Readers who are aware of my collective dissections list know that I differentiate between ‘pure boilerplate copy’ filings by the San Francisco law firm Sher Edling and “Sher Edling Assistance,” where the latter lawsuits are a small handful seemingly appearing to be independently written in a manner suggesting Sher Edling had no hand in composing them, but then later became directly associated with that firm. My initial prediction back in May 2024 was that Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel would be committing political suicide if she elected to bring that firm in as ‘assisting counsel,’ and my update 4½ months later detailed how she had indeed made that massively unwise decision official. Time would tell if the filing turned out to be just another filing that copied ’n pasted accusation content from prior Sher Edling filings. A good indicator it would was AG Nessel’s equally unwise choice of the secondary ‘assisting law firm’ of DiCello Levitt which – as I showed in my dissection of the Pennsylvania Bucks County v BP lawsuit – had essentially plagiarized its material straight out of Sher Edling’s Chicago v BP filing. Notwithstanding the presence of DiCello Levitt having ‘top billing’ as the assisting firm for Chicago, my dissection of that one showed how it was a typical Sher Edling boilerplate copy ’n paste effort, the latest in a long string of them at the time.

But while this new 1/23/25 Michigan v BP filing gives Sher Edling ‘top billing’ for its assistant firms, it doesn’t follow Sher Edling’s typical copy ’n paste template.

Right out of the gate, what appears to be ‘artful rewriting’ of that template is a detail that could kill the entire climate litigation lawfare effort – here and possibly in the UK court system. Hold that thought until the very end of this blog post

Meanwhile – let’s observe how MI v BP appears to be an ‘artfully rewritten’ Sher Edling boilerplate copy filing – less important tell-tale indicators first, then the big blunder last:

✓ The “Joseph Carlson memo” — PDF file page 69, paragraph 152. This particular ‘memo evidence’ that ‘Exxon knew about the harm of global warming’ as far back as several decades ago (Exxon could not have, in the face of all the coverage of the global cooling crisis) is endemic among the Sher Edling boilerplate copies, and others which apparently plagiarize Sher Edling content, e.g. the Hagens-Berman filing of Kennedy v Exxon. But in Sher Edling’s boilerplate Maine v BP, as I detailed in that one, they oddly switched to using “Perma.cc” citation links for the Carlson memo file scans, unlike their prior habit of just linking to an innocuous-looking “DocumentCloud” PDF file (e.g. how they started in their 2017 San Mateo v Chevron filing). Sher Edling’s May 2025 Hawaii v BP boilerplate copy at least saved the firm some virtual ink by re-using the same Carlson memo Perma link as it used in Maine. This new MI v BP pulls that same new citation link stunt . . . . but here’s what happens when the layers of that “Perma.cc” maneuver are peeled back in the cases of Maine / Hawaii / Michigan – doesn’t matter if you use the Maine or Hawaii version or this new Michigan version:

• Click on the Perma link – it takes you to that organization’s showing of the 8-page memo scans
• Click on its “View the live page” link – it takes you to an “s3.documentcloud” page with the full url PDF file address spelled out
• Take that PDF file address and swap out what I have in red in this illustration with the very small little differences in the address and enter that into the web browser
• Where do you land? At Kert Davies’ Climate Investigations Center upload of that old memo scan

For any newly arrived readers here at my GelbspanFiles blog reading my material for the first time, Kert Davies is not simply just some benign investigator, he is that Kert Davies, please see my extensive background info post about him here; he’s a central figure behind the 4 central accusation elements about ‘skeptic climate scientists being paid industry money to spread disinformation,’ an enviro-activist apparently with a vendetta against the industry that dates back to the late 1990s. Hold that thought about his name, it will come up again in the next checklist ✓ item. Meanwhile – all of the above surrounding a 1988 Exxon memo which does nothing to prove they or other fossil fuel companies knew with any certainty the use of their products caused catastrophic global warming.

