Who, exactly, is Paul Wolf, the solo practitioner who represents about 2,000 Colombians suing Chiquita under the Alien Tort Statute for supposedly offering financial support to a Colombian terror group? He would have you believe that he is a dedicated advocate, a Spanish speaker with an office in Colombia who is so concerned about his clients' safety that he has refused to disclose their names in the Chiquita litigation. Wolf claims, in fact, that Boies, Schiller & Flexner - which represents more than 1,600 Colombians in ATS litigation against Chiquita - put the lives of 97 of his clients at risk when it poached them from him and proceeded to identify them by name in complaints it filed. Last November, Wolf sued Boies Schiller, accusing the firm in a rambling, 89-page complaint of fraud, tortious interference and invading the privacy of his anonymous clients. He also threw in a charge that the firm was engaged in a civil conspiracy, along with the half-dozen other plaintiffs' shops leading the Chiquita multidistrict litigation, to marginalize him, even though he knows the case better than any of the other lawyers.

"Their basic idea is I'm a rogue," Wolf told me. "They won't include me in the decision-making for the case."

Boies Schiller, as you might guess, does not regard Wolf as a heroic crusader for victimized Colombians. On Tuesday the firm filed its second motion to dismiss his suit, a surprisingly moderate argument that Wolf's case (which was filed in federal court in Washington but has since been transferred to U.S. District Judge Kenneth Marra of Fort Lauderdale, who is overseeing the Chiquita MDL) suffers from fatal jurisdictional and ripeness flaws. But do not assume that the relative politeness of the firm's latest filing reflects its view of Wolf. The firm's substantive motion to dismiss his case, filed earlier this month before the case was transferred to Florida, says Wolf's suit "is filled with numerous factual misrepresentations, unsupported legal claims, logical inconsistencies and outright lies" and fails "to state any cause of action, in complete disregard of relevant legal standards and the time and resources of our legal system."

Wolf, according to Boies Schiller, is making unfounded accusations, unsupported by documentary evidence, in a naked attempt to hold onto a piece an MDL that's being guided by savvier, more experienced lawyers. He sued Boies Schiller "after the MDL plaintiffs group excluded him from the group for uncooperative and inappropriate behavior," Boies partner Nicholas Gravante told me in an email statement. "As he now concedes in his reply brief, Wolf does not even have possession of retainer agreements with the anonymous clients he claims to represent. It's an entirely meritless lawsuit."

At the heart of the dispute are the 97 clients purported to be represented by both Wolf and Boies Schiller. According to Wolf, when Boies Schiller first filed complaints identifying Colombians by name, he cross-checked and supposedly found 149 people whom he had previously signed as clients. He said he subsequently obtained declarations from 97 of them to support his accusation. But Wolf has never named any of his clients in court records, nor produced their retainer agreements. (In his response to Boies's original motion to dismiss, he said that some of the contracts are in the possession of his former co-counsel, though he also said he would produce what he has under a protective order.) Wolf told me he sued Boies Schiller "because my clients expected me to. What am I supposed to do, ignore it? Sweep it under the rug?"

According to Boies Schiller, however, the MDL steering committee has established a process to deal with duplicative representation of Colombian clients (who, after all, are probably dealing with American plaintiffs' lawyers for the first time in their lives). Wolf has refused to work cooperatively with the other lawyers suing Chiquita in the wake of its 2007guilty plea and the $25 million fine it paid to the Justice Department, Boies Schiller contends, and has been excluded from their leadership for conduct that's at odds with the best interests of the Colombians. (Wolf said he opposes the idea of filing a class action to encompass claims by plaintiffs who haven't yet been named and sued Boies Schiller partly because "I need to get control of the situation.")

Ironically, the litigation between Wolf and Boies Schiller is the only action right now in the Chiquita litigation. Judge Marra largely denied Chiquita's motion to dismiss the cases back in 2011, but while Chiquita pursued an interlocutory appeal, the U.S. Supreme Court decided to hear, and then rehear, the Alien Tort Statute case Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum. The Chiquita cases are on hold pending the Supreme Court's Kiobel ruling, which could severely curtail plaintiffs' claims, although Chiquita could still be on the hook if the justices find that U.S. corporations are still liable for conduct with a clear connection to decisions made in the United States.

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