For Release: Wed. April 17, 2002
Contact: Bob Weiner 301-283-0821/202-361-0611

NOTICE TO MEDIA:

GENERAL BARRY McCAFFREY and

AMERICAN TRIAL LAWYERS PRESIDENT-ELECT MARY ALEXANDER
TO HOLD NEWS CONFERENCE APRIL 20 ON UPDATE ON WAR ON TERRORISM, 9/11
AND MIDDLE EAST: MILITARY ABROAD AND FAMILIES OF VICTIMS AT HOME
 
SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA, 2:00 pm, SATURDAY, APRIL 20
44 Montgomery Street, Suite 1303

Family of September 11 Victim also to Participate

Reception 7-9 pm with Alexander, McCaffrey, Willie Brown, other California and local leaders

Also open to media as Alexander, set to assume ATLA Presidency in July,
Opens New SF Office to be “A National Center for Victims’ Rights”

Barry
    (San Francisco, CA and Washington, DC) – Four-star General Barry McCaffrey (ret.), former U.S. Drug Czar and now West Point’s Olin Distinguished Professor of National Security, and a national media consultant on the war on terrorism including September 11 and current Middle East events, joins San Francisco’s Mary Alexander, President-Elect of the Association of Trial Lawyers of America (ATLA), in holding a news conference April 20:  “Update on the War on Terrorism: Military Status Abroad and Families of Victims at Home.”  The Bay Area family of a September 11 victim will also participate.

Mary    The event will be held at 2:00 pm on Saturday, April 20, a few hours before Alexander opens her new law offices at 44 Montgomery Street, Suite 1303, that evening.  Alexander will assume the Presidency of ATLA this July.  When she becomes President of ATLA, she says her office will become “a national center for victims’ rights”.  McCaffrey said he is excited to join Alexander, his sister-in-law, both in briefing the media and in opening her new offices.

    A reception officially opening the office, 7-9 pm, with McCaffrey, Alexander, Willie Brown, and other California and local leaders will also be open to the media.

    ATLA, the organization Alexander has been elected to lead, has 60,000 lawyers and champions victims’ rights.  Through ATLA, Alexander has helped to organize and is a founding Board Member of  “TLC” (Trial Lawyers Care), 2000 attorneys working pro bono to assist 1000 September 11 victims’ families who have requested help.  Alexander herself is assisting – free as part of TLC – two September 11 terrorist victims’ families from the San Francisco area – the father of a young woman on Flight 93, which crashed in a farm in Pennsylvania en route to Washington because of the courage of the passengers, and the family of a young woman Navy ensign working in the Pentagon and killed in the events there.  Alexander and TLC are seeking prompt Federal compensation for families such as these in order to properly provide financial support to the families of September 11.

    Alexander has won landmark cases for victims including a record verdict of $13.3 million concerning bicycle product liability, a $2.2 million jury verdict record award in California for asbestos, and the largest settlement ever against the City and County of San Francisco, $4 million, for a pedestrian hit by a city bus.  Her husband, Skip Faulkner, is a Vietnam combat veteran and a businessman, and her father, Theron Alexander, Ph.D., is a noted child psychologist and book author on strategies for raising children.