing so is not easy. For example, in the Bayer Roundup litigation, competition for potential plaintiffs was and continues to be steep. Over $20 million have been spent on advertising and it is key to note that advertising costs correlated directly with the number of plaintiffs acquired throughout the litigation. Between January and September, Roundup appeared in 654,280 broadcast and cable ads.

For an attorney and law firm, generating plaintiffs is critical. Not only are plaintiffs required to bring a claim, but, again, having more plaintiffs often puts more pressure on the defendants. A well-rounded litigation strategy must not include just good lawyering but must also take into account strong mass tort lead generation strategies. By increasing the number of plaintiffs, the defendant’s potential litigation costs, including the possibility for large verdicts, increases. Thus, by generating more clients, a law firm can help push defendants to agree to a more favorable settlement.

Conferences such as Mass Torts Made Perfect (known commonly as MTMP) have grown immensely in popularity over the past decade as more lawyers seek mass tort cases and lead generation strategies.

Successful plaintiff acquisition requires a well-rounded marketing plan. As a starting point, the law firm’s website should have detailed blogs and pages about potential claims that the law firm handles or plans to handle. The law firm should also focus on advertising to drive qualified traffic to their website. That may include a TV ad or a narrower campaign through targeted digital marketing strategies such as Google Ads, Facebook, Instagram, e-mail, or search engine optimization.

Mass Tort Cases at Predictable Costs

Law firms seeking to acquire clients without the heavy lifting of developing, executing, and refining marketing strategies can also rely on a specialized mass tort lead generation agency, for digital and television media. Once your leads are signed up, Case Works can help your firm manage and develop the case files for your clients.