#2.6: Stephen M. Reck & Jose Rojas in The Heart of Law

Stephen Reck and Jose Rojas roll in The Heart of Law to chat with Mirena Umizaj about one of the biggest, polemical cases sweeping the country. They are pioneers in the baby formula lawsuits: the Necrotizing Enterocolitis (NEC) litigation against Mead Johnson and Abbott Laboratories. Currently hoping to build awareness and reverse the careless tradition of offering cow-based formula to premature infants in hospital Neonatal Intensive Care Units (NICU) across the U.S., the two attorneys partner with Scott D. Camassar and Paul Levin (along with firms around America), to protect preemies from mortifying disease and death.

Stephen and Jose open the show by sharing their humble beginnings. Stephen reminisces about his genteel Italian grandmother, Rosa Maria Cornaglia, who raised him through high school; he fondly recalls an idyllic childhood full of incredible food, friendships, and love. After graduating from the University of Vermont, Stephen pursued a legal career and enjoyed the affluence it had to offer—for a short while. He left Wall Street and decided against the lifestyle of a well-paid defense attorney. He bravely took a sizable pay cut to live the simple life of a litigator who fought for the underdog. Stephen’s plight for justice stemmed from Attorney Matthew Shafner’s principled career influence. His late mentor—and legendary Legal Champion of the Working People—left an indelible imprint on his life. Stephen said, “[By helping people,] he turned my life around; although I was poor, [Matthew] taught me something very valuable … he changed my career.” Meanwhile, Jose fondly talks about how his parents fell in love and his dactylic childhood in Madrid, Spain. Raised with a strong sense of equity and fairness, Jose heads off to Boston for college. At 17, he began his life in America with a law degree firmly in mind, subsequently starting a bustling career in the Army JAG Corps. A few years later, he pivots to mass torts; after working for “big entities like the government or big corporations,” Jose discovered the deep satisfaction and joy in “representing people with real problems and having an opportunity to … effectuate change when helping people.” 

No wonder these two lion-hearted attorneys cross paths and fight for the weakest of the weak. Stephen and Jose recount the first two heartbreaking cases—detailing NEC’s effect on preemies' bodies. We understand why, one appalling account after another, the movement began. Stephen describes NEC’s confounding injury spe