Mike Papantonio | |
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Born | New York City, U.S. | October 24, 1953
Education | University of Florida Cumberland School of Law |
Occupation(s) | Torts lawyer TV and radio host Writer |
James Michael Papantonio (born October 24, 1953) is an American torts lawyer, television presenter, radio talk show host and writer. He has been inducted into the Trial Lawyer Hall of Fame. [1]
As a trial lawyer, Papantonio co-hosts Ring of Fire , a nationally syndicated progressive weekly radio program, with Farron Cousins, where he is referenced as America's Lawyer. [2] [3] In December 2016, Papantonio began hosting a program on YouTube called America's Lawyer. [4]
Papantonio graduated from DeSoto County High School, Arcadia, Florida. [1] He subsequently graduated from the University of Florida with a degree in advertising, and received his J.D. from Cumberland School of Law. He was admitted to The Florida Bar in 1982 and the bar of the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida in 1983.
Papantonio is a senior partner in the Pensacola, Florida-based Levin Papantonio Law Firm, a mass torts firm. [5] [6] Within the lawyer community, Mike Papantonio is known for his work in mass torts, product liability, personal injury, and wrongful death cases, and has returned numerous verdicts of multi-million dollar damages. [3] [7]
He has been listed in Best Lawyers in America since 1999, [7] and has written several books, including the legal thriller Law and Disorder; Resurrecting Aesop: Fables Lawyers Should Remember; Clarence Darrow, the Journeyman; and In Search of Atticus Finch, A Motivational Book for Lawyers, as well as Defenses You Can Count on in an Asbestosis Case and How to Prove a Sick Building Case. He also co-authored Closing Arguments–The Last Battle with Fred Levin. [8]
In 2004, Papantonio helped launch a nationwide organization called Mass Torts Made Perfect, an organization for injury attorneys. [9]
The radio broadcast Ring of Fire began in 2004 and was syndicated by the now defunct Air America Radio until January 2010. Papantonio was also involved at Air America as a member of the Board of Directors, and as a co-contributor to the New York Times bestseller, Air America, the Playbook, a collection of essays, transcripts, and interviews by network personalities released in the run-up to the 2006 congressional elections. [10] Papantonio has appeared regularly as a contributor on Fox News, MSNBC, and CNN.
His role on Ring of Fire was featured in the 2006 documentary Jesus Camp , in which he offers commentary on many of the scenes depicted. [3] [11] According to DVD commentary by the film's directors, Papantonio was added to the film later on because they felt there wasn't any "tension" in it, and they wanted another viewpoint. [12]
On the weekly show America's Lawyer, Papantonio, a Methodist, often criticizes the Christian right. He has said that "I come from a pretty strong spiritual center, but it doesn't change the way I judge people. Simply put, the Sermon on the Mount makes much more sense to me than the frenzied rantings of America's new 'religious right'. They have become an element of American politics that threatens our sense of decency as well as our democracy." Papantonio has called Republican politicians "an entire collection of ass clowns."
In March 2024, Papantonio, who is an organizer and founder of the conference Mass Torts Made Perfect, walked back on decision to invite actor Mark Ruffalo as a speaker due to the fact that at the 96th Academy Awards Ruffalo expressed support for ceasefire after Israel's invasion of the Gaza a few months earlier. [13] [14]
Cumberland School of Law is an ABA-accredited law school at Samford University in Homewood, Alabama, United States. It was founded in 1847 at Cumberland University in Lebanon, Tennessee and is the 11th oldest law school in the United States.
Mark Alan Ruffalo is an American actor. He began acting in the early 1990s and first gained recognition for his work in Kenneth Lonergan's play This Is Our Youth (1996) and drama film You Can Count on Me (2000). He went on to star in the romantic comedies 13 Going on 30 (2004), Just like Heaven (2005) and the thrillers In the Cut (2003), Zodiac (2007), and Shutter Island (2010). He received a Tony Award nomination for his supporting role in the Broadway revival of Awake and Sing! in 2006. Ruffalo gained international recognition for playing Bruce Banner / Hulk since 2012 in the superhero franchise of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Fredric Gerson Levin was an American plaintiffs' lawyer who served as chairman of Levin, Papantonio, Rafferty, Proctor, Buchanan, O'Brien, Barr, Mougey, P.A., a law firm in Northwest Florida. The Fredric G. Levin College of Law at the University of Florida is named for him because of a monetary donation he made to the school in 1999.
Ring of Fire is a progressive syndicated American talk radio program hosted by Mike Papantonio, Sam Seder and Farron Cousins. The three hosts focus on: "exposing Wall Street thugs, environmental criminality, corporate media failure and political backstories rarely found in the mainstream media". The show has been on the air since 2004 and is currently aired on 43 radio stations across the United States.
The University of Florida Fredric G. Levin College of Law is the law school of the University of Florida located in Gainesville, Florida. Founded in 1909, it is the oldest operating public law school in Florida and second oldest overall in the state.
