By Daniel Siegal

Law360 (April 17, 2020, 5:14 PM EDT) -- With trials across the country ground to a halt due to the coronavirus pandemic, Mark Lanier, the plaintiffs attorney behind some of the largest product liability jury verdicts, spoke with Law360 about writing religious books during lockdown, his apocalypse-ready Houston estate and why he's busier than ever working from home.

Lanier heads the 53-attorney Lanier Law Firm, which is headquartered in Houston and has offices in New York, Los Angeles and Oklahoma City. He's now best known for the record-shattering $4.69 billion verdict he won in a St. Louis trial on claims that Johnson & Johnson's talcum powder gave 22 women ovarian cancer. J&J's appeal of that verdict is coming up for oral arguments in Missouri's appellate court on April 24.

During a 30-minute interview on April 13, Lanier told Law360 about how the pandemic has interrupted a busy schedule of trials and travel, but hasn't reduced his workload. This is thanks to an increase in videoconferencing that he sees becoming a permanent part of the legal landscape.

Lanier also discussed how being based in hurricane territory prepared his firm for COVID-19 and how, also being a Christian pastor, he's using the time sheltering in place in his sprawling Houston estate to finish writing several religious books and is continuing to teach Bible literacy classes online.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

How have the court closures affected your daily routine?

It's wildly different. I do think I'll probably never again get on an airplane to go somewhere for a two-hour meeting. I've learned that videoconferencing is a real thing that works quite well, and I am doing it, it seems, from the early, early morning to the late, late evening.

Obviously court appearances are radically different, most everything is being done by submission. We do have an [in-person] oral argument set in a case set in the appellate court system of Missouri. [This appeal is in Ingham v. J&J, the $4.69 billion verdict.]

Do you think something is lost if courts move to holding oral arguments via videoconference?

I think in some ways, some things may be gained. You've still got ready access to everything, but when you're giving an oral argument, you generally don't have your computer in front of you. Now you've got access to your computer, you've got access to notes, you've got an ability to do a better job representing the record and what is and is not going to be said and done.

We did a mediation last week via videoconferencing and it actually turned out really, really well. I think all parties would have said that. And we resolved the case. That was a whole brand new thing for us; we'd never done that before.

There were no technical difficulties?

None at all, it was smooth as silk. And it allowed for a level of confidentiality, where we could talk to the mediator separate from the other parties. … I thought it was outstanding. In fact, we've got two mediations going on today.

How has your firm been handling the shift to working remotely?

We were really fortunate we live in a hurricane-rich area in Houston. Even though we've got offices in New York and LA and Oklahoma City, Houston is our main headquarters. So from hurricane experiences before, we've got the ability to immediately go outside the facility and still maintain congruity.

Our receptionists are able to answer calls from home so that we're able to chart and navigate and do checks electronically that require electronic signatures, and have multiple levels of approval so the bank knows they're authentic checks, and they get out on time.

The ability to work virtually should be in everybody's tool set right now. If it's not, it needs to be, because this will likely not be the last time we see something like this.

Has the shift to remote work prompted you to reevaluate any of your existing habits?

Well, yes and no. I do think we'll be much quicker to Skype into meetings, especially if they're in-firm meetings. Why do I need to bring down the head of my New York office for a meeting when we can have it on Skype?

It'll change some lawyers wanting to work from home. We may look at policies urging people to spend one day a week working from home.

What was happening in your practice when the pandemic hit?

Well, I had a case going to trial in Utah and so I was getting ready for that case. … The judge put off the trial, the depositions have been put off as well, so big change there.

I had another case set for trial in Missouri in May, and the court put the brakes on that and changed all of the deadlines.

[The Utah trial is State of Utah v. Merck, the last product liability suit over Merck's painkiller Vioxx, and the Missouri trial is Bognar v. Monsanto, one of the many cases alleging the popular weedkiller Roundup causes cancer.]

We've been able to see that this has engendered some additional settlements that might not have come down the pike otherwise, so that's been an interesting aspect.

How are you personally spending the unexpected time until your next trial?

I've got about five books that are 80% done and I'm trying to get them finished. One of them has got to be to the publisher by early May, and so I keep active writing, and this has freed up some time.

But the remarkable thing is, everyone's still working like a dog, and I'm still putting in a boatload of hours, legally.

My biggest problem is the calls are just lining up, I've got calls one after the other after the other into the night, and same thing tomorrow and same thing [the day after].

You've also got a lot of litigation brewing now. A huge area of litigation that's going to come out of this, that'll be the biggest [new] area of litigation, I suspect, since opioids, is all of the business interruption insurance loss cases.

I've been on the phone with, it seems to me, every major owner of restaurants, casinos, sports franchises, hotels, airlines, along with a lot of mom-and-pop companies.

What are your books about?

I became a lawyer really just to kind of fund my teaching and life in ministry and faith. So three of my books are religious books that have been published, and I've got five more in the works.

With trials getting delayed by months, you won't be standing up in court as often as you're used to. How are you keeping your trial skills sharp in the interim?

I teach at my church a class of about 700-800 people, on a good Sunday, every Sunday. And when I teach I use a PowerPoint, like I do at trial, and I use the IPEVO projection device like I do at trial.

And really, my teaching every Sunday is a 45-minute opening statement or closing argument, and so I've had the benefit for decades of getting to do that every week.

I write my own PowerPoints, I write my own lessons. Now with this going on, church is not attended in a building, but we're still live on the internet. I had several thousand people tuned in yesterday on our livestream to watch my Easter lesson.

When this crisis does pass, what are you looking forward to most?

Going out to eat. I've got a couple of restaurants where I'm just dying for the food right now. We live on 40 acres, so we've taken this idea of quarantining and isolation seriously. It's my wife and I and two of our college-age daughters who are at home.

We've got a massive organic garden and it's in full production mode right now. We've got more broccoli and cauliflower and spinach and lettuce and cabbage than you can shake a stick at.

Our tomatoes are starting to come in now, our green beans are in full production. But we also have chickens; we get two dozen eggs a day, so we've got all the chicken you can eat, all the eggs you can eat. Our sheep have all given birth for the spring, our goats have all given birth. If I wanted goat's milk I've got it in unlimited quantity. We've got two ponds with more fish than we can catch and eat, so we're ready for the apocalypse.

But boy, I miss going and getting the Brussels sprouts from Perry's Steakhouse, I miss going to get the buffalo burger from my favorite restaurant with buffalo burgers. I want to go see my grandkids. … I want to eat out, and I want to get on the road.

--Editing by Aaron Pelc.

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