In yet another indictment, both literally and figuratively, of the legal profession Attorney Mel Weiss, one of the pioneers of class action litigation and legal practice, pled guilty last week to charges that his firm had for years been paying illegal kickbacks to lead plaintiffs in class action cases.  Additional charges related to attempting to cover up the payments to investigators also hung over his head and he now joins his former associate William Lerach and "The King of Torts" Dickie Scruggs as three of the most shameful cases of trial lawyer malfeasance.

In today's Speaking of Justice, Scott Drake and Jan Schlichtmann discuss the career of Mel Weiss, who truly was one of the pioneers of mass tort litigation and for decades was at the pinnacle of his profession. Much like Eliot Spitzer, the class action attorney's took on Wall Street and over the years the enmity between the CEO's and shareholders of big public companies and the mass tort bar was ongoing.

Take a few minutes and listen in to this analysis of the fall of Mel Weiss and the lessons it holds for trial lawyers nationally in this edition of Speaking of Justice.  

What is going on, what has been going on, that drives these men of extreme talent and ability to make such fundamentally flaw decisions and destroy their reputations and legal practices. Jan discusses what might drive these prominent lawyers to this destructive end and how attorney's must be vigilant to constantly look in the mirror and determine if they are serving their clients, or if their practices as designed to serve themselves instead.  

Late last week the Dean of the Washington and Lee University Law School announced a revolutionary change in how the highly esteemed law school would approach the third year of law school. Today on Speaking of Justice the man charged with developing this innovative new approach to legal education work, Dean Rodney A. Smolla, joins host Scott Drake to discuss just how this decision was made and what this highly regarded law school hopes to provide it's students through this intriguing change in 3L.

Click here to listen to the podcast of Dean Smolla on Speaking of Justice. 

The new third-year curriculum, approved unanimously by the Law School faculty, will be entirely experiential in nature. Traditional classroom instruction will be replaced by practice simulations, real-client interactions and the development of law practice skills. These project simulations will span the array of traditional legal subject matter, including transactional areas such as banking and corporate finance that have often been overlooked in the hands-on offerings of traditional law school curriculums. Also, the Law School's existing clinics and externship programs will be modestly expanded. All third-year students will be required to obtain a Virginia practice certificate and participate in at least one real-client experience during the year.

Legal education has been immersed in tradition and methodology that has remained largely unchanged for decades, if not hundreds of years, so this innovative departure is currently the talk of the legal world. Washington and Lee is considered one of the nation's finest law firms with a star studded list of alumni. Additionally Dean Smolla is regarded by many in the world of legal education as one of its leading innovators, with a reputation as a scholar, teacher, advocate and writer. His wide ranging scholarship includes a case book on the First Amendment, four legal treatises and many article in the nations top law reviews, in fact winning the ABA Silver Gavel Award and the William O. Douglass Award. Rodney Smolla is one of the nations leading legal scholars on first amendment issues and with this recent move now sure to be viewed nationally as one of the innovators in legal education, LBN is pleased to offer this podcast to it's listeners who want to know more about Washington and Lee, or who wish to learn more about Dean Smolla.

Listen to the entire podcast interview of Dean Rodney Smolla of Washington and Lee by clicking here.  

In today's Speaking of Justice, Attorney Jan Schlichtmann and host Scott Drake discuss the provocative article of March 16th, 2008 in the Sunday New York Times entitled "Supreme Court, Inc. ".  This article is available for you read and review by clicking here.

Authored by noted George Washington University law professor Jeffrey Rosen, this is a fascinating analysis and review of the shifting role of the U.S. Supreme Court over the last ten years as it has become decidedly  pro-business in it's tilt as more and more conservative justices have been confirmed during the last 24 years. In the latest term 13 of 15 cases involving business issues the court sided with business, a stunning turn around in results and rulings.  If you haven't read this article yet we strongly urge you to take the time to do so today.

For a full review and analysis on the conclusions of this thoughtful article you can click here to listen to Jan Schlichtmann look at the root causes of the pro-business tilt and the prospects for change any time soon.  

