Ten days after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Congress created the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund, which settled claims of the nearly 3,000 people who died that day, on condition that the families agreed not to pursue their claims in court. Ninety families opted out of the fund, and 30 have since settled. Of the 60 remaining, 53 are now represented by Roger Williams adjunct professor of law Donald Migliori.

Migliori is a partner in the Providence office of Motley Rice, a highly successful South Carolina-based law fi rm that built its reputation on asbestos, pharmaceuticals and aviation cases (and more recently, the Rhode Island lead paint cases), but is most famous for a record-smashing $248 billion settlement it secured against the tobacco industry in 1998. The financial windfall from that victory, Migliori explained, gave the firm the means to pursue longer-term, higher-risk, more altruistic lawsuits.

“What the litigating families want more than money is to establish the accountability of the airlines and the security companies for their wrongs, lapses, and negligence that contributed to 9/11,” he said. They are also seeking “terror damages,” defined by Migliori as an emotional distress claim based on “what the passengers experienced between hijacking and crash.”

Even more ambitiously – and controversially – Migliori’s firm has filed suit seeking approximately $1 trillion in damages from a group of approximately 200 charities, banks, and individuals in Saudi Arabia, whom he claims acted as financiers of the 9/11 attacks. In that action (which does not exclude families who settled out of the compensation fund), Motley Rice represents 1,700 estates of those killed on 9/11, 5,000 surviving family members, and 1,500 rescue and recovery workers. “You have to believe in this [work] as an arm of social change,” Migliori recently told Rhode Island Lawyers Weekly. “You can’t be a plaintiffs’ lawyer just because it is profitable; these cases are just too involved.” Migliori – a Cranston, R.I., native –said “the electronic nature of filing and legal practice today makes it possible for me to be anywhere and do my job, so why not be at home?” Being in Rhode Island has also freed him to teach law at Roger Williams.

“I have the very good fortune of talking about what I do in an academic environment,” he said. “My interactions with students help me to look at the basis of what I do in a thoughtful, critical way.”

One such student was Leah Donaldson ’07 – a former flight attendant and airline emergency response manager whose on-the-job experiences eventually led her to law school. With graduation looming, she began researching lawyers and law firms active in her field of interest – and soon focused in on Migliori.

“I looked at a lot of lawyers in the field of aviation law, but I wanted to work for Don – not even Motley Rice in general, but Don specifically,” she said.

As it happened, Migliori was teaching a class at Roger Williams on changing legal landscapes in the wake of 9/11. Donaldson couldn’t take the class due to a scheduling conflict, so she sent him a letter and resume, and they arranged to meet one day after class.