November 29, 2017

VIA ECF

The Honorable Roberto A. Rivera-Soto

Special Discovery Master

Ballard Spahr LLP

210 Lake Drive East, Suite 200

Cherry Hill, NJ 08042

Re: Williams v. BASF Catalysts LLC, No. 11-1754 (D.N.J.)

Dear Justice Rivera-Soto:

We write to supplement the factual record with respect to BASF’s pending 

letter motion dated November 13th to compel the production of additional putative 

class members’ client files possessed by Bevan & Associates, LPA (“The Bevan 

Firm”). See ECF 372–75. 

Now that Plaintiffs have substantially completed the putative class member 

discovery as ordered by the Court (see ECF 360, 366), we provide a descriptive and 

definitive accounting of the effort undertaken to comply with the Court’s Orders. A 

certification is attached hereto. That Plaintiffs’ Counsel expended 326.3 hours over 

11 days to comply with the Court’s Order demonstrates that BASF’s request for 370 

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The Honorable Roberto A. Rivera-Soto

November 29, 2017

Page 2

additional client files is disproportionate to the needs of this case and should be 

denied. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(1).

Respectfully submitted,

/s/ Harry M. Roth

Harry M. Roth

Christopher M. Placitella

Counsel for Plaintiffs 

and the Proposed Class

Enclosures

cc: All Counsel of Record (via ECF)

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COHEN, PLACITELLA & ROTH, P.C.

Harry M. Roth, Esq. (pro hac vice)

2001 Market Street, Ste. 2900

Philadelphia, PA 19103

(215) 567-3500

Attorneys for Plaintiffs and the Proposed Class

I, HARRY M. ROTH, hereby certify as follows:

1. I was admitted pro hac vice in this matter on June 15, 2011. ECF 32.

2. I am a shareholder in the law firm of Cohen, Placitella & Roth, P.C., and am 

fully familiar with the facts set forth herein.

3. I submit this Certification in support of Plaintiffs’ request to supplement the 

record before the Court in its consideration of Defendant BASF Catalysts LLC’s

motion to compel the production of additional client files belonging to putative class 

members represented by Bevan & Associates LPA. See ECF 372–375. 

4. On October 26, 2017, Special Discovery Master Rivera-Soto ordered that 

Plaintiffs’ counsel randomly and arbitrarily select thirty (30) of the putative 

plaintiffs’ client files in this action maintained by Bevan & Associates LPA, 

segregate documents contained in those files into either non-privileged documents 

KIMBERLEE WILLIAMS, et al. 

 Plaintiffs, 

 

vs.

 

BASF CATALYSTS LLC, et al.

 Defendants.

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 

FOR THE DISTRICT OF NEW JERSEY

 

DOCKET NO. 2:11-cv-01754 

CIVIL ACTION

CERTIFICATION OF 

HARRY M. ROTH, ESQ.

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or documents under a claim of privilege, generate a privilege log listing all claimedprivilege documents, and produce non-privilege documents to Defendants and 

privileged-documents to the Special Discovery Master. See ECF 360 ¶ 3(a)–(e).

5. Also on October 26, 2017, Special Discovery Master Rivera-Soto ordered that 

Plaintiffs’ counsel produce the client files of putative class members maintained by 

Early, Lucarelli & Sweeny & Meisenkothen (“Early Firm”), segregate documents 

contained in those files into either non-privileged documents or documents under a 

claim of privilege, generate a privilege log listing all claimed-privilege documents, 

and produce non-privilege documents to Defendants and privileged-documents to 

the Special Discovery Master. See ECF 361 ¶ 2(a)–(e).

6. As part of that production, pursuant to the Court’s Order, Plaintiffs were 

ordered to produce documents and information related to putative plaintiffs’ 

decedents’ settlement of their underlying cases with Engelhard only and not in 

respect of any other party. See ECF 366 ¶ 3.

7. On November 14, 2017, after extensive meet-and-confer conversations, the 

parties agreed that Plaintiffs would use Excel’s randomizing function to identify 

thirty files of absent class members to be selected. Those files were identified on 

November 15, 2017. 

8. Once identified, Bevan & Associates produced the selected case files to 

Plaintiffs’ counsel for their review on November 16, 2017. 

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9. Pursuant to meet-and-confer discussions, Bevan & Associates LPA also 

agreed to produce loose files relating to the “Talc Defendants” (including 

Engelhard), which pertain to both the Ohio Named Class Representatives (Plaintiffs 

Holley, Pease, Ware, Wengerd and Williams) as well as the 30 selected putative 

class members. These files were produced to Plaintiffs’ counsel on November 14, 

2017.

