The BP oil-spill-litigation cage match starts up again next week in New Orleans. The legal fracas concerns liability for the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil rig explosion and epic spill. Eleven men died, and millions of barrels of oil sullied the gulf coast. BP has already doled out some $26 billion for cleanup and claims payments, but the British oil giant will owe more. BP has battles on other fronts -- not least a pending conflict with plaintiffs' lawyers about one slice of private business and economic claims that for a while seemed to be settled but then erupted earlier this year into renewed vituperation. Billions more are at stake. The one safe bet about the spill litigation is that the lawyers will remain busy well into 2014, and maybe for years beyond.