“Leaders of the Texas Trial Lawyers Association, aware of their negative image, made a deliberate decision to stay out of public view on a controversial ballot measure to cap lawsuit damages. … ‘This program that has been put together relies on non-lawyers bringing the message to the public. To make this program work we must vow to not communicate with the public media or in a public forum at all regarding the amendment election. NO LAWYERS — NO EXCEPTIONS,'” read an email describing a TTLA strategy meeting. Willie Chapman. spokesman for the trial lawyer group, “said the TTLA has known for a long time that many people believe trial lawyers have an economic self-interest in battles over lawsuit damages. ‘We know it’s best to have messengers like consumers, clients who have had cases, law professors and legal scholars,’ Chapman said.” “The memo outlines a secret plan to disguise management of the campaign against passage of Proposition 12,” charged Rossanna Salazar, spokeswoman for Yes on 12. (Janet Elliott, Houston Chronicle, Sept. 4). (& welcome Dean Esmay readers; one of the commenters there notes that someone may have forgotten to tell the members of the TTLA that they weren’t supposed to take an identifiable role in fighting the proposition, since a Yellow Pages check on the names of letter-writers blasting the measure in a San Antonio paper reveals a plenitude of them listed under “Attorneys at Law”).

Filed under: Houston, medical, politics