Michael Shepard’s insights were featured in the Bloomberg Businessweek article, “How Corporations Use the Texas Two-Step to Avoid Asbestos Lawsuits”
Although Georgia-Pacific could offer to plow something like $1 billion into the trust, it would then know the full extent of its liabilities rather than continuing for years with a multibillion- dollar question mark on its balance sheet. “Their books look a lot cleaner, because they don’t have this liability hanging over their head,” says Michael Shepard of Boston law firm Shepard O’Donnell, who has litigated such cases for decades. “They are able to forever get rid of a long-
tail liability.”Mesothelioma’s advance is almost always unstoppable, with an average life expectancy of less than two years after diagnosis. Of the 20,000-plus people who had active claims against Georgia-Pacific when it filed for bankruptcy in 2017, only a tiny fraction are still alive to receive a settlement. “The minute they come through the door,” he says, clients face “a ticking clock as to how long they’re even going to be alive.”
