Best and the rest for the past week

Excerpt from an editorial from the Connecticut Post

January 31, 2004

Thumbs up to Richard Bieder, a partner in the Koskoff, Koskoff & Bieder law firm in Bridgeport. Bieder, as of Tuesday, is president of Trial Lawyers Care Inc., a national nonprofit organization that provides free legal services to families and victims of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

He helped organize the group in October 2001. Bieder has built a reputation over time for representing the victims of disasters, including the L’Ambiance Plaza collapse in Bridgeport, the Dupont Hotel fire in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and the Oklahoma City bombing.

So far, 2,908 of the 2,976 victims’ families have filed claims with the Sept. 11 Victims Compensation Fund, which is overseen by Kenneth Feinberg, and ends on July 1.

The lawyers of Trial Lawyers Care Inc. offer the families advice on whether they should file a claim or a lawsuit. If they choose to pursue a lawsuit, the volunteer lawyers cannot handle that aspect. Bieder and the Koskoff firm have taken on 16 cases.

“There’s a lot of work to be done,” says Bieder.