Plenty of other asbestos defendants have also made huge strides in case management.

New claims have steadily increased since 1997, when the Supreme Court struck down a class-action settlement between asbestos defendants and lawyers for plaintiffs.

The motion is still pending, along with one filed by an asbestos defendant, Eagle-Picher Industries, asking Judge Weinstein to approve a class action.

In the vast majority of these cases, according to the trust's critics and other asbestos defendants, other companies had already fully compensated the victims.

A Jim Walter subsidiary, the Celotex Corporation, is one of the larger asbestos defendants and among those most fiercely opposed to settling claims.

The lawyers representing other asbestos defendants have been sharply critical of the Manville trust because if it runs out of money, then their clients are the next targets for payments.

Executives of the Washington-based trust have come under heavy criticism from some plaintiffs' lawyers and other asbestos defendants.

But some other large asbestos defendants, like the Manville Trust, have declined to join GAF's legislative campaign.

In his moves to slash legal fees and temporarily freeze payments by asbestos defendants to lawyers and their clients, the judge has achieved something that had been considered impossible.

One change the judge made in the original terms of the settlement allows other asbestos defendants to rely on state laws to limit their liability.