On Nov. 9, Merck & Co., after long insisting it would never settle the 27,000 Vioxx cases filed against it, turned an about face and agreed to a global settlement in which it will pay $4.85 billion to resolve the bulk of these cases.

Two of the lawyers who were instrumental in bringing this about join us to discuss the settlement on the latest episode of the legal-affairs podcast Lawyer2Lawyer. My cohost J. Craig Williams and I discuss the terms of the settlement and its implications with:

* Thomas V. Girardi of Girardi & Keese, one of the six attorneys who made up the plaintiffs’ negotiating committee.
* Leigh O’Dell, a member of the Vioxx litigation team at the law firm Beasley Allen, whose partner Andy D. Birchfield Jr. was also a member of the plaintiffs’ negotiating team.

We invited representatives of Merck and also of the Defense Research Institute to appear on the program, but they declined.