Mike Papantonio

Mike Papantonio is a senior partner of Levin, Papantonio, Thomas, Mitchell, Rafferty & Proctor, P.A., one of the largest plaintiffs’ law firms in America, having handled thousands of cases throughout the nation including Pharmaceutical Drug Litigation, Asbestos, Breast Implants, Factory Farming, Securities Fraud, the Florida Tobacco Litigation, and other mass tort cases. “Pap” has received numerous multi-million dollar verdicts on behalf of victims of corporate malfeasance.

Papantonio is a Board Certified Civil Trial Lawyer by the Florida Bar and the National Board of Trial Advocacy.  He is a fellow in the International Academy of Trial Lawyers and the International Society of Barristers. Papantonio is a member of the American Board of Trial Advocates; the American Association for Justice (formerly the ATLA); the Southern Trial Lawyers Association; and the Florida Justice Association (formerly the Academy of Florida Trial Lawyers), where he served on the Board of Directors for five years.

Papantonio is listed in the publications, Best Lawyers in America and Leading American Attorney.

In 1998, Papantonio teamed with Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., the Hudson Riverkeepers, and Water Keeper Alliance, to establish a Riverkeepers program in Northwest Florida, known as the Emerald Coastkeepers, Inc., a full-time organization that serves the community as a public advocate for the waterways of Northwest Florida. Coastkeepers and Riverkeepers are reputable for their willingness to take polluters to court. In 2001,  Papantonio filed two lawsuits against polluters, which lead to a $70 million settlement. In 2007, as lead trial counsel in the environmental class action case of Perrine v. Dupont, Papantonio received a jury verdict award for a West Virginia community with an estimated value in excess of $380 million.

In 2008, Papantonio was selected by the Public Justice Foundation as a finalist for its Trial Lawyer of the Year Award.

In 2011, Papantonio was awarded the Perry Nichols Award, the highest honor given by the Florida Justice Association. The award recognizes individuals who fight valiantly and with distinction for justice throughout their lives.

In 2012, Papantonio served as President of the National Trial Lawyers Association.

Papantonio has authored and co-authored instructional articles on handling complex litigation for trial lawyers.  He is the founder of the cutting edge continuing legal education seminar organization, Mass Torts Made Perfect, which has and continues to train thousands of lawyers in how to better their legal practice. The organization has hosted speakers such as former President Bill Clinton, James Carville, Johnnie Cochran, Bob Woodward, Elliot Spitzer, Jack Kemp, Al Sharpton, Arianna Huffington, Dick Morris, Paul Begala, and Dan Rather.

Papantonio is an author of four motivational books for lawyers. He is also co-author of Air America: The Playbook; listed by The New York Times as a Political Best Seller.

Mike Papantonio is currently the host of Ring of Fire, along with Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and Sam Seder, a nationally syndicated radio show. In addition to the radio program, Papantonio also hosts Ring of Fire which airs on the Free Speech TV network.  Papantonio has conducted hundreds of recorded interviews with guests including Dan Rather, Helen Thomas, Howard Zinn, Arianna Huffington, Mary Chapin Carpenter, David Crosby, Merle Haggard, Morgan Spurlock, John Edwards, Bill Moyers, Rickie Lee Jones, Alanis Morissette, Pete Seeger, Jackson Browne, Chuck D from Public Enemy, Henry Rollins, Ted Sorensen, and Elizabeth Kucinich.

Papantonio’s role on Ring of Fire is featured in the movie, Jesus Camp, which was nominated for the 2007 Academy Award for Documentary Feature.

Papantonio is a political commentator frequently appearing on MSNBC, Free Speech TV, RT America Network, and Fox News.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. likes to say he’s been an environmentalist all his life. As a young boy, he kept pet snakes and raccoons, bred homing pigeons and pheasants in his backyard and learned to train hawks. He even considered becoming a veterinarian. Today Kennedy is widely recognized as the country’s most prominent environmental attorney, working tirelessly to safeguard the environment and public health. He is the founder and director of Pace University’s Environmental Litigation Clinic in White Plains, New York; president of the Waterkeeper Alliance, an international coalition of 99 grassroots groups; and senior attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council. The peripatetic Kennedy also crisscrosses North America several times a year, stirring audiences of college students, community groups and elected officials.

His op-ed columns appear regularly in The New York Times and other major newspapers. In 2004, he wrote Crimes Against Nature: How George W. Bush and His Corporate Pals Are Plundering the Country and Hijacking Our Democracy. The bestselling book fulfilled a lifelong dream: At the age of 10 Kennedy had told his father, then a United States Senator from New York, that he wanted to write a book about pollution. March 2005 brought another literary milestone: his first children’s book, St. Francis of Assisi. He is also co-author of The Riverkeepers.

Kennedy’s indefatigable drive is sustained by his personal connection to the outdoors –he’s a master falconer, an accomplished kayaker, skier, sailor, and fisherman–and by fatherhood. His four sons and two daughters range in age from three to 20, which gives him the long view. Despoiling our air, land, and water may make corporations richer in the short term because they don’t address the costs of pollution, he says, but it steals from the next generation. “Our children are going to pay for our joyride. And they are going to pay for it with denuded landscapes and poor health and huge cleanup costs that they are never going to be able to afford.”

Kennedy sees the lack of environmental protection under the Bush administration as emblematic of a much larger problem, “a kind of corporate crony capitalism that is antithetical to all the values that we cherish.”
“Really all environmental injury is an assault on democracy,” he says, “because the most important measure of how a democracy is functioning is how it distributes the goods of the land – the commons.”
Excerpted with permission from “A Kennedy in Action” by Elliott Negin, published in OnEarth magazine. www.nrdc.org/onearth

Sam Seder

Sam Seder is a New York based political talk show host. Seder’s daily podcast, The Majority Report, airs live atwww.majority.fm . Seder regularly appears on CNN, CNBC, MSNBC and on Current TV’s Countdown with Keith Olbermann.  He also is a regular fill-in host for MSNBC and Current’s Countdown.

Seder hosted four different shows for Air America including the Majority Report with co-host Janeane Garofalo, The mid-morning Sam Seder Show, the weekly Seder on Sundays and co-hosted the web only video show Break Room Live with Marc Maron. Seder also served as the Editor in Chief of AirAmerica.com.

Seder co-authored Fubar: America’s Right Wing Nightmare with Stephen Sherrill, blogs at the HuffingtonPost and has a weekly video series entitled “That’s Bullsh*t” at www.samseder.com.

Seder is also a professional comedy writer and director. Seder’s writing credits include pilots for HBO, NBC, Fox and CBS. He co- wrote, produced, directed, and acted in the feature length comedy Who’s the Caboose?, starring Sarah Silverman, H. Jon Benjamin and David Cross, acquired by the Trio cable Network. Seder performed the same duties and reunited the cast in the Trio, six-part mini-series sequel to Caboose, entitled Pilot Season. Seder’s directing credits also include Comedy Central’s I’m with Busey and Studios USA’s Beat Cops. Currently, Seder does voice work on the Fox cartoon, “Bob’s Burgers” and his acting credits include 10 network pilots and guest spots on various television shows including Sex in the City.