The attorneys helped the
state's historic lawsuit

By Helen Altonn
Star-Bulletin

The outside lawyers who represented Hawaii in the tobacco industry lawsuit have been awarded $90.2 million in compensation amid high praise nationally for their work.

The attorneys' fees, announced today by the Tobacco Fee Arbitration Panel in New York, will be paid in addition to the $1.38 billion Hawaii will recover through the tobacco settlement over 25 years.

In a unanimous decision, the panel commended the lawyers retained by the state attorney general's office for taking "important risks" and contributing materially to "a national settlement in which Hawaii was a leader."

Gary Galiher of Galiher De-Robertis Nakamura Ono Takitani of Honolulu led the Hawaii team. Members worked with other lawyers in Honolulu and Maui and with Ness, Motley and Scruggs law firms in Mississippi and South Carolina, the pioneering lawyers in the national litigation.

The arbitration panel also praised former state Attorney General Margery Bronster's leadership of the national "small state" caucus that brought 13 states together to negotiate.

"In the opinion of attorney Joe Rice of the Ness Motley firm, a recognized leader of the states' negotiating team, without her endorsing and guiding the small states' participation, there was a very real possibility the national negotiations would permanently stall," the panel said.

The panel noted that Bronster was visited by tobacco industry lawyers who tried to dissuade her from entering the national lawsuit, telling her she would be attacked politically and she couldn't legally hire contingent fee lawyers.

The companies, the same ones now paying the settlement, sued her in federal court, alleging she was violating federal laws, the panel said.

Bronster today said only she and Senior Deputy Attorney General Charles Fell were able to work on the case in-house while "other states had scores of lawyers helping."

She said the state's private lawyers "believed in the value of the case" and paid all the costs so Hawaii would get 100 percent net recovery from the settlement.

The attorneys' fees will be paid over a number of years from tobacco industry money set aside for that purpose, she said.

"Not one dime of this comes out of state money."

The lawyers initially had a 20 percent contingency fee contract with the state. When it appeared there would be no congressional settlement for payment, they agreed to her request to collect their entire payment from the tobacco industry, she said.

The arbitration panel said Hawaii's lawyers "bore important risks," advancing $2.6 million in direct costs and investing $5 million in expanding facilities, overhead and other litigation support.

"They expended these sums at a time when the risk of ever seeing a recovery was very substantial," the panel said.

Galiher said the firm "took a huge gamble" but he had a 20-year relationship with the Ness, Motley firm and felt good about the long-term prospects of the case.

The team worked on lots of liability issues that "upped the ante for the risk for the industry," he said. The lawyers also worked with Bronster on the small states' negotiations, which resulted in an additional $240 million for Hawaii, he said.

"She did a tremendous job for the state of Hawaii," Galiher said.

The panel said Bronster determined that a certain monetary settlement was necessary "because of her deeply held goals for public health initiatives in Hawaii, to combat underage smoking and downstream mortality."

She wouldn't endorse any settlement below that level, the panel said. "Professionally, I must admit it was a very noble undertaking," Galiher said, "because it is the most despicable industry that ever blessed the planet ... addicting children that follows through to adulthood.

"I'm happy to have done what we've done," said Galiher. "I think it will significantly cut into the number of smokers who start as teens."