Steven Donziger: Oil and Its Aftermath

are many and sometimes complex. They include things that normally come only out of Hollywood. Unquote. Like most stories that end up in court, this is one with two very different points of view. My guest today, Stephen Donziger, represents one side of the case. According to him, when Texico, later acquired by Chevron, stopped drilling for oil and the m Zon Rainforest, millions of gallons of toxic waste remained

in its wake. For over two decades, a group of Ecuadorians has waged a class action lawsuit over what environmentalists have dubbed the Amazon Chernobyl One Review of Crude, a two thousand nine documentary by Joe Burlinger about the case, reads quote, if you like stories with real life good guys and bad guys than crude is for you. Don Zigger, as lead attorney representing the Ecuadorian plaintiffs, has been fighting

this fight for over twenty years. Chevron claims that the required cleanup has already taken place and that the remaining pollution is the responsibility of Petro Ecuador, the state owned oil company. Stephen don Zigger says Chevron is waging a massive retaliation campaign against him. But this story starts with Texico. They created what is probably the world's worst oil contamination ever.

Um They dumped billions of gowns of toxic waste, even by their own admission, into the streams and rivers and soils of the Amazon rainforest. There were several indigenous groups and farmer communities living in the area when this happened, and they essentially poisoned the ecosystem, the water supply that thousands of people relied on for their drinking water, for bathing, for fishing into, for their very survivals, which had been

pristine rainforest down there before Texico went down and found oil. Correct, And that's exactly right. It had been pretty much pristine rainforest until the mid sixties when Texico showed up and found oil, and they had a huge concession from Ecuador's government fift hundred square miles. They built and developed ten different oil fields. There were hundreds of well sites, about

a thousand of these open air toxic waste pits. They just dug the dirt out of the jungle floor and dumped all the drilling MUDs which contained carcinogens, benzine and the like um oil sludge right into the jungle. And they built these pits on hills and generally they would put pipes on the side and them and run off the surplusage through the pipe down into streams and rivers.

So a big part of this is that the produced water that results from drilling, which in the u S I'm told their common practices to re injected back into the ground into some safety. They did not do that, and they did not do it. They really cut corners to the main lagoons of it everywhere, and and granted this was an isolated part of the forest at that time, but there were indigenous groups that have lived there for millennia that were living and prospering in this beautiful environment.

And they just dump toxic oil and oil waste right into the streams and rivers that they relied on for their sustenance. People were treated with a complete lack of respect. And those people that were there, the indigenous people there in that part of Ecuador, none of them were included if I'm if I understand it correctly in the development of the area, meaning all outside labor was brought from Ecuador.

They had a lot of high paying jobs or relatively speaking for Ecuador, and they brought them and those people who were the local people were just sidelined to like basket weaving or like some little drink. That's generally true, except for one one task, which was to clean up

or purport to clean up the oil spills. Uh, well, I want to go back to so Texico has the find in the sixties and they developed the the oil fields there for like a twenty two year twenty plus year period, and then correct me if I'm wrong, or take me through what happens when when Chevron absorbs Texico. Well, you know, first of all, Chevron knew when it bought Texico and that it was not off the hook. What had happened is that after we initially filed our lawsuit

back and way back. This is probably the world's longest lawsuit, I seem and uh. Instead of dealing with the problem and dealing directly with the communities, Texicos went directly to Ecuador's government and said, oh, we'll put a pittance of money forty million dollars and you give us a release. But very importantly, the release did not release the private claims of our clients. Our lawsuit is a private awsuit brought by private citizens against a private company. It's a

civil lawsuit. This has already been resolved by multiple courts in our favor. But Chevron to this day, for public relations and other purposes, still tries to raise this issue like, oh, we cleaned up, we were released. I mean, first of all, the clean up didn't really happen, And second, the legal document itself does not release them from the private claims. Where'd you grow up? Jacksonville, Florida? In Jacksonville And what your dad do? He was a small businessman in the

in the television picture to business. And what did your mom do? She was troublemaker? Yeah, my mom was was an editor of a local newspaper for the Jewish community in Jacksonville, UM and she was a substitute school teacher and you know, spend a lot of time at home with my my sister and I. She was a great mom. And what was your childhood lack in terms of your own political advocacy? Well, I social consciousness. I I developed

