From the category archives:

Gulf Oil Spill

The Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation (JPML) held a hearing in Boise, Idaho, on July 29, 2010, to determine whether the Deepwater Horizon oil spill cases in federal court should all be consolidated and, if so, which court should handle the cases. There are over 300 cases currently pending in federal courts, with over 250 of them filed as putative class actions. Over 200 attorneys were at the hearing today.

The most entertaining speaker may have been New Orleans mass tort litigator Russ Herman, who told the court:

“Our culture rises as a gumbo of Cajuns, Creole, French, German and Spanish,” he said. “All of that is threatened now. This disaster threatens our hope and faith. That’s why New Orleans is the best avenue of justice.”

“We rise out of our myth, our metaphor, our mystery, our seafood and our music, which now is threatened, and the threat of our culture threatens our hope and our faith. You have an opportunity to focus the world on this country, on this disaster, so it won’t happen again. Assist us in our resliiency.”

For more quotes from and about today’s hearing, check out my oil spill attorneys post at  BPOilNews.com.

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The oil spill claims process may improve after the announcement today that BP will deposit $20 billion into an escrow fund to pay people who have been financially damaged by the Gulf oil spill. The establishment of the escrow fund was announced after BP’s Chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg, CEO Tony Hayward, and other company executives met with President Obama and other administration officials. The White House blog gives an account of the meeting. We’ve got a more in-depth look at the BP oil spill escrow fund at BPOilNews.com.

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Social media and the gulf oil spill

I’m writing this for people who may be interested in the use of social media to “cover” a disaster such as the Gulf oil spill. For those of you who tend to “bounce” from one website to another, here are links to the BP Oil News blog, BP Oil News Twitter feed, BP Oil News Facebook fan page, and BP Oil News Group discussed in this article.  Also, a warning: the next paragraph of this post contains a little personal history which some may find boring. For pure social media talk, skip to the third paragraph. [click to continue…]

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Federalize the Oil Spill Cleanup

by Michael J. Evans on May 28, 2010

in Gulf Oil Spill

Over at BPOilNews.com, we’ve published over 200 suggestions submitted by the public for plugging BP’s Gulf oil leak, or for reducing damage from the oil spill. Now I want to make a suggestion of my own. No, I don’t have an idea for plugging the hole. But I do think I have a common-sense suggestion for cleaning up the spill in a way that also minimizes economic losses to people and businesses on the Gulf coast. (Go to BPOilNews.com to read the rest of my suggestion for the Gulf oil spill cleanup.)

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The oil spill suggestion box is still open at BP Oil News. We’ve received over one hundred suggestions, and more are still coming in. If you have ideas, please submit them at our Gulf oil spill suggestion box.

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I’ve recently been blogging (with some help) about the Gulf oil spill at BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil rig. When I started the blog, I was struck by the fact that there were no pay-per-click lawyer ads when I used Google News to search for articles. But that changed in a hurry. Within a couple of days the lawyer ads began emerging in an ever escalating war to sign up claimants. When mass tort ad campaigns such as this start, I’m usually either involved in it professionally or I follow the campaigns because I find them interesting and, sometimes, educational. As of the time that I’m writing this post, there are seven law firm ads displayed on Google News when you run a “BP oil spill” or “Gulf oil spill” search. Seven law firms and one almost unnoticeable ad by BP.

Perhaps it’s the technology geek in me, or my interest in Internt marketing, but I enjoyed comparing the ads. The lawyer ads all utilized the top line of the ad well, with large blue letters proclaiming something such as “Gulf Oil Spill Lawsuit” or “BP Oil Spill Lawsuit.” BP’s ad, by comparison, simply said “Spill” on the top line. It’s as if they are ashamed to be associated with it, and don’t want to admit which particular “spill” it is they are talking about. But if BP is too embarrassed to shout out its message in a way that competes with the lawyer ads, why even buy an ad on Google? And if BP, a company which had profits of $6.1 billion in the first quarter of 2010, wants to run an ad on Google, why doesn’t it bid high enough to rank higher than sixth out of eight ads?

Somehow the fact that BP is inept in handling its PR makes me even less confident of its ability and intention to clean up the mess it’s making in the Gulf. I’ve written more at BPOilNews.com about BP’s poor PR, including its waffling and refusal to commit to pay for damages caused by the Gulf oil spill. You can also follow my posts about the Gulf oil spill at Facebook and on Twitter @bpoilnews.

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We’ve got 3 new posts at BPOilNews.com about the use of social media and crowdsourcing to empower the public to help with the oil spill at BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil rig in the Gulf. The Louisiana Governor’s Homeland Security Department has an active Twitter account (@GOHSEP)that is well-used, and the Louisiana Bucket Brigade is using crowdsourcing to map locations where oil has been observed. At BPOilNews, we were surprised to find ourselves crowdsourcing possible solutions for stopping the oil flow or limiting the damage to shorelines. [click to continue…]

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