In the nationwide effort to recoup smoking costs, Mississippi stands out as a somewhat unlikely but deserving leader, said Michael Orey, author of Assuming the Risk, The Mavericks, the Lawyers, and the Whistle-Blowers Who Beat Big Tobacco (Little, Brown & Co.), who spoke in a fall Law Center program.

The state's legal history made the tobacco industry almost immune to product liability suits, Orey said. "But, eventually, a group of law school grads from Ole Miss figured out a way to make the industry pay."

In his speech in the Lamar Law Center's Moot Court Room to a crowd of students and faculty, Orey chronicled an unusual series of events that brought state Attorney General Mike Moore ('76), Richard Scruggs ('76), Don Barrett ('69) and several other Ole Miss Law School alumni together on a successful path to making tobacco companies repay the state for health costs related to smoking.

"They caught the industry off-guard using unconventional tactics, courage and creativity. And it just so happened that most of them are graduates of this university," Orey said.

The author, who also is an editor of The Wall Street Journal and a graduate of the University of Michigan Law School, attributed much of the state's success against the tobacco industry to Scruggs's ability to "work with big corporations on their terms." The $250 million-per-year settlement gives the companies the fixed numbers they need to proceed with their business, Orey said. He defended the state legal team's fees as their payment for "assuming the risk" of taking on such a difficult and uncertain lawsuit.

"One billion dollars is a nice payoff for what most people would have thought was a fool's errand in 1994," Orey said.

"Which industry can I sue?" quipped law student Leo Carmody. He and others in the audience questioned whether legal applications from the state's tobacco settlement might be expanded to other products, such as guns, alcohol and bottled water.

"It was wonderful but kind of scary," said law student Merrill King following the presentation. "The fact that our law school has produced so many of the influential people in the process is amazing. It's a great opportunity for Mississippi to put more money toward education and health related projects, like child health insurance and veterans' assistance. But I still have mixed emotions_I mean, where does it all stop? Could someone try to ban junk food?"

A former editor of the professional journal American Lawyer, Orey spent more than three years researching, writing and traveling throughout Mississippi in his quest to tell an unusual story of death, justice and greed. Assuming the Risk chronicles events and changes in the state's legal approach to product liability issues and tobacco in particular.

The recently published book sketches the backgrounds of the prominent figures in both the Mississippi and the national cigarette wars.

Time magazine's Sept. 27 issue calls Assuming the Risk "a fascinating story" and "a first-rate exercise of narrative journalism." The Wall Street Journal devoted almost two full pages recently to an excerpt from the book describing a tobacco industry whistle-blower's Mississippi odyssey.

Adrian Aumen is a staff writer in the Ole Miss Office of Public Relations.