a social constient at a young age. At the world, at a very young age struck me as a very unfair place to a lot of people. When it bothered me greatly, um my mom helped cultivate that. We went to protests in front of local grocery stores, you know, and supported Caesar Chavez and the farm Workers Union. When I was you know, a young ten, eleven, twelve years old, UM, I met a a local elected official in my hometown, Steve Pagick, who was a huge inspiration for me. He

was a really great politician who had a deep social conscience. UM. And as I became a teenager, UM, I took it upon myself to really try to learn the stuff that I wasn't being taught in school about, you know, how the world was really work. For example, Oh, just the the degree of of of you know, injustice, the you know, issues having to do with race, poverty, the stuff that um that that that schools weren't really putting it be four in terms of teaching kids. Um, your mother had

to do something with Chavez. Yeah, and what did you do? Well, we went to a grocery store and you know, we were, uh, you know, we basically organized a boycott of local chain of grocery stores when Dixie and Jacksonville because they were they were you know, you know, Caesar Chavas was trying to boycott the grocery store for various labor related issues in California, later to the farm workers units. Old were you then? I think it was about twelve or thirteen,

maybe you know, in that area. But but you know, look, I had a fun child and I don't want to act like all I did was sitting around a protest, which it was one of the man posters including you know, swimming red lines. I mean we did a lot of surfing. I mean we grew up near that beach. Um, you know, I had I had a really healthy, active childhood. But I always sort of felt like I wanted to utilize whatever professional talents I might one day develop on behalf

of people who were getting screwed over. It's it's interesting how people the people developed that sense of social injustice very young. And you look at the world as a place where there are powerful people that are abusing powerless people and you want to do something about it. Yeah, that's very true. And and look, I grew up in an upper middle class family. I mean I had a

lot of opportunity. But I decided, you know, as I went through college and then law, going to graduate American University, and I wanted to be like in d C, near the politics. And at that time I sort of was under what I think is now a mistaken notion that like it was all decided in Washington. When I realized actually decided other other places, Um, in courtrooms, yes, exactly. So I wanted to be in d C. And then from there I went, I went, I was, you know,

fortunate enough to get into Harvard Law School. I mean I say fortunate enough because I met a incredibly fabulous people there. Who who who do really that the goal when you were a you know, I mean, it didn't even occur to me i'd be qualified, honestly to get into a place like Harvard. I ended up getting, Um, you know, I did well academically, Um, I was very interested in the subject matter. Liked it there. How did you change at Harvard? You're in to you one of

the top law schools in the world. What puts right in front of you? Like this choice, and it's a fundamental, profound choice about life. And because Harvard. You know, when you go to Harvard and come out with a Harvard degree, especially at Harvard Law School, you can do almost anything you want in the legal profession and in other professions. Or you can do almost anything you want, you know,

fighting the power structure that keeps people down. So you know, when people get out of law school, many of them are you know, burdened with debt and and and their choices can become limited because of the financial thing. It takes a lot of I think, you know, commitment to this kind of work to to choose a path that that most people would consider to be complicated and hard.

I mean, for me, it never was. My first job out of law school was working for the Public Defender and Washington d c defending children accused of crimes in d c um out of Harvard, out of Harvard, Yeah, I mean, I made virtually no money, but I love the job. I was in court and it was so interesting, and I learned so much, I mean, skills that I carry forward with me to this day and the work I do now in Ecuador. So so right away when you get out and do good for others versus do

well for yourself. Line, you've made a clear choice. You made a clear choice. But I also don't want to, you know, overplay it in the sense that I enjoy the work. You know, it's not altruism. It makes me feel good about myself and and and it's challenging on so many levels. It's fascinating front about this one case where if you if you survive, you know, if you prevail, you could make a lot of money. Absolutely, so yeah, absolutely, I mean I want to make uh you know, Look,

