E-News
August 12, 2008

Trial lawyers: the good, the bad, the ugly

The good:
Tort king Dickie Scruggs sentenced;
Was a max ’04 Gregoire contributor

Tort king Dickie Scruggs, who gave the maximum possible contribution to Gov. Christine Gregoire’s 2004 gubernatorial campaign, is the latest in a string of high-profile trial lawyers to be convicted of misconduct.

Scruggs, a plaintiff trial lawyer who has raked in unimaginable amounts of money with class-action lawsuits, was sentenced in mid-July to five years in prison for attempting to bribe a Mississippi judge.

Two other titans of the class-action lawsuit industry, partners Melvyn Weiss and William Lerach, began serving federal sentences for a kickback scheme spanning two decades that illegally gave money to class-action plaintiffs.

This recent spate of plaintiff-attorney scandals has prompted the American Tort Reform Association to call for congressional hearings into “what may be widespread misconduct by the plaintiff’s bar.”

ATRA president Tiger Joyce said Congress finds time to investigate steroid use in baseball, so surely it could find time to “investigate whether our civil courts are being routinely corrupted by those who can profit handsomely in doing so.”

The bad:
www.TrialLawyerEarmarks.com
exposes special interest legislation

The “Other Washington” is experiencing the same legislative onslaught that hit the Washington Legislature over the last few sessions. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce last week launched a campaign (go to www.TrialLawyerEarmarks.com) to expose the breadth of the trial lawyers’ federal legislative agenda aimed at expanding liability under federal law.

The U.S. Chamber reported that there are 48 trial lawyer provisions pending before the 110th Congress. Trial lawyer earmarks have been slipped into all kinds of legislation: homeland security and farm bills, FDA reauthorization, and telecom legislation. At least two provisions call for tax breaks that apply only to trial lawyers.

Check out www.TrialLawyerEarmarks.com for info.

The ugly:
Tracking the trial lawyers

Trial lawyers, through their political action committees (PACs) and with individual donations, have been giving to political campaigns in record numbers, both at the state and national level.

Here in Washington, Gov. Gregoire has received more than $14,000 from the 10 trial lawyer PACs, with seven of those PACs giving the maximum allowed before the primary election. It’s widely expected these 10 PACs will give another $14,000 or more to Gregoire in advance of the general election.

The most telling fact about the importance of this gubernatorial election for the trial lawyers’ future legislative agenda is that upwards of 2,000 individual attorneys have given $606,000 in advance of the primary election.

And, it’s only August.

Lawyer discipline in Washington

After reading about Dickie Scruggs, you may be wondering about discipline stats in Washington. The Washington State Bar Association’s most recent statistical summary on disciplinary matters is from 2006, which indicates 69 disciplinary actions were taken, including 19 disbarments.

The WSBA appears to have received more than 1,800 grievances in 2006, and resolved more than 1,700 of them. An interesting statistic is that the WSBA receives about 11,000 consumer affairs phone calls every year.

REMINDER:
Our judicial votes matter!
LRC recommends Bond, Hunt

The primary election is only one week away. Unlike other races, a judicial candidate who garners more than 50 percent of the vote advances to the general election without a challenger.

It matters who we put on the bench, so the LRC spent considerable time researching and interviewing candidates. Out of that effort, the LRC recommends Michael J. Bond for Supreme Court Position 3 and Judge (Joyce) Robin Hunt for Court of Appeals Division II, District 2.

Mr. Bond is challenging Justice Mary Fairhurst, the author of the disastrous opinion in Woo v. Fireman’s Fund, which allowed a dentist to recover $1 million from his insurance company after playing a cruel practical joke on one of his patients.

Judge Hunt has served ably on the Court of Appeals for 11 years.