The Best of:
Berger In The Whirl
Top Lawyers Come to City, Back-pat One Anothert
Several hundred of our town’s leading barristers and judges filled the ballroom of the Hilton St. Louis at the Ballpark.
Front ‘n center was the affable Lynn Whaley Vogel, prez of the 30,000-member Missouri Bar, who was glad-handed by the lawyers who were to receive awards.
“Lawyers of the Year” honors went to Mark and Steven Bronson, James Dowd and Joseph Yeckel, who won a $358.5 million verdict in the Doe Run lead smelter toxic tort case. Most of the credit for the judgment went to Dallas and Oakland, CA.-based Gerson Smoger, who skyed in for the event. He recalled, “I got a call from someone out-of-the-blue who said I’m needed in Herculaneum, Mo.”
He said he had 13 witnesses from experts on toxic waste to neuroscience. He also reminded us that he worked with the same lawyers on the Times Beach case. Nearby was personal injury barrister Terry Crouppen, senior partner at Brown & Crouppen, who discussed his image with a Mo .Lawyers Weekly ad rep. “My nose keeps growing,” he confessed. “For a billboard, my face was photo-shopped and it makes me look like I think I look.”
On hand at the event were Missouri Lawyers Weekly prez and publisher Richard Gard, Gail Appleson, Anne Frohock, Ken Suelthaus, Ann Wilcox, Ronda Williams, Shelby Watson, Erica Freeman, Greg Linharse, Debbie Anderson, Michael Daming, Thomas Neill, Michael Hughes, Debbie Champion, Jeff Suess, Julia Kerr, Alan Kohn, Robert Murray, Judges Richard Webber and Bill Thompson, Thor Dowd, Shelby Watson, Carol Dowd and Wally Pankowski.
RIP: They’re going fast now. Dr. Jim Cooper, who is being laid to rest, was a great friend of the columnist. An advocate of his patients, he was a caring and compassionate medic who always reminded us of a country doc, Cooper rallied to many in need including the famed Gen. William Westmoreland, commander of U.S. forces in Vietnam. BTW: Cooper’s collection of Russian icons is legend. When the end was nearing, they were sold for $850k.
