Sophie Zavaglia: Welcome to The Asbestos Files, where we expose corporate greed, cut through the confusion, and fight for people who deserve answers. My name is Sophie Zavaglia. I’m an attorney at SWMW Law. And at my firm, we believe that when corporations put profits over safety, people deserve to have someone on their side who’s willing to fight back.
Today, we’re talking about welcoming you to the fight. Every single year, thousands of Americans are diagnosed with a disease that’s caused by asbestos, a material that companies knew for many decades was unsafe and continued to use anyway. Lawsuits about asbestos exposure have been filed since the 1970s, and since that time, asbestos litigation has become one of the largest-running mass torts in American legal history.
At the same time, companies have tried consistently to cover up the risk of asbestos. Tort reform advocates have pushed a line to the American people that one lawsuit about asbestos is too many, and that people who fight for their rights are essentially no better than scam artists. This show exists because people deserve to know the truth, the truth about asbestos, the truth about the cover-up, and the truth about what their rights are in court if they get sick from being exposed to this deadly product.
Today I want to talk to you about what this podcast is going to be about, who I am, who my law firm is, and why we do what we do. The way I got involved in asbestos litigation was actually kind of random. I had been out of law school for about a year. I saw a job posting that listed a litigation job with a lot of travel involved, and I thought, “Hey, sounds interesting.” Turns out that was my first job in what I like to call asbestos land, fighting for people who have gotten sick from being exposed to asbestos. I’ve been doing this work for over a decade, and the longer I fight for people, the more passionate I become about this fight, because what this litigation ultimately boils down to is a story of a huge cover-up over the course of many decades by companies that put profits over safety. That’s really all it comes down to.
We fight for people who have done what most of us want to do, which is simply make a living, work hard, provide for our families, and at some point hopefully get a retirement. That is usually not what my clients encounter. The reason I went to law school is because I believed that getting a law degree to help people was the highest achievement I could go for. When I started working at SWMW, what I found in the leadership there, and have continued to find over the 12-plus years I’ve been at this firm, is that the leadership sincerely believes that people matter, and that companies that have covered up a substance like asbestos, companies that hurt people and try to get away with it, deserve to be held accountable. That’s what we do at my law firm. We hold companies accountable, and we’re willing to fight.
One thing I love about this firm is that we are client-centered, our clients come first, but we are also willing to fight, not only in litigation, but in the courtroom. Unlike a lot of other firms, we try to settle cases where we’re able, but at the end of the day, if we’re not getting the value we think our clients deserve, we are willing to go to court and try cases. That is how we’re different, and that is what I love about working here.
We decided to start this podcast because there is an information gap between what is known about asbestos and what normal people on the street know about it, how it was used, and more importantly, how it was covered up. Even after doing this litigation consistently for coming up on 13 years, it still shocks me what people do not know about the cover-up over asbestos. There is a lot of information that regular people just don’t have access to, and we have uncovered that through our collective work as a firm. We want to make sure people know not only what asbestos is, but what their rights are if they do get sick from being exposed to this deadly material.
Over the course of this podcast, we are going to talk about what asbestos is, why you might file a lawsuit, what happens over the course of a lawsuit, and how these cases work in court if they do go to trial. We’re also going to have a couple of recurring segments, one where we talk about myths about asbestos and about lawsuits, things you might hear that just aren’t true, and compare them to the facts. We’re also going to answer your questions. If you have any questions about how this works, what we do as a law firm, or how these lawsuits exist in court, we’re going to be answering those. We’re also going to talk about the very consistent effort by some very loud advocates, known as tort reform advocates, who try to confuse people about what it means to file a lawsuit, and the vast cover-up that has occurred about asbestos over the course of decades. And who knows, we might even have a guest or two.
We’re going to talk about why asbestos is dangerous and what kinds of conditions it causes, things like cancers, mesothelioma, lung cancer, asbestosis, and a whole other range of diseases. We’re going to talk about the types of people at risk of getting sick from asbestos exposure: people who served in the military, people in the automotive industry, construction workers. The list frankly goes on. Listen, we’re not here to scare you. We are here to educate you, and to put the power back in your hands as a member of the public, so that you know what to look out for and what your rights are if you do get sick.
That’s it for today’s episode of The Asbestos Files. Thank you so much for listening. I’m really excited to talk to you about these subjects over the course of the season. If you or someone you know has been affected by asbestos or has gotten injured, please seek out an attorney. If you have questions for me, or want to check out more about what I do, you can reach me at swmwlaw.com. And thanks again for listening.
