A federal judge allowed plaintiffs lawyers in Juul Labs Inc. settlements to move forward on up to $150 million in attorney fees but said it was “troubling” that not a single lawyer among the 62 firms in the litigation was Black or Latino.
“It is stark to me that here you had 62 great firms, and apparently almost no Blacks or Latinos who either are lawyers there, or that the firms put up,” U.S. District Judge William Orrick, of the Northern District of California, said at a hearing Monday. “There are excellent lawyers throughout this country who are not being involved in these MDLs, and when it has such a huge percentage of the caseload, you have to do better. The courts have to do better.”
