Posts Tagged ‘politics’

Nader flashback

Our least favorite litigation advocate is running for President again. Here’s what we said about him four years ago, and on occasions since then. More: Michael DeBow (Southern Appeal) takes note of a curiously worded reaction from a Green Party official. And: Mark Kleiman has more (“One of the bitterest lessons I learned as a young and naive liberal staffer on Capitol Hill was that the ‘public interest research’ produced by the Nader groups was systematically fraudulent.”), as do Megan McArdle and Jacob Levy.

Update: “Diaz, Minor face additional counts”

Mississippi Supreme Court scandal, cont’d: “A federal grand jury added extortion and attempted bribery charges Friday against Justice Oliver Diaz Jr. and trial lawyer Paul Minor, postponing their March 1 trial. … The new charges allege Minor in 2001 tried to extort $20,000 for Diaz from trial lawyers representing Dawn Bradshaw, who was awarded $9 million after poor hospital care led to pneumonia and brain damage.

“The high court upheld the $9 million verdict Oct. 11, 2001. According to the indictment, 14 days later, Minor told two unnamed lawyers that Diaz ‘helped swing the vote … in favor of their client, Dawn Bradshaw, and that the vote could have gone either way but for … Diaz’s influence,’ pointing out the justice would soon be voting on the motion for rehearing their case. Minor asked the pair for at least $20,000, which would pay for a function at the bed and breakfast operated by Jennifer Diaz [ex-wife of the justice], the indictment says. The lawyers refused, the indictment says.” Minor called the new charges “false” while his attorney, Abbe Lowell of Washington, D.C., called them “outrageous” and said his client would plead not guilty to them. An attorney for Diaz said his client neither spoke to the lawyers from whom the indictment says he attempted to extort money nor “authorized anyone to speak to them on his behalf.” (Jerry Mitchell, Jackson Clarion-Ledger, Feb. 21). See Dec. 19, Aug. 19, Jul. 27 and links from there. Update Apr. 30, 2005: Diaz’s ex-wife reaches plea agreement with prosecutors.

GOP Florida Senate primary heats up

Updating our Dec. 15 report: former U.S. Rep. Bill McCollum has been hammering former HUD secretary Mel Martinez for his past work with the Florida Academy of Trial Lawyers and for his donations to Democratic candidates including an opponent of former Republican Sen. Connie Mack. In response, “Martinez campaign officials said McCollum had broken Ronald Reagan’s ’11th commandment’ to not speak ill of other Republicans.” (Ken Thomas, “Unity suffering in GOP Senate race”, AP/Sarasota Herald Tribune, Feb. 21; Joel Eskovitz, “McCollum goes on attack against Martinez”, Naples Daily News, Feb. 14; Ken Thomas, “McCollum criticizes Martinez’s work with trial lawyers”, AP/San Jose Mercury News, Feb. 10; Adam C. Smith, “GOP is selective in lashing lawyers”, St. Petersburg Times, Jan. 29). Update Sept. 3: Martinez wins primary.

John Edwards and the money power

“We are not going to lose the race for lack of funds”, said Dallas trial lawyer Fred Baron, finance co-chairman of the Edwards campaign (and poster boy for legal ethics) as the Wisconsin primary approached. (Rob Christensen and John Wagner, “Edwards sees no reason to surrender”, Raleigh News and Observer, Feb. 12). The challenge for Edwards’s fund-raising was spelled out by the Washington Post last month (Paul Farhi and Thomas B. Edsall, “Filling War Chests Key As Campaigns Progress”, Jan. 21): “The North Carolina senator has received a higher percentage of large donations than any other major candidate — 83 percent were between $1,000 and $2,000, the maximum allowed by law. Many of these donations came from plaintiffs’ attorneys, members of Edwards’s former profession. This means that many of Edwards’s donors have ‘maxed out’ and can give no more money. For Edwards to become fully competitive in the race for cash, he will have to find new contributors beyond his trial-lawyer base.” Why, even many of the paralegals, receptionists, bankrupt support staffers of law firms and their nonvoting husbands have maxed out (see Hill News, May 7, 2003). For more on Edwards’ fund-raising, see Feb. 3; Jan. 27; Jan. 23, 2004; Aug. 5 and Apr. 7-8, 2003; and Jul. 18 and May 1-2, 2002. More: Kerry press secretary Stephanie Cutter imprecisely describes Edwards campaign as “wholly funded by trial lawyers” (Adam Nagourney and David M. Halbfinger, “Kerry and Edwards Square Off as Dean Abandons Campaign”, New York Times, Feb. 19)