10. In total, Bevan & Associates LPA produced 10,253 pages of electronic files. 

9,406 pertained to the putative member client files, and 847 were from Bevan’s loose

files.

11. The electronic files were produced to Plaintiffs’ counsel as “.pdf”, however, 

the files were not word-searchable as they were imaged in non-OCR form.

12. In total, the Early Firm produced 6,284 of pages of paper files pertaining to 

the files of its 3 putative class members, which were then scanned and converted to 

electronic format for review. 

13. To comply with the Court’s Order, 10 attorneys and 6 staff participated in the 

document review and data entry. In total, Plaintiffs’ Counsel (specifically Cohen, 

Placitella & Roth, P.C.), expended 326.3 hours in total. This included time to:

a. Coordinate project logistics, including, tasking assignments, receiving 

productions, and discussions with Electronically Stored Information (ESI) 

consultants on how to review and ultimately produce documents received.

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b. Train attorneys and staff on ESI document-reviewer platforms and the 

basic contents of a historical asbestos-client file.

c. Review the documents produced for privilege or production.

d. Secondary review of the documents to be produced to ensure that no 

privileged documents are inadvertently produced or discoverable 

documents withheld. This review was performed exclusively by attorneys.

e. Supervision of attorneys’ privilege review and answer inquiries as to 

specific documents.

f. Create, assemble, review and edit the privilege log and where warranted, 

adjust decisions regarding discovery of specific documents. This review 

and process was performed exclusively by attorneys.

14. In total, 264.1 hours was spent on the review and preparation of production 

of 34 files. The following is an accounting of time spent on each file with an average 

of 7.768 hours per file:

a. Bennett, Anthony (Bevan): 5.6 hours

b. Benson, McKenzie (Bevan): 6.1 hours

c. Biggers, Samuel (Bevan): 8 hours

d. Briggs, Larry (Bevan): 8.7 hours

e. Brown, Melvin (Bevan): 5 hours

f. Cheezan, Daniel (Bevan): 11.2 hours

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g. Compton, Clay (Bevan): 1.8 hours

h. Cottrill, Ray (Bevan): 7.6 hours

i. Cuevas, Angel (Bevan): 10.4 hours

j. Curry, Clyde (Bevan): 5 hours

k. Donald, Johnny (Bevan): 7 hours

l. Gasper, Jimmie (Bevan): 11.3 hours

m. Harris, Roosevelt (Bevan): 8.8 hours

n. Henline, Lester (Bevan): 6.7 hours

o. Huffman, William (Bevan): 8.8 hours

p. Johnson, Marvin (Bevan): 8 hours

q. Knight, Tom (Bevan): 5.7 hours

r. Michael, Issa (Bevan): 7.5 hours

s. Monty, Samuel (Bevan): 8 hours

t. Nebgen, Joseph (Bevan): 6.2 hours

u. Rinehart, Richard (Bevan): 7.5 hours

v. Sestili, Paul (Bevan): 5.8 hours

w. Sparks, Donald (Bevan): 6.2 hours

x. Turpin, Richard (Bevan): 3.7 hours

y. Venus, Gary (Bevan): 3.6 hours

z. Villers, Eugene (Bevan): 8.8 hours

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aa.Wagner, Don (Bevan): 7.3 hours 

bb.Whitaker, Charles (Bevan): 3.8 hours

cc.Wilkerson, Claire (Bevan): 17.4 hours

dd.Wittreich, Michael (Bevan): 7.1 hours

ee.Lanza, Santo (Early): 6.8 hours

ff. Parker, Jon (Early): 7.5 hours

gg.Santopietro, Dominick (Early): 24.1 hours

hh.Bevan General: 7.1 hours

15. Were the Court to order that 370 more Bevan putative member client files are 

to be produced, as BASF now requests, plaintiffs’ counsel could reasonably expect 

to expend at least 2,874.16 hours [7.768 hrs./file x 370 files] to comply. This 

estimate does not include significant, non-client specific time to facilitate, supervise, 

and coordinate any future productions. See, e.g., supra ¶ 12(a), (b), (e).

16. To assist Plaintiffs’ counsel in the processing and production of the documents 

and information ordered to be produced, Plaintiffs have used the services of Gemean 

Corp., a professional organization specializing in Electronically Stored Information 

(ESI). Gemean spent approximately 80 hours on this project and has charged 

approximately $15,000 for its labor, as well as, document platform hosting and 

processing charges. Plaintiffs’ counsel reserves the right to supplement this 

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