Talk:Hagens Berman

Issues With Hagens Berman Page

My name is Ashley and I work at Hagens Berman. @Marquardtika: (the main author of the current page) suggested I share any concerns about the page here. Those concerns are as follows:

• Pioneered: The page repeatedly says Hagens Berman "pioneered" the concept of cities suing oil companies for climate change, but this is not true and not directly supported by any of the given citations.
• Accolades: The page heavily emphasizes awards/rankings, like being in a list of 100 influential lawyers, that are not major aspects of the firm's history.
• Opinion: Citation 6 is a WSJ op-ed being used for non-neutral, editorialized quoted commentary that is inappropriate for Wikipedia.
• Sanctions: Citation 7 (Reuters) is cited for about half the current page; seems like an excessive amount of emphasis for a single event.

I haven't found any quality citations covering Hagens Berman itself, the firm's history, etc. to Wikipedia's standards in any substantial depth. The media tends to cover individual cases the law firm was involved in, or pertain to Steve Berman in particular, as opposed to profiles about the firm itself. However, I'm thinking a proper page would be a more balanced portrayal of both wins and losses in the cases covered by the media. AshleyK1990 (talk) 19:12, 23 March 2022 (UTC)

I fixed the first two. I disagree with the second two. The WSJ editorial opnion is significant and the Wikipedia page states that this is WSJ's opionion. The Reuters piece is used for a long section, but I don't see cause for removal. Adding other sources on the firm would be swell, but the fact this hasn't happened yet isn't reason to remove stuff. --StellarNerd (talk) 18:27, 26 March 2022 (UTC)

Understood. Based on your comments above on needing more sources, I'd like to share a draft of a substantially expanded version of the page that would add about 30 citations to independent news articles. The draft still has a dedicated section on the Thalidomide case (the lawyer responsible for that was fired) and even adds other criticisms of the firm, but is overall a more balanced depiction that is more representative of everything said about the firm in the media.

My hope is that you or another editor will review the draft and incorporate all or parts of it, or provide feedback. The draft probably isn't perfect, but would hopefully provide a better starting point for future volunteer improvements. Best regards. AshleyK1990 (talk) 17:08, 23 June 2022 (UTC)

I have been working with Ashley to revise and improve her draft. I believe it is now ready for mainspace. IMO it is a great improvement over the current article, both in the quality of the references and the coverage of the subject, and I am going to completely replace the current article with the contents of the draft. With regard to StellarNerd's comments, I disagree about including the WSJ editorial; it is pure opinion about their political views and has little or nothing to do with Hagens Berman. -- MelanieN (talk) 22:17, 3 September 2022 (UTC)