Edwards’s self-reinvention as the candidate of trade protectionism has provided another reason for sensible voters to steer clear of him. As Alex Tabarrok notes: “In his stump speech, John Edwards is fond of empathizing with the plight of a 10-year old girl ‘somewhere in America,’ who goes to bed ‘praying that tomorrow will not be as cold as today, because she doesn’t have the coat to keep her warm.’ Yet, as John Tierney points out, ‘clothing has become so cheap and plentiful (partly because of textile imports, which Mr. Edwards has proposed to limit) that there is a glut of second-hand clothing, and consequently most clothing donated to charity is shipped abroad. The second-hand children’s coats that remain in America typically sell for about $5 in thrift shops.’ (emphasis added)”. See “Nader Searches for His Roots”, New York Times, Feb. 15. To be sure, Edwards has some familiarity with the internationalization of markets: when the populist Senator and his wife left their Massachusetts Avenue mansion to trade up to a nicer mansion on P Street, they disposed of the old one “for $3 million to the Hungarian government for use as an embassy”. (Marc Fisher, “Regular Guys Who Live In Mansions”, Washington Post, Feb. 17). See also Byron York, “John Edwards Cares about YOU!”, Roll Call/National Review Online, Feb. 17. (& welcome WSJ “Best of the Web”, Andrew Sullivan, Mickey Kaus, and (thanks!) Steve Bainbridge readers)

And the answer is, “Goldman Sachs”

The question is, “Which is the odd name out in a list of John Edwards’ top ten contributors?” The other nine names on the list are all in the attorney line of work, but one of them — Hartford’s Robinson & Cole — could also be considered an odd name out, since it doesn’t specialize in plaintiff’s litigation (Greg Gordon, “Lawyers top Edwards’ list of supporters”, Sacramento Bee, Feb. 1).

The Chicago Sun-Times, meanwhile, finds that Edwards isn’t the only candidate drawing heavy backing from Chicago’s personal-injury bar. While big-league tort lawyers Phil Corboy and Tom Demetrio are backing Edwards, for example, Robert Clifford is supporting Kerry. “I have maxed out [donating] to Kerry, Edwards, Gephardt — those are the three I really favored,” said Gene Pavalon. “Kerry and Edwards are my two friends, and they’re friends, and it’s going well for both of them,” said Joe Power. “They’re both consumer-oriented individuals who many trial lawyers have helped.” (Abdon Pallasch, “Edwards among top lawyers, but not all elite attorneys here back him”, Feb. 3)(more on Edwards’ fund-raising: Jan. 23 and links from there, Jan. 27)

For Texas trial lawyers, revenge time

Throwing their weight around: “Across Houston and the state, plaintiffs’ attorneys are backing primary opponents to Democratic legislators who bucked the party last year and supported Proposition 12, part of a Republican-led effort to cap medical malpractice damages. … The Texas Trial Lawyers Association had no public comment. But one association member privately said trial lawyers intend to make it rough on legislators who oppose them.” Republicans aren’t safe either, with the chief author of the bill, Rep. Joe Nixon (R-Houston), facing a primary challenge from a plaintiff’s lawyer. (John Williams, “Alliances put heat on tort reformers”, Houston Chronicle, Jan. 31).

“In Trial Work, Edwards Left a Trademark”

Good New York Times page-one article investigating the Senator’s legal work, and in particular his big-ticket lawsuits over cerebral palsy. (Adam Liptak and Michael Moss, Jan. 31). See our earlier coverage Jan. 20 and Jan. 26. Alex Tabarrok, Sydney Smith, Charlotte Hays and Wayne Eastman comment.

Meanwhile, a theme has developed among several lawyer and law-professor bloggers that Edwards should not be held up to reproach even if it turns out that he employed dubious expert testimony to extract fortunes from innocent obstetricians, on the grounds that a trial lawyer is just doing his job when he seeks to introduce all admissible evidence on behalf of his client; in fact, he may even be obliged to do so as an ethical matter of “zealous advocacy”. (It should be stressed that Edwards strongly disputes the idea that his cases were in any way scientifically dubious.) We ourselves aren’t buying this line of reasoning, but it has some articulate advocates, including Peter Nordberg (who also defends Edwards here, while acknowledging that some details in the new Times piece “may supply grist for Edwards’ critics”), Franco Castalone, and David Bernstein. For our views of what constitutes proper “zeal” on lawyers’ part, see Jul. 17.

Mark Steyn on John Edwards

“[H]is stump speech often sounds less like a political platform and more like a laundry list of class-action suits he’d like to get a piece of ?- we need to act against credit card companies that charge excessive interest etc.” (“Knowns, unknowns and the Ketchup Kid”, Daily Telegraph (UK), Jan. 27). The cash register continues to ring for Edwards with his friends in the Texas bar: “At the end of the fall filing period for campaign contributions, Texans had given more to John Edwards than to all of the other Democratic candidates combined, almost $2 million.” (Shelley Kofler, “Texas money a major part of Edwards’ NH campaign”, WFAA-TV (Dallas-Fort Worth), Jan. 27). On the other hand, Dave Barry thinks the photogenic Senator may be losing the bowlers’ vote (“Senator who? We’re trying to bowl here!!”, Miami Herald, Jan. 26; Julian Borger, “Edwards bowls along, with Dean still at a loss”, The Guardian (UK), Jan. 26)(via Command Post). See also Rich Lowry, “The Trial Lawyer?s Shtick”, syndicated/National Review Online, Jan. 27.