Food-safety lawyer’s wish: Put me out of business

"I love my job," Bill Marler tells the Seattle Times from his office. "I represent poisoned little children against giant corporations." At 52, he and Marler Clark have extracted $500 million in settlements, prompting him to send T-shirts to every senator reading "Put a trial lawyer out of business. Pass meaningful food safety legislation before Thanksgiving" with his face crossed out. "I'm impatient. For God sakes, get the bill out of the Senate." His breakthrough came in 1993 representing 9-year-old Brianne Kiner, who spent 40 days in a coma after Jack in the Box's contaminated hamburger caused her kidneys, pancreas, and liver to fail. "Being extremely overconfident, I sort of volunteered to do everything and pushed myself to the top," he recalls, including news conferences some call publicity-seeking. He secured Brianne $15.6 million; settlements for 200 other families ran into millions. When giving his "You shouldn't poison people" speech to the National Meat Association: "They introduced me and nobody clapped. I walked up and stood there for a while without saying anything. And then I said, 'You may now clap.'" His "Do Not Eat" list: no hamburgers, raw oysters, sprouts, bagged greens, hot dogs, or unpasteurized anything. On organic advocates fighting legislation: "The local and organic people need to pay more attention to food safety. They say if you can look a farmer in the eye, he won't poison you. I say bull."