<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Power Center: Gore's trial-attorney supporters amassing unaccountable clout
When weighing the merits of presidential hopefuls, it is useful to remember that it is not one or the other candidate alone for whom you cast a vote--it is also the supporters with whom he will surround himself once in office and the constituencies he may be expected to favor during his term.
One of Vice President Al Gore's most crucial groups of backers--and one you can bet will have his ear should be occupy the Oval Office--is the plaintiffs bar: the trial layers whose suits against American industries have netted them mountains of contingency-fee cash.
An example of the rewards their litigation reaps may be seen in the $8.1 BILLION share of the proceeds of a settlement between the tobacco industry and the states of Florida, Mississippi and Texas a three-man arbitration panel bestowed on attorneys in 1998.
Lester Brickman, a professor at New York's Cardozo School of Law and an expert on legal fees, called the prize "grotesque and absurd," adding that "most of this money should have gone to the states." He predicted that instead it would finance a litigious assault against other industries.
That is precisely what happened beginning in late 1998, when New Orleans Mayor Marc Morial filed suit against 15 firearms manufacturers, three firearms-industry trade associations and several New Orleans pawnshops--the first of a wave of big-city lawsuits seeking damages from the gun industry on the novel ground that the manufacturers of a legal product are liable for the unauthorized or criminal misuse of it. Representing the city was a legal team called the Castano Group that had filed the first class-action lawsuit against the tobacco industry, led by New Orleans attorney Wendell Gauthier.
The way Gauthier pitched the litigation to his Castano colleague Stanley Chesley, recounted in the June 1999 American Lawyer, reveal that the that the attorneys' success against the tobacco industry hasn't just gone to their coffers--it's gone to their heads. The suit, the article said, "fit with Gautheir's notion of the plaintiffs bar as a de facto fourth branch of government, one that achieved regulation through litigation where legislation failed."
A FOURTH BRANCH OF GOVERNMENT. One for which there is no provision in the Constitution of the United States, one that evades the checks and balances written into that Constitution, and one that, as Walter Olson pointed out on the Web site www.overlawyered.com, "pays a whole lot better that the other three, isn't subject to the disclosure rules and blind trusts we expect of presidents, senators and chief justices, does its unaccountable work behind the closed doors of settlement rooms from which the public is excluded, and, best of all, doesn't face those pesky distractions know as 'elections'."
The specter of a phalanx of legal predators assuming such a mantle gives the business community cold chills. "This is one of the biggest threats facing American industry today," said Jim Wootton, the executive director of Institute for Legal Reform at the United States Chamber of Commerce. But according to Castano Group attorney John Coale, not all sectors of the economy need worry.
"People kept saying that we would go after the alcohol or fast-food industries next. But we'd never do that," Coale snickered to the Washington Post. "We enjoy liquor and meat too much."
However, the prospect of a victory by Gore's opponent wipes the smirk right off the faces of men like Coale. Texas Gov. George W. Bush not only talks tough on their brand of legal entrepreneurialism, he took action on it, signing into law a tort-reform package that clipped their wings considerable--and saved Texans $2.9 billion in insurance premiums in the process, according to that state's insurance commissioner Jose Montemayor.
Because of this, Coale told The New York Times in March, "It would be very, very horrifying to trial lawyers if Bush were elected. To combat that, we want to make sure he have a Democratic president, House and Senate. There is some serious tobacco money being spread around."
Coale's remark points up the fact that the tobacco settlement has, in effect, turned the trial lawyers from big tobacco's mortal enemy into its co-profiteer. You see, the settlement is no one-time payout. It runs in perpetuity, making smokers a permanent cash cow for the legal eagles and--and political candidates, such as Al Gore, whom they want in office.
Commenting on the tobacco settlement, Harvard law professor Mary Ann Glendon said, "I am very, very worried that the additional clout these amounts give the trial bar will impede any reform of the legal system." Those who share her concern should take note before entering the voting booth Tuesday.
[/quote]
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John/az
"When freedom is at stake, your silence is not golden, it's yellow..." RKBA!
www.cphv.COM & www.handguncontrol.NET are being sued by Handgun Control, Inc.!