I will let me put it this way. The purpose of the case, the purpose of the case is not to make money for lawyers. The purpose of the case is to help people who are being grievously harm and

even being killed by cancers and exposures to toxins. However, the model of the case that has allowed this case to be I think great new ground, and the unique aspect of this case to me is our ability to harness what I would call the capitalist model, the free market model in the law to bring in significant resources from investors and others so we can get in the same ballpark as a company like Chevron, which you have to remember, they're not only trying to win the case,

they're trying to kill the idea of the case because they don't want lawyers like us doing this kind of work ever in the future. So it's important that the money aspect is important. And and look, if I end up collecting a fee, I don't know that I will. It's never what's motivated me. Um the plan my personal plan, and I think other lawyers on the case feel the same way as to use some of that money to leverage it back into the into the fight for social

justice around the world. I love that in this New Yorker magazine article that I went back and read again. Uh they quote in two thousand eight, a Chevron lobbyist in Washington told Newsweek, we can't let little countries screw around with big companies like this, And then one Chevron spokesman said, we're going to fight this until hell Freeze is over, and then we'll fight it out of the ice. Yes,

I love that quote. You know, it's funny the the the psychology of a major company that Chevron that's almost always gets its way around the world, and what a company does in this case Chevron, when you actually harness the power of a community based movement. Remember there are communities on the ground in the Amazon, indigenous and farmer communities that are behind this case. They have a democratic organization down there that runs the case that hired me,

that hires other lawyers. The power that you can create when you organize properly at the grassroots level and you're smart enough to connect that up with capital, that is, you know, people who have money to back it. Understanding that they can actually themselves make money off of the claim is what's absolutely paradigmatic shifting about this case. I mean, because they've never seen a situation where a a Harvard law grad and many other people. It would be a

mistake to say that it's primarily me. I mean, there are a lot of people working on the team. It's a team, but you know, I've been in the only lawyer still left who was in at But what they don't like is a guy like me and others who have access to the power structure, the elite hedge funds. You know, classmates of mine who are in very powerful positions, including the President United States, can connect up with you know,

people in the jungle who don't have any money. I mean they their business model does not account for what has happened here, Okay, which is why they're fighting it so hard. Whether why they're spending so much money, why they refused to settle the case. How did the government of Equador evolve over the time that you've done the case, because if I read about different administrations that have come in,

some have been more disposed towards helping it than others. Correct. Well, look um, you know what what Chermon and what Texico now Chermon has countered on Latin America, but really all over the world is that they can go into a place to a deal with the government, get access to oil, and just work the system in their favor. I mean, you know, there was there was significant economic advancement in Equador because oil. The still is to this day. I mean,

they're they're a member of OPEC. You know, oil is a huge part of the national budget, even with prices down, It's a very important part of what's allowed the country to develop socially. Now what we experienced. Remember I started going down there. I've been down there about two hundred and fifty times. I used to go to Ecuador like you would fly on the shuttle to d C from New York. I mean I would go for a day meeting,

come right back. Okay. Luckily it's the same time zone as New York, so it wasn't that and you know, it didn't really shake me up too much. But I've been there many, many times. In two thousand seven, um man named Raphael Correa was elected president. He was a former professor, young guy um very nationalistic, has a PhD in economics from US University, very capable. And over the last ten years he's been president, and I think the

country has changed. What's changed in terms of the Ecuador case, in terms of the Chevron case, is you finally had a president of Ecuador who cared about what was happening to his own citizens, these indigenous groups and farmer communities in the jungle, these impoverished groups. And in Berlin just film he shows up. Yeah, Berlin just's film, he shows up.

You know, So the first time you have a president who goes down sees what really happened the oil is visible all over the place, talks to the people and says, this is one of the biggest outrages I've ever seen. They were very often that guys like that, they're sincere at the moment that they say that, yes, and then things evolved when the how is he held up as an ally? Look, this is the thing. Okay, he has his job, we have our job. We don't work together.

