Mr. Molo, in rejecting the government's charge that his client's actions were illegal, said Mr. Silver's referrals of patients with asbestos claims to the law firm Weitz & Luxenberg was a means of getting «economic justice» for them, many of whom were blue - collar workers who had «unfairly and unjustly» contracted mesothelioma,
a particularly deadly form of cancer, through work with asbestos.