So he’s no intellectual, but John Stossel has his finger on the pulse of America. In this Wall Street Journal Op-Ed (courtesy of Overlawyered), Stossel explains why lawyers are parasites:
Foes of lawsuit abuse have been writing gleefully about the fall of Dickie Scruggs, Bill Lerach and Melvyn Weiss. All three lawyers are likely to spend time in jail for plotting to bribe a judge (Scruggs) or paying kickbacks (Lerach and Weiss).Good riddance.
Locking them up will stop them from further damaging America – at least for a few years. But it’s a small victory for reformers.
New members of the parasite circus will just step forward to take their place. And what these aggressive class-action and securities lawyers do legally is more damaging to America than the crimes that Scruggs, Lerach and Weiss committed. They broke laws to cheat other lawyers out of some loot, but at least that barely hurt the public.
It’s not entirely clear at this point whether Stossel knows that none of this has anything to do with lawsuit abuse, but the guy’s on a roll and there’s no stopping him now.
But at least paying off plaintiffs honestly reflects how such lawyers get rich. Often, they are less “officers of the court seeking justice” than businessmen colluding with plaintiffs in a lucrative extortion business. Legal extortion. But still extortion. Companies pay the lawyers to go away even when it’s unclear that they did anything wrong.
Once companies pay, it’s logical that the plaintiff/partner who helped the lawyers enrich themselves should get a cut of that loot. That’s a fairer deal than what typical plaintiffs in class actions get: coupons or a check for perhaps $1.26.
So now he’s got Mel Weiss and Lerach on the ropes. Here it comes…
A federal judge will soon decide whether to award Lerach his cut of what may be the biggest class-action legal fee ever. Lerach extorted – I mean persuaded – J.P. Morgan, Citigroup and a Canadian bank to give $695 million to him and other lawyers who claimed the banks were culpable in the Enron debacle. On March 19, 2007 an appellate court ruled that the banks were not culpable. But so what? Fairness doesn’t necessarily govern this game. The game is more about rounding up lots of complainants and using America’s one-sided legal system to terrorize businesses into settling
Companies could fight and win, but that distracts managers from what they ought to be doing. And they might get a bad jury and lose the entire company. It’s safer to settle.
We’re a nation of distracted managers? That explains a lot, now doesn’t it. Maybe if we gave those managers Ritalin, they could focus better and then companies could fight and win these frivolous lawsuits. Did anybody think of that?
Our legal system invites lawyers to act like bullies. For “20/20” tonight, I report on a class-action lawyer who’s suing his neighbor for smoking in her own apartment. Toxins are “being breathed every day by our 4-year-old,” says Jonathan Selbin of Lieff, Cabraser, Heimann & Bernstein. His frightened neighbor had the apartment manager seal off air ducts between the two apartments, but Mr. Selbin sued anyway, claiming smoke was in the hallway. Mr. Selbin’s neighbor was unusually feisty in going to the media to fight back, at least for a while. But last night, she decided to settle. After all, Mr. Selbin had written her that he had a legal advantage, because he and his wife “are both lawyers, and both litigators, for whom the usual barriers to litigation are minimal.” Right. Mr. Selbin wrote ABC, “I have recovered more than $2 billion in cash for consumers defrauded by companies. I am proud of what I do.” He wouldn’t tell us how much of the $2 billion he kept.
What’s the $2 billion got to do with suing his neighbor? Wait, I know. This is about the outrage of using the courts, a bludgeon in the hands of a lawyer, to resolve a dispute. Outrageous!
What do we get from this kind of “private law enforcement”? Very little. James Copland of the Manhattan Institute points out, “The small, diversified investor is as likely to be a buyer as a seller and thus a payer in a class action settlement. The ‘little guy’ pays money to himself.” Actually, it’s worse than that: Little guys come out behind because the lawyers pocket so much.
But John, you were talking about the outrage of Selbin suing his neighbor for smoking. What’s that got to do with class action settlements?
If securities class actions really deterred fraud, their high cost might be justified. But research from St. John’s Law School Prof. Michael Perino shows that most of these lawsuits follow SEC investigations. The lawyers don’t unearth frauds. They come in like vultures after the problem is already revealed. We pay for that.
Didn’t you just say that the investor pays himself for the lawsuit? Now I’m confused. And I don’t think that’s exactly what lawprof Perino concluded, though it’s hard to say since you could be looking at a different study than this one. So let’s wrap it up already, John.
Onerous as the legal fees are, the nastier cost is the loss of so many good things. Weiss’s former firm got companies to pay $45 billion in damages. That’s $45 billion that will not create new jobs or life-saving drugs.
The fear also reduces options. After Dickie Scruggs filed his post-Katrina class action against insurance companies, State Farm, citing an “untenable legal environment,” stopped insuring homes in Mississippi.
America needs judges willing to say “no” to legal bullies. America also needs the legal standard that works in most of the world: “loser pays.” Without reform, the parasites will take away your money and your choices.
