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There really isn't anything I despise more than plaintiff's attorneys. We, as a society, have given this elite (and elitist) group the ability to essentially levy taxes on the rest of society that enrich only them. Prices on products go up all the time because of lawsuits...and some sharp plaintiff's attorneys are smart enough to take a 50% fee (or more) off the top, and then they structure the class (and advertise the settlement) in such a way that very few people actually successfully claim compensation.

I'm sure there are some good (in the moral sense) plaintiff's attorney's out there, but they aren't the kind of people that generally bring large, national class-action suits, or try and retry "cookie cutter" cases using the same arguments against different defendents in a "friendly" venue.

The most egregious thing of all is that even when a plaintiff's attorney is caught violating bar rules or even the law, they are rarely punished in any meaningful way. It seems lawyers mostly take care of their own.

So William Lerach has actually been punished for abusing this country's legal system. I will continue to believe that this is an isolated incident until John Edwards and Dickie Scruggs are also so punished. I wonder if he pissed off some judge or other lawyer and that is what precipitated this? Dickie Scruggs has used kickbacks for years to drum up business and he's still practicing law.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/usatoday/20070920/cm_usatoday/legalextortionist

Quote:

Lerach churned out class-action lawsuits against companies as if on an assembly line. He went after the good, the bad and all gradations in between, often for no better reason than missing an earnings target. He claimed to be the shareholder's biggest champion. Turns out, he was anything but. He did little but force companies to employ more lawyers and pay large settlements to get him off their backs, neither of which was good for investors.

Because his lawsuits were so indiscriminate, and in some cases transparently frivolous, it's hard to argue they had any kind of deterrent effect on corporate misbehavior. For the most part, Lerach was busy suing the wrong companies for the wrong reasons. Even when he got a legitimate case, he didn't produce much for shareholders. An Enron-related case a judge awarded him in 2002 was thrown out on appeal earlier this year.

Lerach, 61, agreed to plead guilty to conspiracy to obstruct justice in connection with prosecutors' allegations that he paid kickbacks to drum up aggrieved shareholders. If the judge accepts the agreement, Lerach will forfeit $7.8 million, pay a $250,000 fine and spend a year or two in prison.