Ken Frazier? Why not? He may not have appeared in a state or federal court, deposed a heart attack victim or wrestled with Mark Lanier, but the Merck executive vp - who until recently was general counsel - had to clean up the legal mess once Merck’s chief scientist, Peter Kim, convinced Ray Gilmartin, the former ceo, to withdraw the painkiller in September 2004.

The move sent Merck stock diving and prompted Wall Street to estimate the drugmaker’s liability would eventually run anywhere from $10 billion to $50 billion, after including projected legal costs and settlement payouts. Moreover, the litigation was forecast to cause a huge managerial distraction for several years to come.

Instead, the ultimate payout is much less than forecast, even when considering $600 million in expenses for litigation. Moreover, the strategy of defending each case quickly set a message to plaintiffs’ lawyers that litigation would be expensive for them, which was repeatedly articulated by the avuncular Frazier, even though everyone knew Merck would settle when the time was right. And the Merck legal team racked up more trial victories than losses.

“The $4.85 billion settlement for 27,000 cases (and 47,000 plaintiffs), astonishingly works out to not much more than the nuisance value to Merck of defending themselves against the cases,” writes Ted Frank in the Point of Law blog.

“We view this settlement as a positive for Merck,” writes Barbara Ryan, a Deutsche Bank analyst, in an investor note. “We believe the company’s aggressive and successful defense strategy has given it a heavy hand in the bargaining process and produced a favorable outcome…at a cost that is clearly at the low end of general expectations. We also believe the settlement is completely manageable…(and provides) the opportunity to put the vast majority of this costly litigation behind it.”

The settlement may not work out as Merck hopes. But this morning, Merck can claim a degree of victory and Frazier, of course, made a point of sounding vindicated on this morning’s webcast with analysts and the media. “We don’t see this as a change in strategy,” he says. “This is a product of that strategy.” And he cited timing - the statute of limitations for filing suits was coming up in many states.

Of course, Frazier didn’t do the grunt work. Ted Mayer, the judicious and clever outside counsel from Hughes, Hubbard & Reed, served as point man. But the progress of the litigation no doubt contributed to Frazier’s recent promotion to the No. 2 job at Merck. [UPDATE: And let's not forget that US District Court Judge Elden Fallon pushed Merck to negotiate by threatening to send cases to state courts, where managing a disparate caseload would have been a logistical nightmare]. Still, if you don’t think Frazier looks a wee bit smart today, contrast that with Wyeth’s fen-phen litigation - $21 billion in charges 10 years after the pills were withdrawn.