As I asked hypothetically in a blog post several months ago, " Can Dickie Scrugg's have really been that dumb?" apparently yesterday we got our answer as the often described " King of Torts" pled guilty to in fact attempting to bribe a judge in a case related to a fee dispute tied to a Katrina settlement of which $26.5 million was at stake. 

To call this a bad week for avenging lawyers would be an understatement, given the trifecta of  collapses featuring Eliot Spitzer, William Lerach and now Dickie Scruggs with in days of each other.  The  question I get from virtually every lawyer I speak to on both situations is what in the world was the fabulously wealthy and successful Mr. Scrugg's possibly thinking?  His net worth is  estimated to be somewhere north of $1 billion thanks to his historic involvement in the tobacco litigation, he was politically connected at a level few can aspire to, he was quite accurately known as one of the most powerful attorney's in the United States, and yet he is now facing 5 years of prison time and the end of his legal career.

If you are to look at one common thread in all of the scandals and criminal frauds created by trial lawyers over the last 5 years you immediately see that the lack of transparency in the negotiation, prosecution and settlement of major cases such as asbestos, silicosis, phen fen, breast implants, Katrina property claims and securities fraud created an ethos among trial lawyers that because no one was watching they could get away with unethical and criminal activity. Fraudulent asbestos claims, bogus medical data on silicosis, cheating clients to buy race horses in Phen Fen, misallocated expenses in breast implant cases, kick backs to criminal lead plaintiffs in class actions and now bribing judges to screw over your co-counsel in mass torts, I mean really where does this all end?

When trial lawyers next complain about how their image is distorted and twisted by the media and tort reform allies, they need to take a serious look in the mirror at the corrupt, careless, greedy and criminal behavior they have allowed with in their own ranks. That the very leaders in key areas of the law were the one's who are now creating the most damage is something I would hope AAJ might address at their national convention, but I wouldn't hold my breath on that one. Isn't it about time that the next generation of trial lawyers and advocates of justice spoke up about the moral rot that is threatening to tarnish all trial lawyers?

LBN will be doing a month long series on legal ethics, mass torts and how to make the process more transparent so that these abuses that occured in secret can be avoided through structural disclosure of the entire process. If you have a guest or speaker you'd like us to interview, contact our studio and let us know.  

In today's edition of Speaking of Justice, the daily LBN show that features news makers, commentators and experts in all area of the law, Scott Drake is joined by Attorney Roberta Ashkin, one of the nations leading experts in the area of HRT (Hormone Replacement Therapy) litigation, also known as Prempro litigation. 

Just last week in the Scroggin vs Wyeth case that was being argued in U.S. District Court in Little Rock, AK a jury returned compensatory damages on a Prempro trial of $2.7 million to plaintiff Donna Scroggin. The case is currently still in the damages phase on potential punitive damages, so this initial award is simply for compensatory damages.

Roberta and Scott discuss the facts and issues in both this case but also the landmark verdict in Reno, NV that was tried to a $150 million verdict by Zoe Littlepage of the Houston firm of Littlepage Booth. This was recently reduced by the trial judge to $50 million, still an outstanding amount and a substantial victory for the three plaintiffs.

Listen in to this podcast that gives a current update for trial lawyers and ordinary citizens on the topic of hormone replacement therapy, Prempro as well as the recent Supreme Court ruling on the Rezulin preemption case.  

In a story that can only be categorized as " you have to be kidding me" former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales was named Lawyer of the Year by the ABA Journal today. You can read the entire synopsis by clicking this link to the MSNBC story.

This is sort of up there with Time Magazine naming Joseph Stalin as Man of the Year way back when. Sure the laying of waste to the Ukraine was a bad thing, but gosh darn it that crazy Joe Stalin sure had an impact didn't he?

I realize the ABA looks at the award as a way of simply naming the attorney who was in the news the most, or who had the biggest impact on the legal profession. However, you can't tell me that this award makes any sense what so ever in the context of recognizing lawyers who had a major impact.

If I were to name anyone lawyer of the year, it would be  the general counsel of Merck, Kenneth Frazier, the architect of the legal defense that essentially handcuffed the trial bar on the Vioxx litigation and forced them into a settlement posture that is far less in value then anyone ever imagined the Vioxx cases actually settling for. 