See the "cease and desist" letter here: www.cphv.com/lawsuit.html
When weighing the merits of presidential hopefuls, it is useful to remember that it is not one or the other candidate alone for whom you cast a vote--it is also the supporters with whom he will surround himself once in office and the constituencies he may be expected to favor during his term.
One of Vice President Al Gore's most crucial groups of backers--and one you can bet will have his ear should be occupy the Oval Office--is the plaintiffs bar: the trial layers whose suits against American industries have netted them mountains of contingency-fee cash.
An example of the rewards their litigation reaps may be seen in the $8.1 BILLION share of the proceeds of a settlement between the tobacco industry and the states of Florida, Mississippi and Texas a three-man arbitration panel bestowed on attorneys in 1998.
Lester Brickman, a professor at New York's Cardozo School of Law and an expert on legal fees, called the prize "grotesque and absurd," adding that "most of this money should have gone to the states." He predicted that instead it would finance a litigious assault against other industries.
That is precisely what happened beginning in late 1998, when New Orleans Mayor Marc Morial filed suit against 15 firearms manufacturers, three firearms-industry trade associations and several New Orleans pawnshops--the first of a wave of big-city lawsuits seeking damages from the gun industry on the novel ground that the manufacturers of a legal product are liable for the unauthorized or criminal misuse of it. Representing the city was a legal team called the Castano Group that had filed the first class-action lawsuit against the tobacco industry, led by New Orleans attorney Wendell Gauthier.
The way Gauthier pitched the litigation to his Castano colleague Stanley Chesley, recounted in the June 1999 American Lawyer, reveal that the that the attorneys' success against the tobacco industry hasn't just gone to their coffers--it's gone to their heads. The suit, the article said, "fit with Gautheir's notion of the plaintiffs bar as a de facto fourth branch of government, one that achieved regulation through litigation where legislation failed."
A FOURTH BRANCH OF GOVERNMENT. One for which there is no provision in the Constitution of the United States, one that evades the checks and balances written into that Constitution, and one that, as Walter Olson pointed out on the Web site www.overlawyered.com, "pays a whole lot better that the other three, isn't subject to the disclosure rules and blind trusts we expect of presidents, senators and chief justices, does its unaccountable work behind the closed doors of settlement rooms from which the public is excluded, and, best of all, doesn't face those pesky distractions know as 'elections'."
The specter of a phalanx of legal predators assuming such a mantle gives the business community cold chills. "This is one of the biggest threats facing American industry today," said Jim Wootton, the executive director of Institute for Legal Reform at the United States Chamber of Commerce. But according to Castano Group attorney John Coale, not all sectors of the economy need worry.
"People kept saying that we would go after the alcohol or fast-food industries next. But we'd never do that," Coale snickered to the Washington Post. "We enjoy liquor and meat too much."
However, the prospect of a victory by Gore's opponent wipes the smirk right off the faces of men like Coale. Texas Gov. George W. Bush not only talks tough on their brand of legal entrepreneurialism, he took action on it, signing into law a tort-reform package that clipped their wings considerable--and saved Texans $2.9 billion in insurance premiums in the process, according to that state's insurance commissioner Jose Montemayor.
Because of this, Coale told The New York Times in March, "It would be very, very horrifying to trial lawyers if Bush were elected. To combat that, we want to make sure he have a Democratic president, House and Senate. There is some serious tobacco money being spread around."
Coale's remark points up the fact that the tobacco settlement has, in effect, turned the trial lawyers from big tobacco's mortal enemy into its co-profiteer. You see, the settlement is no one-time payout. It runs in perpetuity, making smokers a permanent cash cow for the legal eagles and--and political candidates, such as Al Gore, whom they want in office.
Commenting on the tobacco settlement, Harvard law professor Mary Ann Glendon said, "I am very, very worried that the additional clout these amounts give the trial bar will impede any reform of the legal system." Those who share her concern should take note before entering the voting booth Tuesday.
[/quote]
------------------
John/az
"When freedom is at stake, your silence is not golden, it's yellow..." RKBA!
www.cphv.COM & www.handguncontrol.NET are being sued by Handgun Control, Inc.!
See the "cease and desist" letter here: www.cphv.com/lawsuit.html