By Thurlow Weed
Today's Washington Post reports:
The venerable Association of Trial Lawyers of America (ATLA), the folks who sue tobacco companies, asbestos users, car manufacturers and so on for humungous amounts of money -- and are the targets themselves of the business community -- is changing its name.
It's now going to be called the American Association for Justice. (This edged out runner-up suggestion "Association for Apple Pie, Motherhood and the American Way," or AAPMAW.)
President Kenneth M. Suggs , in a June 28 letter to members, said the ATLA board voted 91 to 5 for the change. "Our research shows that if our message is about helping lawyers, we lose," Suggs said. "On the other hand, if we're about getting justice and holding wrongdoers accountable, we win. . . . And what we do is fight for justice -- for our clients and all Americans each and every day."
Naturally, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce got Suggs's letter and is responding next week with an ad campaign having fun with the name change.
"Trial lawyers are at the bottom of the list" in public favorability tests, Lisa A. Rickard , president of the chamber's Institute for Legal Reform, said yesterday. "No one did this to them. They did it to themselves. They can change their name, but it's not going to change how people feel about trial lawyers. We've been around since 1911," she added, and "we're not changing our name."
So, the trial lawyers needed a poll to tell them that they shouldn't only be out "helping lawyers"?
Gimme a break.
The reason trial laywers perform so badly in polls is because of the bad apples in their membership who manufacture fake asbestos and silicosis lawsuits (as many as 80% of those who receive settlements aren't even sick), sue for millions over coffee spills, and actively recruit clients (although - of course - that is illegal.)
Perhaps the reason the trial lawyers test so poorly in polls is the audacity with which trial lawyers tout their influence over courts and the electoral process. Take, for instance, this quote made by uber-trial lawyer Dickie Scruggs, who had this to say about “magic jurisdictions”:
[W]hat I call the “magic jurisdic-tion,” . . . [is] where the judiciary is elected with verdict money. The trial lawyers have established relationships with the judges that are elected; they’re State Court judges; they’re popul[ists]. They’ve got large populations of voters who are in on the deal, they’re getting their [piece] in many cases. And so, it’s a political force in their jurisdiction, and it’s almost impossible to get a fair trial if you’re a defendant in some of these places. The plaintiff lawyer walks in there and writes the number on the blackboard, and the first juror meets the last one coming out the door with that amount of money. . . . The cases are not won in the courtroom. They’re won on the back roads long before the case goes to trial. Any lawyer fresh out of law school can walk in there and win the case, so it doesn’t matter what the evidence or the law is."