Instead of some symbolic slap at a guy who is already out of the attorney generals office, how about the guys at the ABA Journal actually look at legal minds and attorneys who did real work, had a material impact on the profession and, in the case of Frazier, may have set the blue print of legal defense in mass tort cases for the next 5 to 10 years. As much as I regret the out come of Vioxx I certainly respect the legal acumen of the attorney's involved in the strategic decisions made in that case.  

Merck has announced that  it will seek approval for new drugs next year and more are in the final test stage.

Read the story here. 

In a story we have been watching closely hear at the Legal Broadcast Network, famed trial lawyer Richard "Dickie" Scruggs of Mississippi has been named in a federal indictment alleging he was behind an attempt by his firm to bribe a state court judge with $40,000 to influence the allocation of legal fees on Katrina claims. The amount of fee's at question total over $26 million but the facts as they are being reported are so shocking that you almost are in a state of disbelief that an attorney of the stature of Dickie Scruggs could even contemplate such a clumsy and immoral attempt to corrupt the court.

The Wall Street Journal today has an online profile of Attorney Scruggs and the facts in the case. You can also find the back stories in the Journal archive as well.  Keep in mind the WSJ is generally anti-trial lawyer, but their reporting is superb on the facts so you can make up your own mind.

As for the LBN group, while i'm stunned that this could in fact take place in this day and age, I'm not so naive as to believe this hasn't happened before in other states and other courts. Anyone who has worked in and around the legal profession knows that there are bad judges and lawyers out there and as one of my friends likes to say, when there is enough money on the table human life has very little value.  Unfortunately, while I would very much like to believe this story is not true, i've had to witness the spectacle of William Lerach, Melvin Weiss, the Cincinatti Phen Fen lawyers, the asbestos/silicosis frauds and others dragged into court for equally atrocious behavior, so I'm thinking where there is smoke there is probably fire.

The bottom line is that there has been a subculture of corruption in many areas of litigation where the money is big and the stakes are high and unfortunately the trial lawyers are feeding the perception that they are just " a bunch of greedy cheating lawyers", instead of people fighting for justice.  It is disgusting to watch this, I hope these charges prove to be false, but if they aren't it is just one more huge black eye against the legal profession, particularly trial lawyers that further stains an honorable profession. 

The trial lawyers in America are better then this and they deserve better from the more prominent firms then corrupt behavior that stains then entire profession.  

You just have to love this piece in today's NY Times that discusses all the perks, bonuses, life style enhancements and pay increases the big defense firms have to pay in order to keep their associates happy.

You can find the article on Perks for defense attorneys by clicking here.  

This follows shortly on the other stories in the WSJ and legal press regarding the $1.2 billion spent on legal fees by Merck defending Vioxx. One of the great myths in the entire debate about the cost of tort reform, the big bad trial lawyers and others lies is that defense attorneys are just poor humble hourly employees that don't enjoy the huge pay day that contingency fee attorneys get.

Well take a look at this article and some of the other ones floating around about the law firm pay, bonuses and expense accounts of the major defense firms in the United States and I can assure you that in a case like Vioxx that the defense counsel is going to make far more then any trial lawyer in that group. One of the biggest single costs of litigation are the defense costs that are charged to insurance companies, and by extension their policyholders and shareholders. Next time you get your home owners or auto insurance bill just remember the paid massage therapists, limo services and $5000 dinners that were billed by a defense firm that needlessly prolonged litigation or avoided settlement of a just claim for the sole purpose of inflating their bill and paying their associates a bigger bonus.  

The Legal Broadcast Network features  Vanderbilt Professor Richard Nagareda, the author of the recently published " Mass Torts in a world of Settlements." This book, available on Amazon by clicking here, covers the evolution of Mass Tort litigation through the asbestos cases, pharmaceutical litigation and up to the recently announced Vioxx settlement.

You can listen to the entire podcast interview with Professor Nagareda on " Mass Torts in a world of Settlements" by clicking here.  

In his interview with Scott Drake, host of LBN's " This week in the Law", Professor Nagareda outlines how we are now looking at torts that are too big to litigate but essentially evolve into highly complex and politically charged business transactions between big business and "big law".

A fascinating interview, the first of our new features here on The Legal Broadcast Network, and particularly timely given the recent Vioxx settlement.

