With the November 2004 elections now behind us, the battle again shifts from the election process to the legislative process.  Unfortunately, the battleground lies strewn with misrepresentations and blatant mistruths.  For the past several years, a target has been clearly drawn around our tort system by anti-consumer politicians.  An added strategy of this recent election enlarged the target to include us, as trial lawyers.  Trial lawyers have been blamed for just about everything - from the alleged shortage of doctors and the high costs of medical malpractice insurance, to the higher costs of goods, to the unavailability of drugs.  Trial lawyers were even blamed by some for the recent shortage of flu vaccines!

            As the arrows flew, phrases and themes were stated and repeated and printed and quoted until voters, having heard them from enough "sources", accepted them as known fact.  "Trial lawyers have wreaked havoc with frivolous lawsuits."  "The judicial system is often overwhelmed with cases."  "Businesses and organizations must spend excessive amounts of money to protect themselves from these sharks." These statements are just a few from a "tort reform" campaign of the Michigan Chamber of Commerce.  Unfortunately, what too few voters realized was that the target being assailed and battered was actually representative of their own legal rights.

            Shakespeare's line "The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers" is perhaps more recognized today than when he wrote Henry VI in 1623.[i] But like the truth about our civil justice system, it is grossly taken out of context.  The speaker, Dick the Butcher, was a villain's henchman who was just bright enough to recognize that to achieve anarchy, the legal protection of the citizens must first be removed. 

            What would our society look like without trial lawyers?  Would we all be better off, as the propaganda proclaims?  A Houston, Texas law professor addressed this question in his tongue-in-cheek article "In Defense of So-Called 'Greedy Trial Lawyers' ":

It is obvious that if we could just get rid of the lawyers, Firestone and Ford would have voluntarily recalled all of their unsafe tires, and given generous refunds to their customers.  And I know for a fact that if there were no trial lawyers Enron and its officers would gladly be giving substantially more generous severance pay and bonuses to the average worker, and all of the securities firms would be returning money they took from investors they misled.  If we could just get rid of the lawyers we could still buy cars like the Corvair, football helmets that cripple kids, three-wheeled ATVs, drugs such as fenphen, polybutylene pipe for our homes and use the Dalkon Shield contraceptive. 

. . . . . . . . . .

Whether you have been defrauded by a stock broker, ripped off by a used-car dealer, injured as a result of a careless doctor, lost a parent to nursing home negligence or had medical problems because of a drug that doesn't work as promised, trial lawyers are your only hope for compensation.  And more importantly, lawsuits and the threat of lawsuits are the only way the marketplace will regulate and stop such practices. [ii]

We live in a civilized society, a country that utilizes the civil justice system to regulate health and safety, to resolve disputes, and to represent the rights and interests of Everyman.  Lawyers don't stand before juries and judges to promote their own interests.  Rather, we stand before juries and judges to tell the truth about our clients' causes; their stories would be ignored, brushed aside or silenced by corporations and insurance companies with more power, more money and a vested interest in keeping them out of the courtroom.  In short, trial lawyers hold the powerful accountable to those who would be powerless, apart from the rule of law.   Trial lawyers have caused manufacturers to make safer products; we have caused industry to provide safer workplaces.  These changes have not occurred because manufacturing and industries have charitably changed their ways, but because trial lawyers have forced these changes, one lawsuit at a time.

The Past President of ATLA, Mary Alexander, reacted to the repeated criticisms of trial lawyers during the 2004 presidential campaign, while speaking recently to a lawyer's group:

It is time to end the vitriol against trial lawyers and to let people and especially the media know what we really do.  This is not a partisan issue.  We are proud of what we do, fighting for consumers against large insurance companies who don?t treat them fairly; fighting for the ordinary person; fighting for the voiceless and the powerless.

According to the Consumer Federation of America, an estimated 6,000 deaths and millions of injuries are prevented each year because of the deterrent effect of product liability lawsuits -- your cases everyday.  Without what you do, Americans would still be driving on defective tires, asbestos would still line the walls of schools and homes, and badly designed cribs would strangle babies.[iii]

            Ms. Alexander concluded her speech by stating: "We as lawyers, with character, courage, compassion and a keen moral compass, battle for our clients, fight for victims, and protect the nation from defective products through our justice system.  This is what makes me proud to be a lawyer, and the public must demand no less of us."