Anders, Joel W.

Jody Anderman received his Bachelor of Science degree in Accounting from Louisiana State University in 1985 and his Juris Doctorate degree from the Louisiana State University Law Center in 1988. During law school, Jody was the recipient of American Jurisprudence Awards for earning the highest grades in Louisiana Civil Procedure II and in Louisiana Sales.

After graduating from law school, Jody began his legal career as an associate in one of Louisiana’s largest defense firms. Although Jody gained valuable experience and insight representing corporations, he had a strong desire to represent the working men and women of Louisiana. In 1992, Jody made the decision to do just that and since that time, he has recovered tens of millions of dollars for men and women who have been injured by the negligent acts of others.

From 1997 to 2001, Jody was appointed by federal judges around the country and by state judges in Louisiana to serve as lead counsel in class actions filed against insurance companies involving “vanishing premium” life insurance policies. Many of those cases resulted in multimillion dollar settlements, including a seventy ($70) million dollar settlement with National Life of Vermont, a one-hundred and twenty-eight ($128) million dollar settlement with Allmerican Financial Life, and a sixty-nine ($69) million dollar settlement with Lincoln National Life.

In 2001 and 2002, Jody litigated several environmental toxic tort actions filed on behalf of individuals who had been exposed to toxic chemicals and/or hazardous waste. In one of those cases, Jody negotiated a fifteen ($15) million dollar settlement for residents of a neighborhood who had been exposed to creosote from a nearby wood treatment facility.

Over the course of his career, Jody has had extensive experience in litigating personal injury cases of all kinds, including automobile and trucking accident cases, nursing home negligence cases and premise liability cases, but since 2002, he has primarily focused his practice on representing Louisiana asbestos victims. Jody has gained an intimate knowledge of the legal issues unique to Louisiana asbestos litigation and has litigated many of the seminal legal issues of Louisiana asbestos law. Jody was co-counsel in several cases that went to verdict and has negotiated many multi-million dollar settlements for his clients and their families.

In January of 2010, Cameron Waddell and Jody formed Waddell Anderman, LLC. Through their new law firm, Cameron and Jody will continue to provide personal, quality representation to asbestos victims and others injured in accidents.