You can also check out the WSJ blog that features Professor Nagareda by clicking here.  

In a thoughtful examination of the pressure special interests exert on the selection of judges, retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor comes down strongly against the continued election of judges.

You can read her entire commentary in todays Wall Street Journal.  

This is a continued effort on the retired Justice to draw attention to the issue of how the independence of the judiciary in the United States is under constant attack from various sources. She has previously taken on the corporate interests who are looking to create lobbying campaigns in various states to change laws that would allow for the arbitrary removal of judges who made unpopular rulings.  The justice understands what the opponents of a free and independent judiciary understand, that if you can intimidate judges or corrupt them you can control the third branch of government.

Make sure you read this commentary today.  

Merck agreed to settle 27,000 Vioxx cases for $4.85  billion . This also reduces the  $600 million in legal fees payed annually by the company. As part of the settlement, Merck does not accept fault. Merck also promised to defend future cases.  See the NY Times for more on this story

Todays New York Times has a stunning account of the systematic intimidation, beating and imprisonment of the lawyers in Pakistan who are protesting the attempt to impose martial law by Pakistani President, Gen. Pervez Musharraf. 

You can read the entire article by clicking here and I really believe it is a must read for any trial lawyer who is discouraged about the obstacles they face every day in the fight for justice in the US legal system.

Too often we in America make jokes at the expense of attorneys or look at "the trial lawyers" as a political foe. The fact is that in a free society it is the diligent and sacrificial work of trial lawyers that often are the difference between justice for the ordinary citizen and injustice at the hands of a legal system that increasingly is tilted to favor corporate interests at the expense of individual rights. One look at Pakistan and the effort by a despot to try and silence opposition by beating, jailing and intimidating lawyers brings us right back to the King Henry VI where in " Dick the Butcher" utters his famous tribute. I do call it a tribute as it is evidence that from the earliest days of democracy it was evident that for a tyrant to succeed he first had to destroy the rule of law and silence the lawyers who could speak out against their actions.

I also want to draw you back to a video we shot earlier this year in which Rick Kuykendall and Jan Schlichtmann  in which they start out discussing some new and innovative ideas in mass torts, but then evolve into the ethical issues facing trial lawyers and the political climate that they operate in today. This passionate discussion refers to the Henry VI quote as well in the context of how lawyers are regarded in America and how corporate and political interests are working hand in hand to intimidate and exhaust the trial lawyers in America so as to give them a free hand in litigation in both state and federal courts.

If you care about the US legal system, justice and access to the courts you might want to take another look at this video that I have sitting over on our Yahoo site for the Legal Broadcast Network. It's only 11 minutes but well worth watching as a reminder that while lawyers in the US aren't being beaten and gassed by police, but that there are other means of intimidation that are often more subtle but just as deadly to the cause of justice.

 Last week on Civil Action Radio guest host, Attorney Roberta Ashkin of the Ashkin Law Office, was joined by the trial lawyer team that won the nationally publicized verdict in the first Federal Fentanyl Patch case. Roberta is a frequent guest and commentator on The Legal Broadcast Network and her commentary on legal issues and areas of interest to trial lawyers can be found exclusively on LBN channels and podcasts.

The 25 minute podcast featured Attorney Jim Orr of Dallas, TX and a partner in Heygood, Orr, Reyes & Bartolomei, and Attorney Ike Gulas of Birmingham, AL and a partner in the firm of Gulas & Stuckey. This podcast is a bit longer then our typical 15 minute editions but this case has been reported in virtually every major national publication and legal magazine and this interview with two key members of the trial team will give you an inside glimpse into the facts and issues that brought this verdict in for the plaintiffs.
 

 Jim Orr focuses his practice on complex business litigation and personal injury matters and over the course of his career he has represented both plaintiffs and defendants in a variety of civil litigation matters and has tried over 60 cases to verdict. He is AV rated by Martindale Hubbell and has been voted several times by his peers one of the "Super Lawyers" in the State of Texas. Also representing the client for Heygood, Orr, Reyes and Bartolomei in this case were Attorney Angel Reyes and Charles Miller as part of the trial team and you can find their bio's and more information about the firm by clicking the link above.

