New Report Exposes Cozy Relationship Between State Attorneys General and Trial Lawyers
- Posted on October 25, 2011 at 12:35pm by
Christopher Santarelli
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The Center for Legal Policy at the Manhattan Institute released a troubling report Tuesday on the unholy alliance between individual state attorneys general across the country and the plaintiffs’ bar. CLP Director James Copland writes of the troubling findings in the “Trial Lawyers Inc.” report:
“State AGs make possible the payment of windfall fees to their allies in the plaintiffs’ bar, whose lawyers in turn gratefully fill the officials’ campaign coffers with a share of their easily obtained cash.”
The study chronicles questionable bargains between the trial bar and the states’ top law-enforcement officials. In a phone conference with press to unveil the report Monday, Copland said that the trial industry operates like a business, and the Center therefore analyzes the industry like one. Hence the label “Trial Lawyers Inc.”
Copland noted that the relationship of patronage that the study calls attention to operates like an Iron Triangle. Plaintiffs’ lawyers approach state AGs with litigation theories. State AGs contract with private attorneys on a contingency-fee basis. Private attorneys in turn funnel campaign donations to the campaign of the state AG, and round and round the crooked triangle spins. The study notes that the textbook example of this practice, and where the trend really picked up steam, was in the 1994 interactions of trial lawyer Richard “Dickie” Scruggs and Mississippi Attorney General Mike Moore during the massive tobacco ssettlement case.
Hailing from the same hometown as Moore, Scruggs approached the attorney general with the idea of contracting his law firm to sue tobacco companies on behalf of Mississippi. By the 1990s strong evidence had already piled up that linked smoking to serious illness, but tobacco companies remained elusive in court from suing diseased individuals. Scruggs proposed the idea that tobacco companies were obliged to compensate the state for Medicaid expenses stemming from smoking-related injuries, and that the state should hire outside counsel paid by contingency fees. Those fees would translate to much higher paydays for outside lawyers that had usually been paid at an hourly rate. The result of the Scruggs/Moore scheme:
“In the tobacco suits, several states’ settlements reimbursed lawyers at an effective rate of over $10,000 per hour—up to $92,000 in Texas– with over $30 billion going to private attorneys overall, and a reported $1.4 billion flowing to Scruggs individually.
Such unprecedented sums represent simply the enormous size of the settlements, rather than the volume of work performed. The opportunity to score political points by taking on a reviled industry and to fill strained state coffers made followers of top state prosecutors nationwide: eventually, all 50 states signed on to the litigation and entered into a settlement agreement with cigarette manufacturers.”
In the election after 1994, some of the money awarded in these enormous settlements went from the private lawyers to the campaign expenses of the state attorney general who hired them. The study notes that since the tobacco litigation, this contingency-fee arrangement, where portions of settlements ending up back in campaign funds, has become standard practice in the relationship between state AGs and the trial bar.
The CLP study goes on to note other major targets of this relationship in recent years, including raids on pharmaceutical makers, the financial sector and insurance companies. In addition to the shady practice’s operation, the study identifies which current state AGs receive the biggest campaign donations from private law groups, including Jim Hood of Mississippi, Mark Shurtleff of Utah, and the President’s new appointee to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Richard Cordray of Ohio.
The study backs their claim with statistics, showing growth in “Trial Lawyers, Inc.” contributions to the Democratic Attorneys General Association and the campaigns of a few Republican state AGs who are most willing to make such back backdoor deals:
In addition, it notes that many politicians use the hardly-regulated state AGs position as a stepping-stone and vector to make deals with the plaintiffs’ bar to build up their campaign war chest in order to foster further political ambitions. To Illustrate this point, it points to the careers of Rhode Island’s Sheldon Whitehouse, New York’s Eliot Spitzer and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut. All three have recently ascended from state AGs to higher statewide office.
While the report’s findings may be troubling, Copland notes that in 2009, the most recent year for which data are available, tort costs fell as a percentage of the economy for the sixth consecutive year, showing an improvement in the overall civil-litigation landscape in America. Reform of these practices by state AGs could come from recent Supreme Court actions, as well as the passage of the American Legislative Exchange Council’s Private Attorney Retention Sunshine Act. Already passed in ten states, the Sunshine Act mandates public disclosure of contractual relationships between private lawyers and states.