Melvin Mouron Belli was a United States lawyer and writer known as "The King of Torts" and by insurance companies as "Melvin Bellicose". He had many celebrity clients, including Zsa Zsa Gabor, Errol Flynn, Chuck Berry, Muhammad Ali, The Rolling Stones, Jim Bakker and Tammy Faye Bakker, Martha Mitchell, Maureen Connolly, Lana Turner, Tony Curtis, and Mae West. During his legal career, he won over $600 million in damages for his clients. He was also the attorney for Jack Ruby, who shot Lee Harvey Oswald days after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
David S. Shrager (1935–2005) of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania was a United States trial lawyer, author, speaker, and philanthropist. A former president of the Association of Trial Lawyers of America, he specialized in major and complex civil litigation representing consumers, injured healthcare workers and individuals, and appeared before the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.
Jesus Camp is a 2006 American documentary film directed by Rachel Grady and Heidi Ewing about a charismatic Christian summer camp, where children spend their summers being taught that they have "prophetic gifts" and can "take back America for Christ". According to the distributor, it "doesn't come with any prepackaged point of view" and attempts to be "an honest and impartial depiction of one faction of the evangelical Christian community".
Tort reform consists of changes in the civil justice system in common law countries that aim to reduce the ability of plaintiffs to bring tort litigation or to reduce damages they can receive. Such changes are generally justified under the grounds that litigation is an inefficient means to compensate plaintiffs; that tort law permits frivolous or otherwise undesirable litigation to crowd the court system; or that the fear of litigation can serve to curtail innovation, raise the cost of consumer goods or insurance premiums for suppliers of services, and increase legal costs for businesses. Tort reform has primarily been prominent in common law jurisdictions, where criticism of judge-made rules regarding tort actions manifests in calls for statutory reform by the legislature.
Harold Leon Sebring, nicknamed Tom Sebring, was a Florida Supreme Court justice, and an American judge at one of the Subsequent Nuremberg Trials of German war criminals after World War II. Sebring was a native of Kansas and an alumnus of Kansas State Agricultural College. While Sebring attended law school at the University of Florida, he also served as the head coach of the Florida Gators football team that represented the university.
The American Museum of Tort Law is a museum developed by Ralph Nader, located in his hometown of Winsted, Connecticut. The museum focuses on topics of civil justice and "aspects of the legal system that handle wrongful actions that result in injury". The museum opened to the public in September 2015. It is the first law museum in the United States.
James Louis Ferraro is an American litigation attorney and author best known for representing thousands of blue collar workers in mass tort cases against major chemical companies such as DuPont. In 1996, he successfully prosecuted the first case in American history against a chemical company for causing a birth defect. The following year, Trial Lawyers for Public Justice named Ferraro a finalist for Trial Lawyer of the Year, for his work on the landmark case. In 2017, he wrote a book about his experience with the case titled Blindsided. The book became a bestseller the same year, appearing on the USA Today, Los Angeles Times, and Wall Street Journal bestseller lists.
Kenneth L. Hardison is an American lawyer, author and founder of PILMMA, the Personal Injury Lawyers Marketing & Management Association. Known as the "Millionaire Maker," Ken has grown and sold two multi-million dollar law firms and now helps lawyers across the US grow and scale their law firms in order to build the practice of their dreams.
Mark Matthew O'Mara is an American criminal defense lawyer in Orlando, Florida, known for being the attorney for George Zimmerman. He is a former prosecutor.
Karl Michael Tilleman is former Canadian basketball player, two-time Olympian and currently an attorney. Tilleman holds the Olympic records for the most three-point field goals in a single game (10) and half (8) Consequently, Tilleman's national team coach and FIBA Hall of Fame inductee Jack Donohue described Tilleman as "the best three-point shooter in the world".
Levin, Papantonio, Proctor, Buchanan, O'Brien, Barr, & Mougey, P.A. is an American law firm based in Pensacola, Florida, founded in 1955 by David Levin, Reubin Askew, and Fred Levin, originally under the name Levin & Askew. It is best known for its prominent role in the field of mass tort litigation, where it started and continues to host the biannual conference called Mass Torts Made Perfect. In 2016, the National Law Journal recognized Levin Papantonio as one of America's Elite Trial Law Firms.
George Robert "Bob" Dekle Sr. is an American lawyer who was an Assistant State Attorney in Florida's Third Judicial Circuit from 1975 through 2005. During this time, he served as lead prosecuting attorney in the 1980 Orlando murder trial of serial killer Ted Bundy, which ultimately delivered the death penalty that was carried out in 1989. Dekle's book on the case, The Last Murder: The Investigation, Prosecution, and Execution of Ted Bundy, was published in 2011.
Robert Bilott is an American environmental attorney from Cincinnati, Ohio. Bilott is known for the lawsuits against DuPont on behalf of plaintiffs injured by chemical waste dumped in rural communities in West Virginia. Bilott has spent more than twenty years litigating hazardous dumping of the chemicals perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS). They were unregulated as industry had never publicly identified them as having known hazardous effects, despite internal studies showing these results.
Thomas John Heiden is a US-based Trial lawyer and Professor of Intensive Trial Advocacy at Cornell University Law School.
Leonard M. Ring was an American lawyer from Chicago.