At what point in time are the trial lawyers in the United States going to wake up and realize the mass tort/class action law suit model is badly flawed and rife with conflicts, back door deals and potential for abuse?

Todays article in the Sunday NY Times profiling Dickie Scruggs and the allegations being leveled against him in Federal Court regarding an alleged bribe made to a state court judge is sickening to read.  

I have no idea if the allegations are true and I have no doubt that Attorney Scruggs and the other defendants will put up a vigorous defense. They are portraying this as a situation where a rogue attorney in the Scruggs firm was acting on his own and when busted is turning states evidence in order to mitigate his own sentence. That very well may be true and only time will tell.  I sincerely hope for the sake of trial lawyers nation wide that this case turns out to be a witch hunt and the allegations are proved to be false because quite frankly the mass tort lawyers and the trial lawyers in general have been taking a beating for the better part of the last six years and the profession is definitely hurting at the moment.

As the article outlines quite clearly, there has been a string of high profile cases where mass tort or class action lawyers have corrupted judges, lied to the court, lied to their clients, paid kick backs to lead plaintiffs, stolen client money, cheated co-counsel, filed fraudulent medical records to the court, etc, etc, etc.

It's sickening, it's criminal and the attorney's who have engaged in this conduct have disgraced not only themselves but have created ammunition for the tort reform movement that is systematically stripping US citizens of their rights and access to the courts. Just read the quotes in today's NY Times article from the lobbying arm of the US Chamber of Commerce about how they are going to take these cases and headlines and use it to validate the wave of state and federal tort reform legislation that is about to hit the profession again.

What really makes me sick is that there are vehicles and processes that are far better, far more transparent and avoid the temptation of corrupt attorneys to enrich themselves at the expense of their clients, co-counsel and others then the hopelessly broken class action process. My question for the day is when will the trial lawyers of this country realize the class action model is hopelessly flawed and begin to use some of the innovative and client friendly methods that have been developed over the last few years as opposed to the miserably flawed process used in cases like Vioxx.

Quite frankly, at the moment the trial lawyers biggest enemies are themselves and the sloppy and often criminal business practices they have engaged in over the last decade or so. The tort reform movement shouldn't say a word right now but just follow the maxim " that if your enemy is destroying him self, don't stop him."