We're not part of the same team. He's the government, we're a private lawsuit. However, I think it's important for the world to recognize that Raphael Correa, the president of Equator, the first person ever to go down there and see the damage and talk about it, has stood by the victims. Okay,

he hasn't interfered with the lawsuit. And what I decided, along with my colleagues in Ecuador, was that until we convinced the country public opinion that this was a battle between a country that had been completely screwed over by an American company, in that company as opposed to the indigenous people only in Texico, we would never win the case. So we spent a hell of a lot of time doing media work and and speaking at schools and university

You had been a journalist. Temporarily, I wasn't. I was a journalist became. I worked in Nicaragua during the height of the Concert War. I worked there from nineteen four to nineteen eighty seven, saw young people covered the war. Lived in Monaugua. I worked initially for United Press International, and then I freelanced for a bunch of papers. The

Christian Science Monitor of Philadelphi inquired. I mean that was back when people read newspapers, you know, And I made a living writing freelance stories out of graduated from Harvard Law School. No, I had graduated. That was between time in law school. I did that for four years and then I went to law school. I mean that's where

I really learned about the culture of the Spanish. And you know, when I went to law school and got out of law school, because of that previous experience in Latin America, I was able to sort of build on that because I got to do legal work in Latin America. I loved the region too much, and there's I want to sort of somehow figure out a role for myself down there and ended up in this case. But did

you learn during that period that helped you later on? Well, look, I mean, isn't it all part of the same power structure? I mean, I mean what I learned. I mean, first of all, in Nicaragua, I saw, you know, a battle for for social justice against a US back dictator. Um. I saw you know, the sacrifices people willing to make to get the most basic things in life that many

people in the US take for granted. And I understood what it meant, you know, in a way that I could never probably get from living in the United States. And it gave me perspective. Okay, I mean from that point forward, nothing ever seemed too big for me. You know, nothing ever seemed too complicated or toobelievable, unbelievable like you know, I mean, I felt terribly lucky, uh, you know, to to have grown up in a place where I had the space, you know, to develop the way I've developed.

Because there's many countries in the world, as you know, when people speak out, they get killed or they get put in jail off. Yeah, and they get put off. That just sort of that just sort of made me redouble my commitment to wanting to do what I wanted to do with my life. You know, It's like I've got to do something. Why why? Well, look, I mean, you know you could have done a little of that. You could have been people in New York, I know where you made a lot of money and then you

had a dinner and you gave money to help. Why don't you do it that? Our lies would have been so much better with her? She loves you. You could have done this, like you know, thousand the table, but you didn't do that. Um, why you know, Look, I never wanted not to make money. I mean I like money, or at least enough to be financially secure and to enjoy my life. And and look, my wife and I both work and we make enough money to live relatively comfortable.

There's no complaints. We have one kid. We live in Manhattan. You know, we're not wealthy by any means, but we live fine. We take a vacation a couple to three years. We're okay. Man, it's all good. If we win the case, obviously, I will hopefully recover a percentage of the thing, which is two years if your life you've spent. And if I'm able to get that, I'll be in a different position.

I mean, our goal, my wife and I have discussed this extensively along with the clients, and we want to create an entity uh to to continue to do the work in other places explore the Here's the Thing Archives where I talked with Joe Burlinger, the director of Crude, on why he makes films about real events. I mean, the idea of capturing human drama in all its ambiguous glory as it unfolds before the camera is first of all, an incredible way to make a film, and secondly to

have faith. Take a listen that Here's the Thing dot org. This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing. My guest today is Stephen Donzigger, the lawyer who represents a group of Ecuadorian people in a landmark, decades long class action lawsuit against Chevron. The case has been fought both in Ecuador and the United States. In two thousand and eleven, Donzigger one in Ecuador, and it was a big win, resulting in a nine point five billion dollar

judgment against Chevron. However, three years later in New York, federal Judge Lewis Kaplan declared that this judgment could not be enforced in the United States due to what Kaplan described as quote dishonest and corrupt measures of Donziger's team that led to the verdict in Ecuador. Don Zigger is currently appealing the Caplan decision. If don Zigger prevails and Chevron pays, he could see a large amount of cash, although that wasn't the goal. Look, I never did this

for the money. I'm thrilled to be able to do it and make enough money to live, you know, relatively comfortably. Um. I do want the money though, if I can get it, because I wanted to continue to do this work and train in fund of the lawyers to do this work around the world. I mean, I want to help create new capacity on the progressive side of the law to fight these powerful corporations that to me, are abusing the law.

