For more than 35 years, Mark Strauss has focused on the difficult question at the center of many mesothelioma cases: how and where did the asbestos exposure occur? His approach begins with the work itself—tasks, places, people, products and time periods—and develops from there through investigation and historical research.
For more than 35 years, Mark Strauss has been finding answers to a question that haunts many people diagnosed with mesothelioma: Where was I exposed to asbestos?
Mark's career began when asbestos litigation was still taking shape. He spent years immersed in the landmark Georgine national asbestos litigation and in courtrooms trying asbestos cases in New York and Pennsylvania. He was among plaintiffs' counsel in the New York mesothelioma litigation that resulted in substantial compensatory verdicts and then $18 million in punitive damages for each of three plaintiffs.
Those years became Mark's education in asbestos — not simply as a lawyer, but in the products, companies, workplaces and trades behind exposures that had occurred decades earlier.
He later spent 17 years in leadership of an asbestos practice, while continuing the work that has defined his career: reconstructing exposures that clients themselves may never have known occurred.
Mark has always believed that better research makes a better asbestos lawyer. When the Internet was new, he recognized what it could do for people trying to uncover old asbestos exposures and became an early adopter of Internet-based asbestos research. Today, he is bringing that same curiosity to artificial intelligence, combining new research technology with knowledge accumulated over more than three decades.
At Humpleby & Strauss, P.C., that experience begins with something simple: listening.
An electrician may remember maintaining switchgear, but have no reason to know that the arc chutes inside it contained asbestos. Someone may remember using the same talcum powder every day for years, yet have no reason to know where the talc came from, who supplied it, or whether it was contaminated with asbestos.
Mark does not expect them to know.
They tell him what they remember — the work they did, the equipment they handled, the products they used.
Then he goes looking for what they couldn't have known.
Mark's background includes asbestos trial work in both states and participation in New York mesothelioma litigation resulting in substantial compensatory verdicts and $18 million in punitive damages for each of three plaintiffs.
His work focuses on reconstructing exposures that clients may never have known occurred.
Mark is a graduate of Washington University School of Law in St. Louis.
New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Missouri, Illinois, and the District of Columbia.
Mark has used emerging research technology throughout his asbestos practice, from early Internet-based research to modern tools that help organize and analyze historical information. Technology can help surface product, jobsite, corporate, and time-period evidence, but it does not replace source verification, legal judgment, or the client interview.