Welcome IMIG Congress 2010 Attendees
We are pleased and proud to support this year's IMIG Congress just as we did the Chicago 2006 conference and the Amsterdam 2008 conference. Since its founding in 1974, Kazan, McClain, Lyons, Greenwood & Harley, A Professional Law Corporation, has built its reputation by focusing on the representation of those diagnosed with mesothelioma.
International Claims
Dozens of United States corporations, many with foreign operations, have gone through a formal United States Bankruptcy Court reorganization, with others still being reorganized today, resulting in the establishment of Trust Funds to pay claims. Currently, some $30 billion is available for claims, with more expected in the next few years. Partners in our Firm have served on the asbestos creditor committees of virtually all these reorganization proceedings, and continue to serve as court-appointed advisors to virtually every established Trust Fund. We are therefore uniquely knowledgeable and qualified to assist claimants from anywhere in the world who have been injured by asbestos-containing products for which one or more of these Trust Funds have responsibility.
How can non-United States resident claimants obtain compensation?
First, they don't need, and should not hire, American lawyers! They can best be served by their local asbestos victims' groups, trade unions, NGOs, and legal aid societies who know them, know the local situation, know the local medical community, and can best marshal the necessary information. That way, their compensation can be maximized, their attorney's fees minimized, and those fees kept at home to benefit the local community. We are available to consult with any of these groups at no charge to help them understand how these claims need to be processed. We believe that it is our obligation to provide such assistance as a public service. All we ask is that we be afforded the opportunity to do so in English (or Spanish).
The Law Firm's Public Charitable Foundation
The Firm's Public Charitable Foundation has been active in the fight against asbestos and has long supported the international efforts to ban asbestos. Since 1994 the Foundation has disbursed over $10 million in grants to an array of community and civic organizations to support research into causes of, treatment for, and prevention of occupational and environmental diseases, increase and improve public awareness about work-place health and safety, and provide relief to the poor. The Foundation has awarded more than $4 million in grants for medical research to find a cure for mesothelioma.
We sponsor World Asbestos Report to provide an online resource center for all those working around the world to ban future use of asbestos, improve working conditions for those who continue to be exposed to asbestos on the job, reduce exposures to those who live or work in the vicinity of others using asbestos, encourage progress in the diagnosis and treatment of asbestos-related diseases, and otherwise help all those seeking to protect and vindicate the rights of asbestos victims throughout the world.
The Foundation has provided significant support for the international efforts to ban asbsetos use, much of which has been channelled through IBAS, established in 2000 to provide a conduit for the exchange of information between groups and individuals working to achieve a global asbestos ban and seeking to alleviate the damage caused by widepsread asbestos use.
We also endorse and strongly support the Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization, the leading non-profit public interest asbestos victims' group in the US, founded in 2004 to give asbestos victims and concerned citizens a united voice to help ensure their rights are fairly represented and protected, while raising public awareness about the dangers of asbestos exposure and often deadly asbestos related diseases. ADAO is an independent organization funded through voluntary contributions and staffed by volunteers.