Despite the risk of the BP oil spill threatening to keep attendees from enjoying the beaches of the Gulf Coast, members of the Georgia Trial Lawyers Association (GTLA) are going forward as planned with their annual summer convention to be held July 29 – 31 in Destin, FL. This event, which normally draws hundreds of plaintiffs’ attorneys and their families from all over Georgia, is now shrouded by grief for the many victims affected by the spill.
GTLA President Michael Warshauer, under pressure to cancel or move this annual event said, “I have decided that cancellation is simply not an option that is consistent with who we are as an organization. The people of the Gulf region are hurting. Collectively, they are the victims of perhaps the most egregious tortious conduct ever committed in the United States. Our organization, like many others throughout the country, is committed to helping people who have been harmed by the careless, reckless, wrongful conduct of greedy corporations.”
When this meeting, traditionally held in a beach location, was booked over a year ago, no one could have imagined the impending crisis that the Gulf Coast community now faces.
“We will go to Destin. We will swim in their pools, spend money in their restaurants, buy souvenirs and and play on their golf courses. To abandon the victims of BP's callous conduct, when they need us most, would be to join BP and be part of the Gulf's problem. That is not what we, the lawyers of GTLA, do,” said Warshauer.