The report has been commended by Edwin Meese III, U.S. Attorney General during the Reagan Administration.
“The 2011 Report on the Alliance Between State Attorneys General and the Plaintiffs Bar, published by the Manhattan Institute’s Center for Legal Policy, demonstrates how the collusion between these groups can foster corruption, unjust enrichment, diversion of money belonging to the tax payers, and cause the degradation of the civil justice system,” he said. “The Report exposes the unsavory relationship which cries out for correction by the states involved.”
More information, and the full report, can be found at www.triallawyersinc.com.
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Comments (38)
ezeewhiz
Posted on October 25, 2011 at 3:49pmHow in the hell is this news?
Report Post »Detroit paperboy
Posted on October 25, 2011 at 4:01pmIts all a racket………
Report Post »fwhpita
Posted on October 25, 2011 at 3:37pmWake Up All Americans – Republicans & Democrats! Quit complaining about the government. It does not belong to you. It belongs to the privileged class of people that you so ignorantly keep voting for. From local to state to Federal government, it is your vote that is destroying what once was our country.
You can call them anything you like. Call them Republicans, Democrats, Progressives, Independents, Politicians, Judges, Congressman, Senators, Legislators, Public Servants, etc. But the one fact and common denominator remains; they are all (with few exceptions).. LAWYERS!
Report Post »Anyway you do the math. America is now ruled 100% by LAWYERS!
Take Our Country Back!
Get Lawyers Out Of Government at: http://WWW.GLOOG.us & http://WWW.GLOOG/wordpress
kspatriot
Posted on October 25, 2011 at 3:15pmWe need some serious campaign reform in this country. First off, Lobbyists should be banned. Secondly, only individuals should be allowed to contribute to campaigns, NOT CORPORATIONS!!! It’s “WE THE PEOPLE”, not “WE THE CORPORATIONS”. Only those eligible to vote should be eligible to contribute. This would do wonders to reform the system.
Report Post »lizaz
Posted on October 25, 2011 at 2:33pmWhich states are these and who are the attorneys general and their party affiliations????
Report Post »turkey13
Posted on October 25, 2011 at 3:04pmBest job in the world! Screw your client and get paid for it. Most sleep like a baby at night – no concience.Only a lawyer can do this – they can even do it to mom and dad.
Report Post »FreedomIQ
Posted on October 25, 2011 at 2:21pmAttorney Generals and the prosecution industry is just that: an industry…and a very profitable one at that! Another notch in the belt for the LAW and its assault on America.
Report Post »turkey13
Posted on October 25, 2011 at 3:08pmEver notice that state attorney generals dont’t have a brown nose – their whole face is brown. Same for lawyers also!
Report Post »kryptonite
Posted on October 25, 2011 at 2:12pm***RED ALERT***
Holder plans to REVISE THE FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT, to allow govt. agencies to LIE about the existence of law-enforcement or national security docuuments. Under the new rule, when people request certain docuuments, federal agencies can “respond to the request as if the excluded records DID NOT EXIST.” http://www.propublica.org/article/government-could-hide-existence-of-records-under-foia-rule-proposal
This is a giant step towards communist consolidation of power. We will lose the ability to legally hold Obum accountable. The traitor will be able to hold sham elections like all other totalitarian regimes in the world and get away with it. Get ready, patriots.
“When the going gets tough, the tough get going.”
Report Post »randy
Posted on October 25, 2011 at 2:03pmDon’t let anyone fool you!
This is all about SOROS and the AG’s he will have in his pocket when the 2012 election results need to be scrutinized because of voter fraud anyone with half a brain knows will occur. The AG’s will stop any and all investigations.
Report Post »shammo
Posted on October 25, 2011 at 1:54pmPoliticians cannot be trusted. They are after as much of the peoples money as they can get. Freedom is getting rid of the politicians.
Report Post »13th Imam
Posted on October 25, 2011 at 1:53pm20 branches , 20 ropes, Add more trees
Report Post »anigmanm
Posted on October 25, 2011 at 1:47pm2 ropes on 2 branches solves the problem
Report Post »trappedinwv
Posted on October 25, 2011 at 1:46pmYeah, and Wallstreet is corrupt.
