A Civil Action lawyer coming to Wheaton for Deemer lecture
Wednesday, October 1999
Jan Schlichtmann, the lawyer whose nine years of bitter legal warfare on behalf of eight Woburn, Mass., families formed the basis of the best-selling novel and movie A Civil Action comes to Wheaton on Tuesday, Nov. 2 to talk about his life, work and the legal profession as this year’s guest of the college’s Deemer Lecture on Ethics in the Profession.
The lecture, which is free and open to the public, will begin at 7:30 p.m. in the Hindle Auditorium, located in the college’s Science Center. The Deemer lecture series has been made possible through the generosity of Kenneth C. Deemer and Louise McKeon Deemer '33 of Cortland, Ohio. They support a similar forum at Hiram College in Ohio.
Mr. Schlichtmann attained national prominence as the attorney suing W.R. Grace and Beatrice Foods for the contamination of the Woburn water supply on behalf of local families. Beatrice Foods defeated him in court, he ultimately negotiated a settlement with W.R. Grace for far less than had originally been offered and was unable to cover the enormous expenses his firm incurred through the long court battle. The groundbreaking case, which generated intense media coverage, is best-known through the best-selling book by Jonathan Harr and the movie A Civil Action, in which John Travolta portrays Mr. Schlichtmann.
Having learned from the Woburn case, which nearly destroyed his career, Mr. Schlichtmann is now a proponent of "alternative dispute resolution," a process that keeps plaintiffs from long and costly court battles and mediation sessions. He is currently the lead attorney for a group of Toms River, N.J., families negotiating a resolution with Union Carbide and Ciba Special Chemicals rather than waging a protracted legal battle. That case has also garnered intense interest from national media.
Mr. Schlichtmann graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and in 1977 earned his law degree from Cornell. While at law school, he clerked for the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee and taught a college level course in communications law at Cornell University. After graduating from law school, Mr. Schlichtmann joined the staff of the U.S. House Special Select Committee on Assassinations as special counsel. He began practice in Massachusetts in 1978.
Mr. Schlichtmann has served on the faculty of the New England School of Law and Suffolk Law School’s continuing legal education program, and has been on the faculty of the National Judicial College, Reno, Nevada. He has lectured at a number of law schools and spoken before various professional and civic groups, has appeared on numerous radio and television shows, and has participated in public forums on issues of law, public policy, and the environment. In addition, Mr. Schlichtmann has consulted with and testified before a number of governmental agencies and legislative committees on issues of toxic waste liability and the civil justice system.