A court in Ecuador awarded indigenous farmers in the Amazonian rainforest $19 billion for the environmental destruction created by American oil companies. But then the oil companies discovered dirty work on behalf of the lawyer who argued the case.
Steven Donziger was a classmate of President Obama at Harvard Law School who went to Equador to pursue a case of environmental injustice. Now he’s being sued by the same oil companies found guilty by Ecuadorian courts. Paul Barrett is a senior writer for Bloomberg Businessweek. He’s written about Steven Donzigger’s ups and downs in a new book called, Law of the Jungle: The $19 Billion Battle Over Oil in the Rain Forest and the Lawyer Who'd Stop at Nothing to Win.