Lawyers are flocking to Dallas seeking to represent families of those killed or maimed in the Delta plane crash in lawsuits against the airline, its insurers and probably the federal government.

At least one lawsuit has already been filed. Some of the dead have yet to be buried, and some have yet to be identified.

Today, a federal judge in Florida will consider the lawyers' request for an order barring Delta Air Lines from destroying or tampering with the remains of the wreckage before the lawyers can send in their experts and take pictures.

The Federal Aviation Administration is likely to be brought into the lawsuits by Delta and its insurers, U.S. Aviation Insurance Group, on grounds that the pilot was not warned of dangers caused by weather conditions in sufficient time, Houston attorney John O'Quinn said.

The plane crashed during a violent rainstorm, and wind shear may have caused the crash.

Mass disaster cases, like recent airplane crashes in Louisiana and in Washington, D.C., are highly profitable for lawyers. Their usual fee in personal injury cases ranges between one-third to 40 percent of the settlement.

Famed San Francisco torts attorney Melvin Belli has sent members of his firm, including son Caesar, to sign up victims' families and survivors of the crash. When Melvin Belli tries a case, his fee rises to 50 percent of the settlement.

Caesar Belli, 28, and Richard Brown, 35, set up headquarters over the weekend in a Dallas hotel and announced their presence to the press. And with

that massive bit of free advertising, Brown said his firm didn't have to chase survivors.

"They came to us," he said.

Melvin Belli, 77, built his reputation in the 1940s and early 1950s. In 1954, Life Magazine dubbed him the "King of Torts," meaning he won large awards in personal injury lawsuits.

And, as Belli has let it be known in his more than two dozen books, he has probably handled more personal injury cases than any other U.S. lawyer. Belli's firm, with seven offices scattered over California, tries about two dozen cases a year and settles hundreds of others.

"We have five of the Delta cases so far," Belli said from his San Francisco office Tuesday.

"We work with Stan Chesley in Cincinnati and Wendell Gautier in New Orleans. Between the three of us we now have 10 cases from the Delta airplane crash."

Belli was one of the first U.S. lawyers to arrive in Bhopal , India, last December after a chemical leak at the Union Carbide plant killed at least 2,500 people and injured thousands of others.

"Between the three of us, we have been in on all the big cases over the last 15 years," Belli said. "I have 500 Bendictin cases and the majority of the MGM cases."

Bendictin, a drug once given to pregnant women to control morning sickness, allegedly caused some babies to be born with defects such as clubbed feet and missing limbs.

Belli and Chesley tried about 1,000 of the Bendictin cases in a consolidated lawsuit and were beaten in a jury trial in Cincinnati, the home of Chesley's firm.

In 1980, a fire at the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas, Nev., killed 84 people and injured hundreds. About 1,300 people sued, and individual settlements ranged from $5,000 to $4 million. The lead lawyers were awarded $8 million in fees, with Chesley receiving $2.3 million.

Chesley was the lead lawyer for Vietnam veterans in the class-action lawsuit alleging the herbicide Agent Orange caused birth defects, sterility, cancer and death among veterans and their offspring.

Chesley is credited with settling that case for $180 million hours before the trial was to begin in May 1984. There are now more than 240,000 claims against the Agent Orange fund. Nine lead plaintiff lawyers were awarded about $11 million. Chesley's share was about $1 million.

Belli said he also has numerous clients arising from the shooting down of the Korean airliner by the Soviets.

"I also have clients from the (1982) Pan Am crash in New Orleans," he said. "Me, Chesley, Gautier and a West Virginia attorney.

"We have asbestos cases, too, but what we have the most of is the toxic shock cases."

Thousands of lawsuits were filed against asbestos manufacturers for damages resulting from exposure to asbestos fibers. Many cases also were filed against some manufacturers of tampons that allegedly caused the death of some women who used them.

Belli's firm also handled personal injury cases arising from bombings in Tel Aviv, Israel.

As far-flung as Belli's cases and reputation go, a March story in a prominent law journal was headlined: "Clients Beware: Use of This Once-Great King of Torts and His Ever-Changing Band of Associates May Be Hazardous To Your Case."

The lengthy story in The American Lawyer detailed how Belli's skills "do not seem to have kept pace with his reputation."

The story said former clients "talk of unreturned phone calls, unprepared lawyers, and cases that seem to slip through the cracks."

"Belli's firm apparently forgot about the case of Natalie Keenan and Arnold Barden, whose son was killed in a Vietnam helicopter crash," the story said. "The parents decided to sue after they learned their son's accident may have been caused by a faulty helicopter blade.

"In 1981, nine years after the case was filed, Keenan learned that it had been dismissed five years earlier for lack of prosecution."

Keenan and Barden then sued Belli, who settled for $18,000, the story states.

The American Lawyer also cited the case of former Olympics skier Gunter Bartsch, paralyzed in a 1978 skiing accident.

The first doctor Bartsch consulted had diagnosed a sprained neck over the telephone and allegedly refused to go to the hospital to read the X-rays. Bartsch's neck proved broken. Bartsch hired Belli to handle the case, but Belli's firm failed to name the doctor in the lawsuit.

"When Bartsch discovered the omission, he was furious," the law journal reported. The case against the hospital and another doctor eventually went to trial and was tried by one of Belli's partners along with Caesar Belli.

Belli's firm lost that case, too.

Houston attorney O'Quinn, one of the nine lawyers who handled the Agent Orange case for veterans, calls Belli "a bombastic showman. Some people feel that Belli is pretty brazen announcing his presence to the newspapers. I don't hear of him trying cases or getting big verdicts lately. It is one thing to be involved in a case and another to handle it. Where are the big verdicts in the toxic shock cases?"

O'Quinn and another member of his firm flew to Dallas-Fort Worth on Sunday to meet with survivors of the Delta crash.

Hundreds of lawyers are expected to file individual lawsuits for the survivors. O'Quinn is hoping the lawsuits will be consolidated with jurisdiction over the trial and settlements kept within the Texas courts.

"Damages are a lot better in Texas," O'Quinn said. "Under Texas law, you can sue not only for financial loss but also for loss of companionship and grief."

"There tends to be competition among lawyers in these cases," O'Quinn said, adding that a committee of plaintiff lawyers will likely be formed to manage lawsuits resulting from the airplane crash.

Of the behavior of lawyers who show up at the scenes of disasters, he said, "It is kind of sleazy. There is a big argument over whether it violates the canons of ethics. In some places the canons say lawyers are not supposed to search out and contact victims and solicit their business, that that kind of activity is equivalent to ambulance chasing. On the other side of the coin, the Supreme Court has said lawyers can advertise. The question comes down to when does advertising end and ambulance chasing begin?"