(CNN) -- The last month has seen a blizzard of new sex abuse accusations against the Catholic Church from across the United States. Almost all of them -- and the intense media attention they've garnered -- can be traced to one man: a Minnesota lawyer named Jeff Anderson. Last week, an alleged victim of priest abuse in Wisconsin announced a lawsuit against the Vatican itself. Anderson is representing the alleged victim. A couple of days earlier, a Mexican man who alleged abuse by a priest years ago filed suit against Mexico's top Catholic cleric in a U.S. court. The plaintiff is another Anderson client.
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Anderson has driven American media coverage of the church abuse scandal
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In 1983, he was one of the only lawyers in the country taking on such cases
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He has been a key figure in bulk of settlements U.S. Catholic Church has paid out
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Critics: Anderson's work is aimed more at attracting publicity than getting justice
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What this is all about is grandstanding: getting more PR for himself and throwing more mud at the @placeholder."
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That knack for getting clients to publicize their stories of priestly abuse -- largely through the news media -- and spurring other victims to break their silence has been an @placeholder trademark ever since.
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The suit alleges that the Vatican had received a 1995 letter from a deaf @placeholder claiming that he'd been abused by a Wisconsin priest named Rev.
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"I have a different message that Jeff wishes to ignore: this @placeholder is administratively decentralized and decision making takes place largely on the local level.