By Tuesday 25 victims of the April 16 Virginia Tech shootings -- or their families -- had filed notice of potential wrongful death or negligence lawsuits with the town of Blacksburg, Montgomery and Roanoke counties and the state.

Some notices were also sent to Radford and the counties of Floyd, Giles and Pulaski and members of the New River Valley Community Services Board. Those notices accuse the board of failing to properly monitor shooter Seung-Hui Cho.

Among the new notices filed this week, since a batch on Friday, is the only one not related to a student: Family members of slain engineering professor Liviu Librescu filed one in Blacksburg.

The families of two students killed on April 16 who had ties to the area-- Henry Lee of Roanoke and Jarrett Lee Lane of Giles County -- also filed notices.

Under state code, Tuesday was the deadline to file the notices with local government officials in the wake of the shootings, which left 33 people dead and more than 20 wounded. Victims and their families have until April 16, 2008, to notify any state agencies, including Tech, of possible suits.

Tucker Martin, spokesman for the Virginia attorney general's office, said Tuesday that the state had received 21 notices of possible legal action. Montgomery County and Blacksburg had each received 25. It was unclear late Tuesday just how many were received in Roanoke County. Officials have been expecting the notices, which don't necessarily mean that a suit or suits are imminent. No actual suits had been filed in Montgomery or Roanoke counties as of Tuesday, and it remains to be seen how many suits -- if any -- are actually filed.

The majority of the notices of potential suits have been filed on behalf of individuals or their families. But one filed Monday in Blacksburg contained a warning of a class-action suit. Texas attorney Mitchell Toups filed a notice on behalf of the family of Lee, as well as all the dead and wounded and "all other students, faculty members or visitors on the Virginia Tech campus ... that were in or near Norris Hall or West Ambler Johnston Residence Hall" on the day of the shootings.

Washington, D.C., lawyer Richard Heideman filed a notice with Blacksburg officials accusing the town of wide-ranging negligence that led directly to the death of Librescu, a Holocaust survivor. He was shot and killed while barricading a door that stood between Cho and a classroom full of students. Because of his actions, some of Librescu's students were able to jump from classroom windows to safety.

The notice blames the Blacksburg Police Department and other town emergency response personnel for failing to plan for and respond quickly to the shootings, and seeks to hold Blacksburg responsible for failing to close down the campus after two shooting victims were found in West Ambler Johnston.

The family of at least one slain faculty member has sought compensation outside of a lawsuit.

"On my children's behalf, I accepted the agreements to receive workers comp -- that includes waiving the right to sue the state of Virginia," Linda Granata, the widow of professor Kevin Granata, wrote in an e-mail. "This I did because it is a know[n] quantity, whereas litigation is a gamble."

Tech spokesman Larry Hincker said the university has filed accident reports for all of the faculty members killed April 16. Filing the reports is the first step in the process by which families would receive workers' compensation. From there, the Workers' Compensation Commission in Richmond would determine who is eligible to receive benefits.

University of Virginia law professor George Rutherglen said Tuesday that he is skeptical about the prospects for a class-action lawsuit. "The Virginia Tech massacre unfortunately involved a lot of people, but not a lot compared to the typical products liability class-action case," Rutherglen said.

While there's no firm minimum, class-action lawsuits generally involve 30 or more plaintiffs. Rutherglen said the number would likely be smaller in the Tech case for several reasons: some potential plaintiffs are represented by lawyers who might not be inclined to pursue a class-action case; others would not be able to proceed in federal court because they are state residents. A civil case in federal court must involve parties from at least two different states. Virginia law does not allow class-action lawsuits.

Although Blacksburg and Montgomery County have received far more notices than Tech to date, legal experts said that has more to do with the six-month deadline than the town's potential liability. Considering that Tech was the site of the shootings -- not to mention the main location where Cho's troubling behavior played out -- the university is likely to be the main target of litigation, said Carl Tobias, a professor at the University of Richmond's law school.

Serving notice to the town is simply a way for lawyers to keep their options open while they investigate multiple theories, Tobias said. With a two-year statute of limitations, lawyers have time to wait out a number of variables, including whether the General Assembly sets up a compensation fund similar to the one created by the federal government after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, according to Tobias

Assuming that Blacksburg or other local governments are eventually sued, they would likely be protected by sovereign immunity, the legal doctrine that generally bars lawsuits against state and local governments, according to Elizabeth Dillon, a Roanoke lawyer who serves on the Virginia State Bar's local government law section.

There are some limited exceptions to sovereign immunity. But the protection is so strong that the Virginia Supreme Court cited it five years ago when it dismissed a lawsuit against the city of Alexandria brought by a woman raped by an on-duty city police officer. Keeping a local municipality in a lawsuit related to the Tech shootings "would take some creative lawyering," Dillon said.

In any case, officials from the governments involved said they are covered by insurance, or in the case of Tech, a self-insurance fund that protects against loss from such suits.

Staff writers Greg Esposito, Laurence Hammack and Angela Manese-Lee contributed to this report.