You know, I can tell you I personally have been targeted with what is probably the most well funded corporate retaliation came in ever. If you google me, you'll get all this negative stuff. But I want to get to what did you do about the litigation finance thing? Who? Okay, so you created that if someone came to you with the idea, so you know, look, you know you needed money. I needed to be creative about getting money because you know, look for several years, the case sort of went along

at a certain level, and we were fine. When it was clear we were going to win the case in Ecuador, where cheveryone wanted it, they decided to try to destroy the case. And the turning point was in May two thousand nine when sixty Minutes ran a segment on the case and it made them look terrible. They interviewed me, and a couple of days later, I got an internal email from Chevron because I've litigated against him and gotten some of their documents, and they said, let's go after

this lawyer. Because they calculated that I was like at the center of it all. They could cut off the head the whole thing Nicksonian strategy, and they hit me with everything they have. I mean, they sued me under the civil racketeering UH statute. They sued me for sixty billion dollars. I live in a two bedroom apartment. Okay, imagine coming home, you know, to your wife and say, hey, honey, um, you know, she says, how'd you had your day go?

And you say, oh, well it was okay. So I got super sixty billion dollars today, you know, I put it at the end of the left. I had a nice lunch with my mom and then I went and brought you some flowers when I got exactly but no one, as far as my research tells me, in a individual in our country's history, it ever been sued for so much money. Okay. And I was being sued as I litigated this is two This was in after the sixty minutes pace. Yeah, this was in Okay, So the sixty

minutes was in two thousand nine. They actually hit hit me with the lawsuit on February first, two thousand eleven. Okay, And that day I was lying down to Ecuador. I got off the plane in Miami to change planes. My BlackBerry was blowing up, and I was like, holy shit, they really did it. Like I couldn't believe they actually we're going to do that. There is that case. Now, well, we ended up litigating it and they won. I mean, how do I explain this? Um? They dropped all the

sixty billion on the EVA trial. They dropped all the damages claims because under our system or legal system, if you're suited for money, you get a jury. If you're

not sued for money, you don't get a jury. So in order to do that, they dropped any money damages, and they would not be attacking us to this degree had we not effectively called them out for what we believe their environmental crimes and from so just to finish this, so when you come up with the idea that you need the money and you're gonna monetize this with the litigation finance, you came up with the site where someone came to you and suggested try this, And how did

you do it? Where does the money come from? So it comes from different sources. It comes from a combination of wealthy individuals and organized hedge funds that invest in Patent Bogs is a law firm that helped us raise money. They're they're a major capital. Burford was a fund um Woodsford was a fun Mr de Leone was an individual. He didn't have a fund, but he would invest personally.

And this is a guy I went to law school with, by the way, who ended up making a lot of money in the internet poker space and he became very wealthy, and we he was in the Latino Law Students Association with me at Harvard, and we stayed in touch and he ended up funding a lot of the case. UM. But we have had a diverse, diverse sources of money that have backed this case through the years, and it's it's really the key to our success. It's pretty clear

to them now that we're not going away. So take me like a baseball box score, just through the beats of the highlights. So these are the highlights. Ninety three. We start the case in the US. They wanted it in Ecuador. We fought to keep it in the US. They won that battle. So in two thousand one we go back to Ecuador. A lot of people said, don't go. You're waste your time. It's like this union leader told me it will never happen. Um, you're wasting your time.

But we did it anyway. UM. And then you know, the case started to go real slow. They were trying to sabotage the process. The new guy gets elected. You know what was the name of Raphael Correa Corea. Um. Then we win the case in two thousand eleven eighteen billion. In two thousand and thirteen it got affirmed by the Supreme Corpate. The money got have because they took out a punitive damages component, which is unfortunate. So the judgment ended up being nine point five billion, But interest runs

the more they delay. Now yeah, um, and and right now, the judge it's worth about ten billion dollars, which, by the way, it might seem like a lot of money, but it really isn't. But there were also movements. If I'm not mistaken, because I'm not just only relying on the New Yorker magazine because I read a bunch of different articles online about you and about the case. Is that also Chevron in the way that they tried to

move the case out of the US into Equador. They tried to move it back to the U S. And you you got jurisdiction, You've got a ruling in Canada. Yeah so so yeah, okay, so again the highlights, we file in the US, it goes to Ecuador at their request, we win in Ecuador. They then to retaliate, come act to the U S where we originally wanted the case to happen, and sue me personally, sue my colleague Pablo Fajardo personally, he's a lawyer and equator Caplin's the judge

