Washington DC (Map, News) - When The Examiner asked legal experts across the country who are top lawyers specializing in filing bigtime class action lawsuits against Fortune 500 companies, public institutions, prominent individuals and small businesses, a dozen names kept coming up.

These are the trial lawyers who win the billion-dollar settlements, generate headlines in newspapers across the country and often become political powers unto themselves.

Melvyn Weiss

The founding partner of Milberg Weiss is at the center of the federal prosecution of the firm bearing his name for an alleged kickback scheme designed to income for Weiss and other partners. Two former partners have since pleaded guilty, including Steven Schulman and David Bershad, with the latter described by federal authorities as having kept large amounts of cash in a safe in the firm’s office for use in the kickback scheme. Even so, Weiss has led the firm most closely associated with aggressive class action suits that have resulted in verdicts and settlements worth more than $1 billion against banking and insurance companies; $775 million in a single utility company securities case; and another $300 million in a healthcare securities suit. No wonder a recent Manhattan Institute report said Weiss has "never met a stock-price drop he didn’t like."

Mark Lanier

Lanier, founder of The Lanier Law Firm with offices in Houston and New York, is a "multi-multi-multi-millionaire," according to ATRA’s Schwartz. Lanier’s initial verdict against Merck in the Vioxx case was worth $250 million, but that was later reduced. Still, Lanier’s arguments were so influential that class action lawyers filing subsequent cases against the company used Lanier’s tactics and usually won or gained fat settlements. The National Law Journal listed Lanier as one of the nation’s top 10 trial lawyers last year and also numbered him among one of the 100 most influential tort attorneys overall, all despite the fact Lanier is under the age of 40. Lanier currently is a key player in the suits against lead paint manufacturers, and seeks medical monitoring for those who have purchased Mattel toys manufactured in China to determine if any health problems develop.

Peter Angelos

Angelos has run a Baltimore-based firm focusing on malpractice, products liability and personal injury actions for nearly 40 years, during which time he’s accumulated enough wealth to become principal owner of the Baltimore Orioles. He filed some of the first asbestos suits, winning roughly $100 million in the process. Angelos also represented Maryland in the tobacco cases against Phillip Morris, and subsequently fattened his firm’s bottom line with lucrative suits against Wyeth, maker of the diet drug fen-phen. Next on his list: Lead paint manufacturers and cell phone makers. "He’s thrown his weight around for a long time," said Olson.

William Lerach

William Lerach recently retired after a career in which he became one of the country’s most successful securities attorneys, with firm awards of more than $1 billion against various corporations. His name was dropped last month from the California-based firm he founded when he split from a former East Coast partner, Melvyn Weiss. Lerach has been repeatedly linked in media reports about the federal prosecution of Milberg Weiss as one of the key unnamed witnesses, most recently as having rejected a plea bargain.

Ronald Motley

Motley, founding partner of the South Carolina-based Motley Rice firm, wrote the book on winning asbestos cases -- literally. Following his lead status as asbestos litigator beginning in the 1970s, and his receipt of millions in the tobacco cases of the 1990s, Motley authored the guide, "How to Handle an Asbestos Case," as well as the later "Decades of Deception: Secrets of Lead, Asbestos and Tobacco." He’s now applying many of the same lessons to lead paint litigation. "He is the one running the lead paint litigation in Rhode Island," said Victor Schwartz, a partner at Shook, Hardy & Bacon and general counsel for the American Tort Reform Association. "He’s a very intense and wealthy personal injury lawyer."

John O’Quinn

O’Quinn, partner in his Texas O’Quinn Law Firm, made a name for himself with suits against tobacco companies and breast implant manufacturers that resulted in mega-dollar awards. But he also has garnered headlines following a decision by an arbitration panel that he wrongfully withheld nearly $19 million of breast implant settlement money from his clients, and a subsequent federal court order demanded he address possible contempt of court charges against his firm. This was not O’Quinn’s first scuffle with the law. In 1989, he was reprimanded by the state bar over claims his firm solicited clients in an unethical manner.

Jerome ‘Jere’ Beasley

Beasley, senior member of the Alabama firm, Beasley, Allen, Crow, Methvin, Portis & Miles, PC, and former lieutenant governor of the state, was also co-lead counsel in an $11+ billion punitive award against ExxonMobil Corp. for breach of contract. His firm biography credits him with securing more than $1 million in verdicts on each of his 30 court trials, with half of those exceeding $15 million. Beasley has been doing class action suits for more than 30 years, leading Overlawyered.com’s Walter Olson to observe that the Alabama attorney "still deserves the reputation."

Richard ‘Dickie’ Scruggs

Scruggs, brother-in-law to former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, is a Mississippi trial attorney known for his legal attacks against tobacco companies in the 1990s that led to initial settlements worth more than $360 billion. He has also filed significant actions against companies associated with asbestos and Ritalin issues, as well as a much-publicized case charging State Farm Fire and Casualty Company for "a pattern of racketeering" when its agents allegedly changed reports filed by Hurricane Katrina victims and wrongfully denied claims. Like Weiss and Lerach, Scruggs is battling his own federal demons. In August, a federal judge charged Scruggs with criminal contempt stemming from the State Farm, after he allegedly mishandled documents related to the claimants.

Steven Tillery

Tillery, of the St. Louis, Ill. firm Korein Tillery, was lead plaintiff’s attorney in a case against GlaxoSmithKline that resulted in a $63 million settlement -- 26 percent of which went to Tillery and other attorneys. A MadisonRecord.com report calculated that Tillery’s personal haul from the settlement was $16,8 million, while his individual clients each received the $15 they paid for the original prescription... if they could show a receipt. Tillery is not always successful however, as he failed in an attempt to revive a $10-billion fraud suit against Phillip Morris that had already been dismissed at the highest court levels.

Joseph Jamail

Jamail, of Jamail & Kolius in Texas, has a nickname that says it all: "The King of Torts." Known for challenging some of the nation’s largest corporations, Jamail’s $11-plus billion win in 1985 against Texaco earned him listing in the Guiness Book of World Records as counsel for the largest civil damages award ever. One case Jamail did not include in his book "Lawyer: My Trial and Jubilations" may prove to be his most interesting, as he represents plaintiffs suing O’Quinn for the nearly $19 million he was found to have wrongfully withheld from his breast implant clients, said Glenn Lammi, Washington Legal Foundation’s chief counsel. "There’s a little legal cannibalism going on right now." That case is in the appeal stages, he said.

Steve Berman

Berman, founder of the Seattle-based Hagens, Berman, Sobol, Shapiro firm, forged his reputation with $216 million in state settlements against tobacco firms, as well as via his work on other notable cases like Enron, Exxon’s Valdez oil spill and the Microsoft antitrust actions. But Glenn Lammi, chief counsel with the Washington Legal Foundation, points to Berman’s more recent suits against alcohol companies for using allegedly unlawful advertising to lure underage buyers as potential milestones, even though they’ve so far been dismissed.

Joseph Rice

Rice, a partner to Ronald Motley, should be recognized for his "prominence in the asbestos cases," said WLF’s Lammi. Rice is also widely recognized for landmark settlements between state attorney generals and tobacco companies, compelling the latter to pay the health care costs of smokers. He was also involved in the battle that erupted over fees paid to tobacco case lawyers, with a Washington Post report describing the $2.8 billion paid to the lawyers on an $11.3 billion Florida settlement.

Source: Various news reports; photos from AP and Getty Images

"Lawyers Gone Wild" is a series of special reports by The Examiner looking at the cost and consequences of class action lawsuit abuse in the United States. Read the latest articles in the series.