- Life in prison for adulterers, under Michigan law? [Freep]
- An Albany personal injury lawyer favors abolishing pain and suffering damages in negligence cases [Warren Redlich]
- Lott v. Levitt (Jan. 12, etc.) further discussed [Concurring Opinions]
- Call us kitten fish, cont’d: some trial lawyers re-brand as “civil justice attorneys” [Fulton County Daily Report]
- Smokers’ freedom defended, by Nobelist James Watson and Canadian columnist Jose Rodriguez [Reason, Calgary Sun]
- Dinesh D’Souza’s new book doesn’t sound like it’s going to do any favors for his reputation. [Slate, Eric Scheie]
- Also from Tim Noah: now that O.J.’s confessed, can the law really not lay a glove on him?[Slate]
Posts Tagged ‘AAJ’
A dose of reality
September 1 UPI interview with William Plested III, president of the American Medical Association (via Kevin MD):
Q: Ken Suggs, head of the Association of Trial Lawyers of America, recently told UPI that doctors and lawyers should stop fighting each other and unite against the medical malpractice insurance companies who keep hiking insurance premiums to push their profits higher. How would you respond?
A: Do you have any idea what happened with medical malpractice insurance? It’s almost totally in the hands of doctor-owned companies; doctors who put together their finances to get a company to give them insurance, because the for-profit insurers all ran. There is no profit in this; (the insurers) left it. And people who are not out to make a profit, they’re just out to protect doctors (via) their own insurance companies, they’re the one who are left.
“Trial lawyers target Republicans”
The topics of ATLA’s ad campaign in five GOP districts — drug prices and oil prices — don’t exactly seem central to the organized plaintiff’s bar’s own mission in life, but perhaps the wider message is just that the national Republican party Must Be Punished for supporting liability reform, and any issues that come to hand will do. (Jim Kuhnhenn, AP/Washington Post, Aug. 29)
ATLA, AAJ and the inky cuttlefish
The editors of the Los Angeles Times are not impressed by the decision of the Association of Trial Lawyers of America to change its name to the American Association for Justice (AAJ), and quote Orwell: “The great enemy of clear language is insincerity,” he wrote. “When there is a gap between one’s real and one’s declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish spurting out ink.” (“A Trial Lawyer by Any Other Name” (editorial), Aug. 11) (via Wallace). See Jul. 28 (“kitten fish”), etc.
AAJ… AAJ… AAJ… who?
Gesundheit! Among other problems with the decision of the Association of Trial Lawyers of America to rename itself the “American Association for Justice” — like, that the new name is vague, defensive and presumptuous — Robert Ambrogi points out that it also has the disadvantage of being “cumbersome. ‘ATLA’ is a phonetically pleasing acronym that is easy to say and easy to remember. ‘AAJ’ sounds like the beginning of a sneeze.” (Jul. 20). Longtime ATLA antagonist Victor Schwartz said, “If a shark called itself a kitten fish I would still not put my daughter in to play with it.” (“The profession formerly known as lawyering”, UPI, Jul. 19). George Wallace weighs in with more links (Jul. 14). And Norm Pattis bids the organization farewell (Jul. 21). See Jun. 29, Jul. 14.
Rhymes for “AAJ”, incidentally, include “hodge” and “podge”, “stodge”, “lordly as the Raj”, “wealthy as a Lodge”, and “obvious dodge”.
ATLA’s attack on reform supporters
Evan Schaeffer was very excited by the fact that ATLA made its Trial magazine attack on reform freely available on line, so I clicked over to see what the fuss was. The first story I looked at was Justinian Lane’s “Corporate wolves in victims’ clothing,” which featured, among various baseless assertions and screeds about high executive salaries, the following strawman:
And the next time someone brings up Stella Liebeck and the McDonald’s coffee case, ask why a $2 million lawsuit over third-degree burns to a woman’s genitals is frivolous, but a $5 billion lawsuit over Donald Trump’s ego isn’t.
Fascinating. What fictional reformer supports Donald Trump’s lawsuit? Certainly not the main author of this site, who has repeatedly scoffed at it. Where’s the hypocrisy? (More on Stella Liebeck and the McDonald’s coffee case, which was frivolous, but is hardly the only reason for supporting reform.) Needless to say, I’m not impressed. Lane’s claim that proposed reforms wouldn’t affect Trump’s case is absolutely false; reforms such as anti-SLAPP laws, loser-pays, procedural streamlining, and limiting forum-shopping would all cabin the ability of a Trump to attempt to use litigation to intimidate critics.
Lane asks why reformers argue that “the king’s-ransom salaries ‘earned’ by corporate executives aren’t passed on to consumers in the form of higher prices, but that the costs of the tort system are.” There’s a difference, of course: a consumer can object to high CEO salaries by refusing to invest in a corporation’s stock or to purchase its products or services. But a consumer who buys a car can’t opt out of the huge expenses trial attorneys have added to every motor vehicle in America—$500 for every vehicle sold in America. Tom LaSorda, the CEO of Chrysler, doesn’t make $500 for every vehicle, even if one finds his salary objectionable for some reason. But as long as Lane is criticizing the “hypocrisy” of reformers, one wonders if he’ll turn the same searching eye complaining about high salaries to the multi-millionaire trial attorneys he lauds who, unlike the executives, make their money by destroying wealth and jobs rather than creating wealth and jobs.
ATLA name change official
The Association of Trial Lawyers of America is going to attempt to hide the fact that its interests are solely those that enrich trial lawyers, and change its name to the Orwellian “American Association for Justice,” with truth and the American way apparently not making the cut, and “jackpots” too obvious. Al Kamen and Lisa Rickard snicker in the Washington Post. (“Just Don’t Call Them the Suers”, Jul. 14).
Update: Judy Cates heads ITLA
The Illinois Trial Lawyers Association has installed as its president none other than Swansea, Ill. class action lawyer Judy Cates, known to longtime Overlawyered readers for her venture into columnist-suing (Feb. 29, 2000) following the controversial Publisher’s Clearing House settlement. For one of Cates’s more recent suits, see May 4, 2004. (“She’s our poster-lawyer”, St. Clair Record, Jun. 18).
Poor ATLA
Riding on lawyer money into Congress?
Yes, it’s fairly common for trial lawyers to be a candidate’s major backers, but sometimes it gets ridiculous. In the race among seven candidates to succeed retiring Republican U.S. Rep. Jim Nussle in Iowa’s 1st Congressional District, the contender who leads by a healthy margin in fundraising is 48-year-old Waterloo lawyer Bruce Braley, a Democrat who is a former president of the Iowa Trial Lawyers Association and currently sits on the board of ATLA. He’s raised $305,629 through September:
Braley’s fundraising prowess has turned heads already. And so has the source of his money. Of the $253,000 in individual donations itemized on campaign finance reports, $227,000, or 90 percent, comes from lawyers. It’s a wide base, too. Donors from more than three dozen states have given money.
Of the $23,250 in political action committee money he’s received, half came from attorney-related committees, including $10,000 from the Association of Trial Lawyers of America, or ATLA….
“People who know me think I would make a very good representative,” he says….
One law firm that has been a prime target for conservatives also is a generous donor to Braley. Fifteen lawyers associated with the Baron & Budd firm in Dallas, one of the leaders in litigating asbestos and other toxic substance claims, gave $15,000 to the campaign.
In all, 85 percent of Braley’s donations have come from outside the district. (Ed Tibbetts, “In a seven-horse race, it’s all about the purse”, Quad City Times, Nov. 14).