hated my guts. I mean, part of my problem with Kaplan is that Joe Burlinger, the claim. Documentary filmmaker had made a movie about the case, and which came out in two thousand nine, premiered at Sundance, and I was one of the protagonists in the film, along with Pablo and some others. Chevron was able to subpoena from Burlinger

hundreds of hours of his out tail. Let's let's let's go through that from minute, because to get to the film and to some of the white water that you hit later in the case, I think, if I'm not mistaken, Chevron saw a cut of the film and there was something in there that was later omitted from a cut of the film, which is what prompted him to say, give us the six hundred hours and we want to see what else, She admitted. I mean, look, Joe Burrowinger followed us around for three years. Um, Joe and I

became very comfortable. Joe has me talking very frankly about my frustrations, my fears, strategy, strategy, my joy ay, um, lots of very personal things, and I personally, as well as my clients, made a conscious decision to cooperate with Joe because we felt like it was far more important to get this story told than to somehow adhere to some sort of notion of the law that you should never work with a filmmaker during a case, which, by the way, many lawyers work with filmmakers. So I think

it was a wise choice to work with Joe. What Chevron did is they got all his outtakes. Well, I didn't remember half the stuff I had said over three years, and and they found snippets of me saying some admittedly stuff that I probably should not have said, stuff like, um, you know all the all the judges here are corrupt and so, and then I'd say, um, I talked about Chevron at a frustration. I said, you know, if you tell a lie thousand times, it becomes the truth. I

said that in reference to Chevron. The way Chevron edited the outtakes they cut out there and this is his philosophy, you know. So and there was a big legal battle with Joe, and he he invoked some freedom of the press that would have you had the journalist privilege, which was I mean, Joe just got and they punctured that and they got the six hours and they got result of that for your world, the journalist world. I think

it was terrible. I mean, I mean basically, Joe Burrowingrew's an artist and he had to turn over his art. I mean, it was just a super bad result for us. Um. I think it created a certain sensation that something might have been wrong with the way we litigated the case, which has taken us a really long time to combat because Chevron, you know, has so many resources and they

have websites up about this kind of stuff. But in the end of the day, it was never evidence in the Ecuador case, it was never relied on by the court, and most of the outtakes show us doing what we should do. Where is the case at now? Well, in Ecuador, it's over. I mean we we We've gotten the decision affirmed by the Supreme Court. We have a case with Kaplan now or the case with Kaplan. It's on appeal.

It's on appeal. But ultimately, look, there's nothing cap one can do to block the villagers from forcing their judgment. Outside the United States, where do you think that will happen? I think it's most likely to happen in Canada. You do now, um, So it's safe to assume that right now you're waiting for this somewhat reduced verdict like nine point five billion or whatever it is. What's what's the

amount now, it's about ten billions, so ten billion. You're waiting for a ruling potentially from the Canadian court that you can access Chevron's assets there. That's exactly right. Look, the key any idea, what the timeline is for that, The key point of action, the center of the action now is in Canada. It's in Toronto. How do you think that will take? Well, it depends. Chevron's strategy is grinded down, grinded down, grinding down. Right now, they're trying

to basically relitigate everything. That have one child. I have one child. He's no girl, he's a boy. That's his name, Matthew. So Matthew Donziger might be the attorney sitting in the courtroom in Canada collects the check for you know you and I'll be gone, will be dead, and Matthew Donziger and would be like, look to the order of Matthew Donziger. I hope not I hope, but you know it's possible. Look, it doesn't matter to me at this point. Okay, we we we are going to stay in this as long

as it takes. A message needs to be sent a message needs to have you done this if this is you haven't taken any other cases. No, No, I've done a lot of other case. You've done a lot of the case in a lot of other cases right now, right now, over the last years, I've mostly worked on this, but I've done you know, I've worked on different law firms. I've done a lot of different cases. And look, there's other stuff and you know I want to do too,

and planned to do. I mean, right now, it takes a lot of time because we need to sort of get some things organized in Canada in terms of the financing for the next few years and that kind of stuff. But you know, I I see a day in the not too distant future where I think this whole thing can resolve in the favor of the Ecuadorians. And this is the thing I settle. Well, I think I think ultimately we get near their assets in Canada, they're going to be forced to settle. I mean, they're not going