 Ike Gulas has built an impressive reputation in mass tort litigation and class action suits brought against the pharmaceutical manufacturers of Rezulin, Fen-Phen, Serzone and Baycol. His firm is known through out the south as one of the premier mass tort trial firms and this verdict in a difficult federal case will only further cement that reputation.  

The podcast discusses the $5.5 million wrongful death verdict against two subsidiaries, Janssen Pharmaceutical Products, LP and ALZA Corp, both subsidiaries of pharmaceutical giant Johnson & Johnson, in the nations first federal court trial involving the patch form of the narcotic painkiller fentanyl, also known and sold under the name "Duragesic patch".  In this particular case the plaintiffs were the estate of the late Adam Hendelson who died on December 17, 2003 as a result of the leakage of the patch which put fatal levels of fentanyl into his system, killing him at home.

This is a significant verdict and fascinating case that will be of interest to trial lawyers nationally and settlement professionals who have clients that work in pharmaceutical litigation.

You can listen to the entire podcast by clicking here. 

Mark Wahlstrom over at the Settlement Channel recently posted this entry in his blog on the Murphy vs IRS decision being over turned. He will also be having nationally renown tax expert Attorney Robert Wood on this coming Monday for a podcast discussing this decision.

"In what is certainly disappointing news for us libertarian types, as well as plaintiffs seeking relief from taxes in emotional distress cases, the Federal Appeals court yesterday reversed their prior ruling from 11 months ago and found instead that taxable damages in emotional distress cases are in fact taxable.

You can read a summary of the decision at WSJ online by clicking here. 

You can also read the NY Times article here, and the Web Wire article here.   

Essentially the 3 court panel got a "do over" on this decision with some enormous pressure from the tax community, the IRS and legal scholars who felt that if Murphy vs IRS was upheld and allowed to stand that it would open the door for a floodgate of tax protest cases on constitutional grounds. 

While I regret that this decision didn't become law due to the insane inequity in how taxable and non-taxable damages are handled under the current 1996 law, it probably allows for what is hopefully a more reasoned attempt to modify the current  situation where in the government doesn't allow for deduction of legal fees on taxable damage cases, and with the AMT can almost put a person in a position of zero net recovery for bringing a whistleblower case, for wrongful imprisonment, emotional distress and other situations that don't involve personal physical injury.

As someone who has several Qui Tam/Whistleblower cases going on at the moment I was hopeful we could get a positive resolution to this situation, but at least now we have certainty and know to look for a legislative solution where this inequity is addressed. Part of the reason the appeals court gave the ruling they did in the first case, according to many commentators, was due to the lack of technical amendments and clarification of the 1996 law and I hope that this reversal doesn't put our congressmen and senators back to sleep on this.  

I'll be having our newest full time commentator Attorney Robert Wood on the Settlement Channel podcast this coming Monday July 9th, 2007 to discuss this situation, so if you have specific questions for him or myself please contact me and let me know. "

We will be posting the Robert Wood podcast here next week so be watching for it.

Attorney Mark Zamora of Atlanta, Georgia joined host Mark Wahlstrom for an edition of Civil Action Radio last week to discuss the "Crazy Pants" lawsuit that made a lot of headlines a few weeks back. You can read his blog by clicking here and getting up to speed on the many issues he blogs about.  Mark is also one of the founders of the Trial Lawyer Resource Center, which can be accessed by clicking here.

As you may recall this is the story of the lawyer who decided to bring suit against his dry cleaner for losing his favorite pair of pants, all with the headline of demands for millions in damages due to the pain and anguish of the loss of his pants. The popular press and tort reform advocates of course jumped all over this story, profiling the plight of the dry cleaner in dealing with this attorney. This is of course used as another example of abusive legal process and why we need to rein in law suits and enact tort reform.

In this podcast Mark Zamora discusses the aftermath of the case, the unreported aspects of the story and the troubled history of this attorney. Rather then just letting the story go unchallenged, he instead suggests that trial lawyers at the state and national level actively and quickly move to refute these headlines and point out that this is a rogue lawyers and is as emblematic of all trial lawyers as the one drunk pilot is representative of all commercial pilots.

Listen to the podcast here in it's entirety,  or go to our Itunes page and listen there.