Report Post »CatB
Posted on October 25, 2011 at 1:43pmThis is different than other politicians how? Seems once they get into an office they all are hard to get out … exactly because of actions like this .. payola.
TEA!
Report Post »Brontefan
Posted on October 25, 2011 at 1:43pmWhat’s five hundred lawyers at the bottom of the sea? a good start! These guys have destroyed our health care industry, almost single-handedly… and now they are stacking the deck. What a shock!
Report Post »legendarytwo
Posted on October 25, 2011 at 1:30pmWhat is it Jesus said about lawyers? Oh, even Jesus didn’t like em. One day what Jesus thinks will count.
Report Post »don young
Posted on October 25, 2011 at 1:20pmThis is why there is and will not be any justice as long as holder is in office.
Report Post »@leftfighter
Posted on October 25, 2011 at 1:39pmThis isn’t a Holder issue. This incestuous relationship goes back further than him, and it’s frankly even more concerning than is let on in the article.
Report Post »I.Gaspar
Posted on October 25, 2011 at 1:17pmIs Eliot Spitzer actually a human being? He looks like one of the creatures from “Ghoulies”.
Report Post »Snowleopard {gallery of cat folks}
Posted on October 25, 2011 at 1:17pmThis goes to show just how corrupt the lawmakers and the judiciary system have become under the Progressives movement; now the facts are verified, if you have money you can buy your freedom while the underdog who cannot afford one of the “wonder lawyers”’ of the all-stars is jailed even if he is innocent.
Justice is blind, bound, silenced, and soon to be gone for good.
Report Post »steveh931
Posted on October 25, 2011 at 1:12pmA immediate investigation by all states into the dealings of their A.G.’s and trial lawyers should take place. Start now, don’t care if it takes 10 years, throw the bums out of the legal System and into prisons where they belong.
Report Post »Wm_Stanley
Posted on October 25, 2011 at 1:11pmJust goes to show you that justice is blind… to the truth.
Report Post »Robert-CA
Posted on October 25, 2011 at 1:11pmThe innocent victim will be the one who can’t hire an expensive lawyer but the rest can get away with it .
Report Post »They’re all crooks starting with DC .
chubbzbar
Posted on October 25, 2011 at 1:07pmThe only way to change will happen in this corrupt system is to publicly fund all election campaigns, with limits on the amount spent, determined by the office that the candidate aspires to. Once private money (your, mine and anyone who wants to donate) is spent equally among campaigns, lobbyists will have no power, lawyers will have no power and elections will no longer be purchased by the biggest spender.
Report Post »Free2speakRN
Posted on October 25, 2011 at 1:04pmI wonder why it is so hard to get rid of frivolous law suits?
Report Post »garyM
Posted on October 25, 2011 at 12:56pmThe lawyers all play golf and go to lunch together including the presiding Judge, the defense and the prosecutors and the Judge, they decide what the outcome will be out of court while eating lunch or playing golf and then they go back to court and act it out, just like Hollywood acting, even on the local level. All the lawyers are interested in is making money and staying cool in the summer and warm int he winter and staying clean, no sweat or real work!
Report Post »pap pap
Posted on October 25, 2011 at 12:48pmI hate to hear about crap like this. These guys live a life of corruption and are fleecing the taxpayers. They should be indicted for being players in this but it’s like the fox watching the henhouse with all the collusion that is going on.
There needs to be some monitored independence that is enforced between the parties involved.
Report Post »HorseCrazy
Posted on October 25, 2011 at 12:40pmwow no kidding. you would have to be thick not to have known this already. there is no justice in the system any longer
Report Post »jb.kibs
Posted on October 25, 2011 at 12:53pmexactly… how\why are all these, so-called, “studies” being funded and why are people wasting their life on stuff everyone already knows. instead of the study you should have been prosecuting them.
Report Post »MidWestMom
Posted on October 25, 2011 at 12:54pmAgreed. Is anyone really surprised at this?
Report Post »Liberty7
Posted on October 25, 2011 at 1:29pmI agree, there is not a bit of justice in America’s court rooms, it is all about WINNING – no matter what it takes.
The late comedian Richard Pryor use to say – There’s justice in America, go down to the courthouse and that is all you will find, JUST US!
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