When I was clerking for Justice Lemmon, I was working pretty much nine-to-five. My wife, Karen, who was a trial attorney in the DA’s Office, was working seven days a week to all hours of the night. So I had a lot of free time on my hands. Newt Gingrich had issued the Contract with America and the O.J. Simpson trial was going on; we had just gotten started with the tobacco litigation; there was a lot of b.s. going around about some type of "litigation explosion" and the McDonald’s Hot Coffee Case seemed to be in news daily. So I started working on America and the Law: Challenges for the 21st Century. It sat on the shelf for a couple of years, and then a cousin of mine, Jeff Ellinport, who was in the process of publishing a book on Legal Writing, introduced me to his publisher, Austin & Winfield, which agreed to publish America and the Law. I had a falling out with them within a year or so, and decided to try to publish the book myself. We kept batting about names, and one night, Karen and I were driving to dinner in the French Quarter (probably Maximo’s) and we passed Gravier Street, and there was this nice old building with a little gas lamp on the corner which looked like a place that books would come from, and the word Gravier sounded kind of serious and grave, and so “Gravier House Press” was born.

Gravier House Press today is a collection of books and other writings including a law blog, (or is it “legal blog” or "blawg"?), a literary blog, and a political blog. (Also never know if it’s supposed to be capitalized: Law Blog, Legal Blog, Political Blog, Literary Blog, New Orleans Blog, or Blawg. I generally like capitalization. Seems to have been big in the 18th and 19th Centuries. Kind of out of vogue now. But it seems to be a nice way of high-lighting things without going all the way to italics or bold.) In any event, I try to keep up to date in four areas of the law: class action law, ERISA litigation, product liability (or maybe it’s “products liability”), spoliation and e-discovery (which is perhaps “electronic discovery”). I can’t really say I’m an “expert” in these four areas because it’s against the Professional Rules. But I have some experience in these areas, and find them to be fairly interesting and constantly evolving.

(Should probably point out that I don’t really have experience in working with the technical aspects of ERISA. My experience is in ERISA litigation, sometimes for employment benefits, but generally for breaches of fiduciary duty by a plan sponsor, managed care company, HMO, or pharmacy benefits manager (“PBM”).)

The Product Liability post includes summaries of cases or other developments with respect to not only products liability theories of recovery, but also the related topics of Federal Preemption, statutes of limitations, choice-of-law or conflicts-of-law issues, the FDA, other regulatory issues, and the effect of tort reform measures such as statutes of repose.

I have read some legal blogs (or “Legal Blogs” “law blogs” or “Law Blogs”) where the author basically posts something each day. I have, instead, tried to organize the blog by topics, because (a) most days there really isn’t anything new of great importance, and (b) I am generally too busy to post something new every day.

Nevertheless, I hope that visitors will find the case summaries current and interesting enough to gain some insight into class action, ERISA, products liability and other litigation.

Spoliation and electronic discovery (or “E-Discovery”) of course cut across lots of different types of cases. Hopefully the law blog will afford practitioners insight into these fast-emerging and evolving trends in commercial, employment, and products litigation.

Thanks for visiting.


Stephen J. Herman, Esq.

[Note - The views expressed on this legl blog or law blog are the personal views of Stephen J. Herman and are not intended to represent the views of Herman Herman Katz & Cotlar, LTLA, TLPJ, the Civil Justice Foundation, or any other organization.]