Is mass tort litigation a depressed market?

In an interview with the Houston Chronicle, Texas legal recruiter Susan Pye answered questions about today's legal job market.  When asked what areas are hot, she mentioned energy law and transactional work.  She was not so sanguine, however, about mass tort work:

Q: Which lawyers are not in demand?

A: Toxic tort and other mass tort litigators. That's a depressed market.

Tort reform really impacted these lawyers. In most cases they don't have portable business, if they had it, it was tied to one mass tort, like asbestos cases.

Some may be more senior, experienced lawyers, too. That's not helpful, the more experienced lawyers without portable business who did mass tort, product liability cases like asbestos cases, those are largely shut down.

In litigation, she said, "mostly commercial cases are left."

HME