As a young lawyer, John Lanius of TexasBestGrok defended asbestos cases. "I lasted in that job exactly one year. During that period of time, I attended 80 or so depositions of plaintiffs asserting that their lung disease had nothing to do with their 2-pack-a-day smoking habit and everything to do with the brief exposure they had to my then-client's insulating cement during a few-year period in the 1960s. ... It costs too much to take the cases to trial, so we settled for nuisance amounts." On the opposite side of the table: Baron & Budd.