Thank God we have heroes like corporate America to protect us from the evils of lawyer-bullies. And thank you, John, for clearing all this up. I know it was a lot of work, and I sure hope you didn’t sprain anything.
Discover more from Simple Justice
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
This Bastard needs to get a REAL life. If the hallWay smoke bothers him, what does he do when he walks in the city…breath through his ass???…..that is where his brain is!!!!!
I would sue him in a heartbeat for his cologne or the smell of his child’s oder from his shit smelling apartment.
Let’s start a class action lawsuit against him for invasion of privacy; and I’m sure there ae 100000’s of lawyers who will join this suit because they are nothing but bottom feeders who want any lawsuit that they can pursue.
I would spit in this lawyers face if I ever saw him and see what he would do about it.
I would claim that his presence was an infringement of my rights to free speech and he is causing me distress and mental damages.
LET’S SUE THE BASTARD IN A CLASS ACTION LAWSUIT FOR ANYTHING ANY OF THESE OTHER LAWSUIT HUNGRY Attorney’s WILL TAKE!!!!
You need a proofreader.
Thank you for your comment. It’s comforting to know that real John Stossel fans are around to stand up for him.
Jonathan Selbin is a classic example of what an atorney shouldn’t be.
He’s clearly self-centered, egotistical, and using his legal background to push around the little guy.
What goes around, comes around tho….
That smoke lawsuit should have been thrown out and Selbin should have been sanctioned for filing it. It’s no wonder why people hate lawyers. As a lawyer myself I cringe when I hear about these abusive lawsuits. Your critique, SHG, seems like a biased reaction against anything mentioning lawyers in bad light. If you can’t admit that lawsuits like Selbin’s and the actions of the other guys mentioned are wrong then you are blinded by your JD. Try to take off your lawyer hat and take an objective view.
If you had read anything other that this one post, you would know that I am frequently a critic of lawyers and realize that you’ve jumped to the wrong conclusion.
Selbin’s action is obviously stupid, and his efforts to bulldoze his way through because he’s a lawyer is clearly offensive. And this instance proves absolutely nothing about class actions and the ruination of America. It shows that Selbin’s a jerk. As much as I may be a critic of lawyers, I’m an even greater critic of irrationality and illogic.
Having said that, does it alter your inductive conclusion that Selbin’s smoking lawsuit doesn’t justify a wholesale condemnation of the law, or a singular condemnation of class actions? Think harder before you rush to judgment next time.
You must be a attorney to have taken offense.
Sorry Kent, but we have one rule here, and you’ve violated it.
Stossel’s Folly: Selbin Responds
The other day, I
Stossel’s Folly: Selbin Responds
The other day, I
Stossel’s Folly: Selbin Responds
The other day, I
I am not a lawyer at all, but it would be really nice if everyone could take a couple legal courses just to get an idea of the network and framework an Attorney has to navigate.
I think that if your commentators above had taken a step back to breathe and maybe reread the article, they would see that your arguments being made do not reflect appreciation of said “smoking” lawsuit, but distaste as to the mention of the “smoking lawsuit” as a guise to push arguments about Class Action Lawsuits.
By taking a few Legal Courses, most people would learn that both situations are VERY different, and different arguments can be had for either one.
For instance, in the smoking case: the couple misused their education to cause problems for someone they couldn’t get to agree with them. Horrible.
As for the Class Action Suits, when companies like Ford and Chevrolet get a notice that a vehicle has an issue, when do you notice their involvement? Is it when you as a patron send them a letter? Or is it when MANY of you as a “Class” send them a letter? Attorney’s fees are exorbitant, however, in a suit like this you (patron) will only get the amount of your damages. It is possible to get more. Keep in mind though that the more people needed to convince the “big company” that they have a problem, the less you get. So maybe you should start yelling at the “big company” first. It would be nice to see a Stossel 20/20 report on why “big companies” wait so long, and for more people to become injured, before acting upon a problem.
Thanks for your comment, Christine. I doubt that Stossel’s piece did any more than provide the lawyer-haters another opportunity to vent. Stossel lacks the level of influence to create ideas, but merely fuels those already inclined to think as simplistically as he does.
John Stossel is an intellectual coward, juicing up the choir already inclined to agree with him and avoiding anyone that would test the rigors of his point. That’s the beauty of having a TV show, where he can preach without fear of challenge no matter how vapid his message.
There are many in this country who believe the legal system is severely broken. There are many who have decided that it’s broken because “all lawyers are evil.” Such generalizations are only helpful to the extent that lawyers recognize that there is a significant perception that we are not viewed as helping society, but as pariahs. It is important to know that, because within the bar there are many who sing of the glory of the law and lawyers, and they block reforms that would make the system, and lawyers, better and more responsive to the needs of society.
But a higher level of discussion would certainly help everyone to improve the legal system. Unfortunately, the Stossel’s in the media foster ignorance and mindless anger when they could use their access to the public airwaves to illuminate and improve the system. But then, Stossel is viewed at ABC as being a marketable personality. No one there has ever accused Stossel of being particularly bright.