to let their assets. B cs always good if they settle. I want to read you one thing. Not everyone embraced don Zigger's leadership. Esperanza Martinez, who runs Oil watch Suit America, an environmental group, and Quito told me, I confess the intense personality that Steve has, it's a struggle for me. Sarah Lee Whitson, a longtime friend of his who is now at Human Rights Watch, acknowledge that some people are

put off by don Zinger's stubbornness in this theatricality. But it was precisely these qualities, she said, that enabled him to take on an oil giant. Quote. He's a leader and the fact that he's the one who has been with the case for over a decade has kept it going. What was it like for you in uh Berlinger's film to see yourself? What did you say? What did you think when you saw yourself? Because because you do come across and I don't begrudge this, I mean, we all

have to have confidence in what we do. You have to you have to convey confidence for leadership, to convince people of the rightness of what you do. We have to strike a certain post. And you do come across from time to time as a big fan of yourself in the film and you're thinking, you're very confident. I'm a big fan of myself. I mean I think, look, I think what we as a team have put together and accomplished as extraordinary. I'm thrilled with what we've accomplished.

I mean people looking like, oh, you've been a talk, you've been suited. No no, no, no, no no no. But you know, look, you asked me how I how I in the film. I have to say it was mixed. I mean I was I didn't come across uh, you know, it was complicated. I there are aspects of my personality that I would see on the screen. It just it didn't really make me feel very good about myself. But you know, look, I've been in this over twenty years. I've evolved as a person. I mean there were times

I couldn't have to. I couldn't go a day down there without yelling at people because I was so frustrated by the complacency of this Ecuadorians who were being victimized the same people are. They like, You've got to fight. This isn't an American battle, It's an Ecuadorian battle. Do this fight. Fight And ultimately, as we you know, built up our team and learned how to deal with these people and eventually won the case. It's very much now in the hands of the Ecuadorians. I mean it's This

case is not about Steven Donziger. This case is about people in Equator who are now fighting back with the help of international allies like myself. But it is not my case. I do not own the case. It is owned by them, and ultimately they can They can fire me any day they want if they don't want me to work for them anymore. Two last things, would you like to see a movie made of this case? And who would play you in the movie? Look, there's been talk of a movie. I and the people I work

with wanna have a movie. Any movie people. I have talked to some movie people. Um, but you know, the person who would play me would have to have tremendous fire in the belly. To be angry. I have to be angry for the I mean. I mean, look, I I have a very wide range of emotions. I don't know if it's come across in this interview, but I mean I I laugh a lot, I cry a lot, I yell, I scream. I live the full game, and

I care and I'm intense. Look, I try to be self aware and I try to people with respect, but I also try to accomplish the goals that I have for people who are being completely screwed and to have no voice. And if it means that you sort of some people are not going to like you for that, so be it. It's inevitable if you're going to actually create the kind of meaningful change that I think we're creating. I mean, Chevron hates my guts and you want to

see their emails about me. But you know there's also allies, natural allies and in the progressive part of the legal community who don't like sort of the way we're going about our business. But you know, when you break I believe we're breaking the mold. The amount of resources we brought in the fact we've been able to actually win a judgment in Ecuador after all these years is a precedent setting its historic. We still have a lot of challenges.

We have a lot of work to do to actually recover the money and do the clean up, which is the ultimate goal here. But you know, when you do those types of things, you're going to break furniture and you're gonna piss people off. And if you sort of want to live a life where you want everyone to like you, you're not going to be able to do this kind of work. Effectively so by the way, I used to want people to always like me, and I had to learn that it was okay to have people

dislike you as long as it's for the right reason. Look, the key to this whole thing is is to just understand what's really happening and understand that you've been successful. They want you to believe you failed. They want you to get demoralized, they want you to believe you have mountains to climb, And I see it very clearly. I think this has been a fabulous experience. We've accomplished so much, We've come so far. We have a little bit more distance to go, and I believe we will get there.

And they can't stand the fact that we still feel the way we feel about art, publishment. It's anyone's guess how Stephen Donziger's fight will end. This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to here's the thing would make the past time