🚫 Missing “Richard Lawson memo” – which has otherwise been another of several tell-tale repetitions in Sher Edling boilerplate copy lawsuits. This is not the first time that one has gone missing, as I mentioned in my dissection of their Chicago v BP filing. But she was not missing completely in Chicago, she’s cited just the same way in Michigan as an extraneous source … except in a manner that’s simply not-well-thought-out at two separate levels. First, this filing cites her November 2021 UK Guardian article as a source about an alleged American Petroleum Institute ad about ‘natural gas being “essential to address climate change.” Her own article is disingenuous about the portrayal of what is actually a corporate sponsored 1,350 word+ op-ed piece – which nobody would mistake it for being just a regular advertisement in any traditional sense. It’s quite odd Michigan cites Oreskes in this manner – hold that particular thought until I get to the last checklist item.

Now, lets look for the 4 central accusation elements checklist items which are tell-tale repetitions in Sher Edling boilerplate copy lawsuits:

✓ Ye olde oft-repeated (but never implemented!) “victory will be achieved memos — PDF file page 72, paragraph 159. This basic accusation in Sher Edling’s prior two boilerplate copy filings – Maine and Hawaii – had the same wording and even the same “Perma.cc” citation source link, and as I noted in my dissection of Hawaii, the huge problem there was the ‘hidden source’ trick that nevertheless led ultimately to – here’s that name again – Kert Davies’ internet upload of the worthless memo when he worked at Greenpeace. However, here in Michigan the wording is different, and its “Perma.cc” citation source link is brand-new . . . . which is actually a huge problem. Michigan‘s identifies their source straightaway as being an upload made by from “Inside Climate News” (ICN) organization. By doing that, Michigan is technically hiding the original source for those horrid photocopy scans behind what appears to be – at first glance – a benign ‘news’ investigations organization.

• As I showed in my Aug 2022 blog post, ICN’s benign appearance is betrayed by their original name, “Solve Climate News.” ‘Solving’ the ‘climate crisis’ is a political agenda.
• As I showed in my July 2024 blog post dissecting a proposal to prosecutors for filing ‘climate homicide charges,’ ICN’s PDF file for the “victory will be achieved” memo is identical to Kert Davies’ upload via his Climate Investigations Center and via his several years earlier Greenpeace upload.
• Thus, no need for any subsequent new uploads of the same degraded photocopies when the one at Greenpeace USA will suffice.

✓ “Bankroll” scientists” (a.k.a., the Willie Soon accusation) — PDF file pages 84-85, paragraph 187. Over the many years of Sher Edling filing their boilerplate copy lawsuits, they were quite consistent in this instance of using the word “bankroll,'” the majority of my screencaptures in my blog post list of lawsuits hurling that accusation at Dr Soon show the sheer repetition of that word in their filings. Click on the screencaptures I’ve underlined within my list of other lawsuits apparently plagiarizing Sher Edling content, and you’ll see the same “bankroll” repetition in those. While Michigan regurgitates the same basic accusation element about “$1.2 million,” it departs significantly from the standard template. In prior Sher Edling filings, the main ‘source’ for the bit about Dr Soon ‘failing to disclose his funders’ was a Smithsonian press release from Dr Soon’s employer about an investigation into the matter, and then a link to the archive version of the press release after the Smithsonian took it offline (Dr Soon says its departure resulted from Smithsonian’s internal investigation finding no wrongdoing on his part). However, rather than cite any new or contrary investigation results from Smithsonian, Sher Edling continued that reckless pattern right into their just-previous May 2025 boilerplate copy, Hawaii v BP – their Perma.cc link for their footnote citation #260 is nothing more than their prior Internet Archive link.

Michigan doesn’t bring up that fatally faulty Smithsonian citation source at all, they instead label Dr Soon as a ‘cartel associate,’ and with regard to the balance of their accusation …. they offer no citation source whatsoever. None. Damaging as the word “deliverables” might be in that passage, even the supporters at the pro-global warming Desmogblog website think it is paper thin.

