So suggests Robert Novak, which, if true, puts to question any claims Obama has for being a different kind of Democrat. One wonders how long the prosecutions of Mel Weiss, Dickie Scruggs, or the Kentucky fen-phen lawyers would last. Of course, one recalls, the Clinton administration wasn’t any better when it buried a prosecution of Fred Baron in the Baron & Budd script memo scandal. Baron, who was the head of the ATLA trial-lawyer lobbying organization, is now Edwards’s finance chair, though the media has yet to note this hypocrisy by the supposedly anti-lobbyist Edwards.
Search Results for ‘fred baron’
Does Keith Olbermann read Overlawyered?
A look at the largest donors for Obama and especially Edwards shows a disproportionate number of active members of (the trial lawyers’) lobbying group. Indeed, John Edwards’s finance chairman is Fred Baron, the former president of ATLA. If Obama and Edwards want voters to believe that Clinton is influenced by lobbyist money, what should we think about these two candidates’ debts to trial lawyers? Are we to believe that the critical difference is the lobbyist registration papers, at which point money becomes tainted and dirty?
August 7 AFL-CIO Democratic debate:
OLBERMANN: Senator Edwards, I have a question for you. You made your substantial fortune as a trial lawyer. Trial lawyers are now contributing significantly to your campaign. How is that any better than lobbyists?
Alas, Edwards dodged the question, but it has perhaps contributed to the recent NY Times press coverage.
Assignment Desk: Edwards, Obama, and lobbyist money
At YearlyKos, John Edwards and Barack Obama sought to distinguish themselves from Hillary Clinton by saying they didn’t take money from registered lobbyists, and Clinton was booed for defending herself. (Also: Franke-Ruta.)
I found this curious: after all, Obama and Edwards showed up at the national convention of the lobbying group for the trial lawyers, the former Association of Trial Lawyers of America (who now call themselves the American Association of Justice). There, they gave speeches (as did Clinton, Biden, and Richardson). A look at the largest donors for Obama and especially Edwards shows a disproportionate number of active members of that lobbying group. Indeed, John Edwards’s finance chairman is Fred Baron, the former president of ATLA. If Obama and Edwards want voters to believe that Clinton is influenced by lobbyist money, what should we think about these two candidates’ debts to trial lawyers? Are we to believe that the critical difference is the lobbyist registration papers, at which point money becomes tainted and dirty? Are any reporters going to ask that hard question, or will they let the two candidates demagogue from the high ground as they take millions from the most pernicious special interest group in America?
June 11 roundup
Updating earlier stories:
- The Judge Pearson consumer fraud suit starts today. It’s exceedingly silly, but ATLA’s attack on Judge Pearson is hypocritical: the only difference between this consumer fraud suit and the consumer fraud suits ATLA supports is that it’s an African-American pro se going against a shallow pocket instead of a well-funded bunch of millionaires going against a deep pocket. The Fisher blog @ WaPo notes a publicity-stunt settlement offer. [via TaxProf blog]
- Wesley Snipes playing the race card in his tax evasion prosecution would have more resonance if his white co-defendant weren’t still in jail while he’s out on bail. [Tax Prof; earlier, Nov. 22]
- “Party mom host set for Virginia jail term” for daring to ensure high school students didn’t drink and drive by providing a safe haven for underage drinking. Earlier: June 2005. [WaPo]
- Sorry, schadenfreude fans: Fred Baron settles with Baron & Budd. [Texas Lawyer; earlier Sep. 4]
- Blackmail-through-civil discovery lawyer Ted Roberts (Mar. 19 and links therein) seeks new trial. [Texas Lawyer]
- Second Circuit doesn’t quite yet decide Ehrenfeld v. Bin Mahfouz libel tourism suit (Oct. 2003). [Bashman roundup of links]
- NFL drops claims to trademarking “The Big Game” as a euphemism for the trademarked “Super Bowl” (Jan. 31) [Lattman]
- More on the Supreme Court’s “fake mental retardation to get out of the death penalty” decision, Atkins v. Virginia (Feb. 2005; Sep. 2003). [LA Times]
- What does Overlawyered favorite Rex deGeorge (Sep. 2004) have to do with The Apprentice? [Real Estalker]
Trial lawyer “Wikiality”
Stephen Colbert jokingly called Wikipedia’s strange notions of reality “wikiality”; his suggestions for edits to the Wikipedia articles about elephants caused the Wikipedia servers to crash and the article to be “protected.”
But Wikipedia in general suffers from a severe bias; articles about controversial topics reward persistence over accuracy. Wikiality is especially a problem in articles criticizing the plaintiffs’ bar. Articles on Fred Baron, ATLA, and John Edwards’s legal career have been sanitized into hagiographies; articles on medical malpractice and tort reform have been rewritten to emphasize the anti-reform position, deleting pro-reform statistics, arguments, and evidence.
