By MATT CHANDLER
mchandler@bizjournals.com | 716-541-1654

For most people, a bad day at the office means a meeting didn't go well, a sale fell through or the boss piled on a last-minute project. For large-case litigators such as Mitch Banas, a bad day at the office can end in hundred-million-dollar verdicts against their clients that may bankrupt businesses and send scores of workers to the unemployment line.

Banas is an attorney with Jaeckle, Fleischmann & Mugel LLP and one of several litigators we sought out to discuss the challenges and complexities involved in large-scale litigation cases.

He has worked on two prominent cases in recent decades. In the first, Banas represented Erie County in a multimillion-dollar suit brought by the developer of a failed domed stadium project in Lancaster. The plan was to build a domed stadium for the Buffalo Bills in the suburbs, but when the county scrapped the plan and instead built what is today Ralph Wilson Stadium in Orchard Park, the developer filed suit. The second case was centered on a 1,200-person class-action lawsuit stemming from the 1

Banas and company lost the case to the tune of $53 million. But as with many complex cases, the matter was appealed. In a moment he described as "thrilling," the verdict was overturned in favor of his client.

Equally contentious was the trial that pitted 1,200 inmates from Attica Prison against correctional guards, who stood accused of violating their rights. With political emotions running high and a tremendous amount at stake, Banas said it remains one of the most complex litigation cases of his career.

"It was a class-action brought for alleged civil rights deprivations in the re-taking of the prison in September 1971," he said. "There was a three- to four month liability trial and then a couple of representative damages trials, and then it went up and down on appeal and ultimately got settled in 2002."

With those cases as a backdrop, what does Banas see as some of the unique complexities of this type of litigation?

"In a single-issue case, no matter how complex it is, you have a finite set of variables and it isn't that difficult," he said. "When it comes to the class-action litigation and the larger cases, you have to make a point of not losing the forest (for) the trees. You've got to have a command of the big picture, but you also can't lose sight of the individual details and the individual plaintiff's claims or the individual defendant's defenses."

Asked if there is pressure to win "the big one" due to media coverage that often follows such cases, as well as the financial stakes, Banas said it always comes back to the client.

"In these two cases, I was representing governmental bodies or public officials," he said. "As a lawyer, you are trained to obtain a favorable result for your client. And when you are dealing with a client that has some sort of public face, and they have to be sensitive to how the case plays out in the media, you kind of have to keep one eye on that aspect of the case."

Another aspect of large-scale cases is the time commitment - which for most lawyers comes on top of maintaining their existing files.

"When you are actually on trial, there is very little time for anything else," Banas said. "When you are in the courtroom from 9 to 5, that means from 7 to 9 and 5 to 11 you're getting ready for those eight hours."

It would be impossible to discuss complex litigation without looking at the crash of Continental Airlines Flight 3407.

While the crash site is now a field and the community of Clarence continues to heal, the issue of bringing legal justice to the families of those who died in the crash is still in the early stages.

Hodgson Russ LLP partner Hugh Russ III is attorney liaison for the case, in addition to representing families of some of the victims. He said Flight 3407 offers an example of how one case involving plaintiffs, law firms and defendants scattered across the country can make an already-complex case even more challenging.

"In any of these big, big cases, the real key is that organization," he said. "The more people involved, the exponentially harder it gets to be organized. So if you are trying to schedule a meeting with 15 lawyers, that's 15 people with 15 different schedules maybe from five different cities, so that can be challenging."

Russ offered an example of how, in such cases, a single issue can take months to resolve.

"The airlines, and in particular Colgan, take the position that because Colgan was headquartered in Virginia, Virginia law should apply," he said. "Virginia has severe caps and restrictions on punitive damages, making this a huge issue."

Adding to the complexity is the fact that there is no black-or-white answer to the issue of where to hear the case.

"This area of the law is known as Choice of Law," Russ said, "and it's very, very complex. Then you add the layer that most of the cases were filed in federal court and federal law is a little bit different than state law. So potentially you have each side asking for different laws to apply and state and federal court having different standards, and how do you sort all of that out?"

With nearly 50 families involved in the lawsuit and multiple defendants, Russ said the outcome of a single issue can be monumental.

"Lets say Colgan is right and Virginia law should apply - that saves them ... hundreds of millions of dollars? I don't know, but the stakes are huge," he said. "And that's just one issue in the case."

In many instances, those involved in multi-jurisdictional, large-scale litigation cases can pick and choose their attorneys and opt for the biggest, flashiest firms in the country.

Brian Gwitt, a litigator with Damon Morey, said Western New York holds a distinct advantage when it comes to landing larger cases.

"More and more of these types of cases are finding their way to law firms in small to middle-market cities," he said. "If you take a city like Buffalo, you have firms here where you can get the same level of expertise and sophistication on a large commercial case, but our rates can literally be a third of that of the New York City firms."

Gwitt told of representing a client in an intellectual-property case in which the client was one of two defendants; the other was his former employer. The case involved players from Boston, Charlotte, Buffalo and San Francisco. Asked whether it can be a challenge to merge the egos, ideas and strategies of attorneys from multiple firms into one case, Gwitt offered the following: "It can be very complicated. Particularly in this case, the plaintiff wanted the defendants to point fingers and blame each other. They can then stand before the jury and say, ‘Look, they're blaming each other. Obviously one of them is at fault.' "

It's yet another layer in the complexities enveloping these types of cases, according to Gwitt.

"In that case, we entered into a joint defense agreement with the other defendant," he said. "Although not liking one another, we agreed to work together to reach the common goal of defending against the plaintiff's claims. It was tenuous, but it worked."

Much like Banas, who faced a loss of a multimillion-dollar verdict for his client, and Russ, who is charged with the task of assisting families who have lost so much already,

Gwitt described the pressure of handling what he called a "bet the company" case.

"It wasn't just a case of ‘We might lose some money.' It was ‘Brian, if I lose this case, I'm out of business.' "