Michigan covered the two last of the standard 4 main accusation elements in one paragraph, potentially making one of the more prominent mistakes they could possibly make.

✓ The “reposition global warming” memos / “Chicken Little” / “Doomsday” ‘advertorials’ — PDF file pages 70-71, paragraph 156. Again, identical to the above accusation about the “victory will be achieved” memo, there is zip, zero, nada citation source about the “reposition” memo or the two – just two! – references about newspaper advertorials. Is that a clumsy oversight mistake made by some inept law firm intern working for one of the three?

• It would have been a snap for an intern to put in a footnote citation reading,

“supra note 55, Geoffrey Supran and Naomi Oreskes, The Forgotten Oil Ads That Told Us Climate Change Was Nothing, The Guardian 193–199″ …

…….. oh, wait, that’s the article I mentioned in my “🚫 Missing Richard Lawson memo” above, where Naomi Oreskes shows the same two never-published memos, the same never-implemented memo directive, but contradicts this lawsuit filing by labeling the PR campaign with a name they never operated under. The same Oreskes who is on retainer – ineptly? – with Sher Edling.
• It would have been a snap for an intern to copy ’n paste the same trio of ICE newspaper advertorials citation sources Sher Edling has used in its boilerplate copy lawsuits, e.g. in Hawaii, along with the same citation source for the collective accusation about the memo and ads, e.g. in Rhode Island v Chevron …….. oh, wait, in every lawsuit where Sher Edling cites the Union of Concerned Scientists ‘dossier,’ it always points to the citation cascade problem where UCS’ citation source is the old “Greenpeace USA née Ozone Action” degraded photocopy scans collection – the ones proving Sher Edling cropped the main body text out of the one advertorial that actually was published. That Ozone Action, the place where Kert Davies – there’s that name again – worked back in the late 1990s.
• It would have been a snap for an intern to create a Perma.cc link to Vic Sher’s own 2017 Youtube video presentation about the ICE ads since he is the lead expert lawyer for these lawsuits …….. oh, wait, Vic Sher cannot keep his details straight on those if his reputation depended on it.
• It apparently was a snap for an intern transcribe the lousy ad text out of the “Chicken Little” / “Doomsday” ‘advertorials’ …….. but apparently not so much to additionally transcribe the non-existent toll-free number in one and the never-used PR campaign name in both, the latter embarrassingly undercutting what Michigan says is the name of the campaign. But if a hapless intern had included those faults along with the two degraded “Greenpeace USA née Ozone Action” ad scans … which law firm administrator made sure the incorrect names and lousy scans didn’t make it into this filing?

One more thing: Michigan‘s paragraph #157 following right after the “reposition” memo / non-ICE ads – want to see where its words “ICE also made its own ‘science advisory panel’ in an eerily similar way? They’re in the very same old Ozone Action page I’ve been pointing to for years on the connection of my blog’s namesake Ross Gelbspan to – here’s that name again – Kert Davies old workplace. Coincidence? Probably not.

None of all that is good at all for Michigan AG Dana Nessel. Also not helping her one bit – or the wider litigation lawfare effort that may (emphasis on the word “may”) now include the UK High Court-filed Casquejo v Shell PLC lawsuit – was her choice of Hausfeld LLP as her third assisting law firm in this case. I didn’t think much of her choice at the time in May / October 2024, but with Hausfeld being tacked onto the bottom of the typical pure boilerplate copy November 2024 Maine v BP filing, almost as though they were just an out-of-the-blue afterthought, I added several details near the end of my dissection of that one how Hausfeld was instead possibly a very big new problem for the wider litigation lawfare effort.

If my educated guess is that Hausfeld – the sole law firm handling Casquejo v Shell – has repeated what’s in this Michigan filing and/or what’s in Sher Edling’s Maine v British Petroleum (trumpeted at Hausfeld’s own website like they are the lead firm) within the lawsuit document that is somewhere in the UK High Court system …………. the odds of them being able to squeeze out of a sizable amount of trouble are very much against them.