Whistleblower, lawsuit accuse metro-east law firm of asbestos litigation fraud
A federal lawsuit is accusing the Gori Law Firm in Edwardsville of coaching its clients to commit perjury and flooding courts in St. Clair and Madison counties with claims it knew were baseless to leverage settlements from asbestos manufacturers.
J-M Manufacturing Company filed the complaint Wednesday in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Illinois. It cited confidential testimony from an “insider whistleblower” among its evidence.
“This lawsuit seeks accountability for what we allege was an industrial-scale fraud operation: manufactured claims, coached testimony, and the deliberate exploitation of the legal system for profit,” Frank Fletcher, general counsel for J-M Manufacturing, stated in a news release announcing the filing on Thursday.
The Gori Law Firm represented plaintiffs who sued J-M Manufacturing in 434 cases, alleging their illnesses were caused by cement pipe the company sold in the 1980s that contained asbestos. Asbestos can cause serious diseases, often appearing decades after exposure.
J-M Manufacturing highlighted a dozen cases filed in the metro-east and St. Louis it calls baseless, asserting the plaintiffs could not have been exposed to underground asbestos pipe. Some plaintiffs worked in professions such as painting, teaching, pharmacy, and sales. Others had stopped working before J-M Manufacturing began selling the product.
The Gori Law Firm has not yet filed a response in court but issued a statement to the Belleville News-Democrat:
“We are outraged by these ridiculous claims from an asbestos company,” the Gori Law Firm stated. “These scare tactics will not stop us from fighting for justice for our clients who are hurt by manufacturers like J-M Manufacturing Company.”
The complaint names five partners at the firm, including principal partner and owner Beth Gori-Gregory and managing partner Sara Salger.
Salger replaced Randy Gori, the wealthy co-founder of the firm, who was murdered in his home near Edwardsville in 2020 and robbed of more than $4,000 and a Rolls-Royce. Gori made millions on asbestos litigation and was known for donating large amounts of money to charity. Gori-Gregory is his widow.
In a separate, earlier lawsuit, J-M Manufacturing accused Alton-based law firms Simmons Hanly Conroy and Sokolove Law of conspiring to find potential asbestos plaintiffs as part of a “fraudulent scheme” to file sham claims. Simmons Hanly Conroy and Sokolove Law have denied fraud allegations in their responses to the litigation.
The latest lawsuit also alleges that Sokolove Law referred cases to the Gori Law Firm.
J-M Manufacturing argues that each of the firms violated federal law prohibiting organized crime — the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, or RICO.
A whistleblower’s account
The complaint states a deposition attorney who had worked at the Gori Law Firm for about six years approached J-M Manufacturing in 2024 and became a whistleblower in the case.
Citing the whistleblower’s account, the lawsuit accuses the Gori Law Firm of a scheme that follows a “fraud playbook,” including:
- The use of booklets that specified which asbestos products plaintiffs should “recognize.”
- Affidavit protocols designed to maximize claims against bankrupt asbestos companies regardless of actual exposure.
- Training programs instructing deposition attorneys on how to coach testimony that would be difficult to disprove.
- A financial incentive of up to 2% of total settlement proceeds for deposition attorneys who successfully coached clients to testify that they were exposed to products belonging to defendants on a so-called bounty list. The list included companies perceived as “easy” targets willing to pay substantial settlements and those that “pissed off” Gori attorneys.
In its complaint, J-M Manufacturing characterized the Gori Law Firm as the top filer of asbestos lawsuits in the country for at least the past decade, based on data compiled by a corporate consulting company called KCIC.
“In 2024, the firm of 45 attorneys filed approximately 788 lawsuits, or roughly 20% of all new cases nationwide,” the lawsuit states.
The Gori Law Firm’s website boasts of recovering more than $4 billion in verdicts and settlements.