Ernst v. Merck opening statements
Fortune has the best coverage of the Thursday opening statements, and notes the contrast between the opening statements of plaintiff’s attorney Mark Lanier, which was illustrated by pictures of a steamroller and a shell game, and Merck attorney David C. Kiernan, which the magazine seems to think made a mistake in respecting the intelligence of the jury by relying on the science behind the case instead of folksy name-calling. “If the company hoped to win points with the public for erring on the side of safety—its stated public rationale for having pulled the drug—the wager may have been naïve.” And if plaintiffs’ attorneys succeed in punishing Merck for taking safety measures, it’s bound to reduce safety in the future. Meanwhile, the New York Times publishes a puff piece on the plaintiff widow fed to the newspaper by the attorneys, barely acknowledging that her husband died of an arhythmia rather than a blood clot, and then failing to note that Roger Ernst was just one of 200,000 victims a year of fatal atherosclerosis (except in the small print of a photo of the coroner’s certificate), and thus was not “healthy and fit” regardless of whether he was a triathlete. The Times reveals a rogues’ gallery of plaintiffs’ lawyers helping out Lanier, without giving any indication of their unseemly background: Benedict Morelli (Nov. 23, 2003) and Fred Baron’s wife, Lisa Blue of Baron & Budd (Jul. 15, 2004; Jun. 17, 2004 and links therein). (Roger Parloff, “Stark Choices at the First Vioxx Trial”, Fortune, Jul. 15; Alex Berenson, “Contrary Tales of Vioxx Role in Texan’s Death”, New York Times, Jul. 15; Alex Berenson, “Jury Is Selected for Case Involving the Drug Vioxx”, New York Times, Jul. 14; Alex Berenson, “In First of Many Vioxx Cases, a Texas Widow Prepares to Take the Stand”, New York Times, Jul. 13; previous Overlawyered coverage: Jul. 1, Jul. 11 (includes my disclaimer), POL Jul. 15). Plaintiffs’ attorney Daniel Keller is liveblogging the trial, albeit not in the most objective fashion. Further coverage: Jul. 29, Aug. 19 ($253 million jury verdict).
Asbestos: new at Point of Law
Over at Point of Law, which has an entire category devoted to asbestos litigation, there are several new posts on the subject. Ted Frank reports on a potentially major turnaround in Madison County, Ill. handling of asbestos suits, occasioned by the arrival of a new judge. Guest blogger Michael DeBow links to a substantial Houston Chronicle article on the crisis. As for me, I’ve got posts on how an Australian court has approved a claim for psychological injury from asbestos, on how Dallas tort czar Fred Baron is allegedly retired from the asbestos business (well, sort of), and on the “rocket docket” operation of court schedules in, again, Madison County.
The Men Behind Edwards
Our editor, Walter Olson, has covered this territory before, but it’s worth revisiting as Kerry and Edwards make their way across key states in their bus caravan campaign. The report on the men behind John Edwards at EdwardsWatch makes for interesting reading.:
According to published reports, Edwards received $4.65 million from 3,220 lawyers, 29 paralegals, 17 legal assistants and 555 people with the same address as a personal injury attorney contributor (such as a spouse or close relative). The $4.65 million represents 63% of the total money raised by Edwards. Over one-third of those contributors gave the maximum $2,000..
His biggest contributors include patron, friend, campaign finance director, and asbestos-litigator extraordinaire Fred Baron, Silicon Valley litigator William Lerach (see also this), and the mysterious Stephen Bing.
He also has close ties to the law firms Girardi and Keese and Chitwood and Harley. And that’s just the tip of the special interest iceberg.
Other tidbits from the EdwardsWatch site include the discount air travel Edwards gets from his trial lawyer friends and the money he’s gotten from every state trial lawyers association in the country. Has there ever been a candidate so beholden to one special interest?
More: See also details at Rantburg and Edwards’ PAC donors from OpenSecrets.org.
Capped in Canada
Pain and suffering awards — not just in suits against doctors, but in suits generally — top out at $280,000 (U.S. $210,000) in our northern neighbor’s courtrooms. More details at Point of Law (Olson, Krauss, Krauss). Also discussed there this week: a new report on the incidence of medical errors (Krauss, Olson). And Jim Copland, the site’s managing editor, dares tort czar Fred Baron to substantiate his claim that drug, insurance and chemical companies “have spent over $200 million over the last five years in ad campaigns that make trial lawyers look like villains”.
Welcome National Journal, Salon, Dallas Morning News readers
Stuart Taylor, Jr. takes a hard look at the Kerry/Edwards ticket and weighs the likelihood that it will do much to rein in the litigation biz. Quotes my comment comparing Sen. Edwards to a cleaned-up Michael Moore (“Edwards and the Problem with the Trial-Lawyer Lobby”, National Journal/Atlantic Online, Jul. 13). At Salon, reporter Tim Grieve pens an all-out defense of Edwards which is kind enough to quote me in two places (“The GOP war on trial lawyers”, Jul. 13 (subscription or ad-based “day pass”)). And the Dallas Morning News, in the person of editorial columnist Rod Dreher, includes this site in a short list of recommended weblogs, coincidentally quoting an item of mine on locally based lawyer Fred Baron and his involvement with this year’s Democratic ticket (“Welcome to the blogosphere”, Jun. 23).