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	New Web Site Highlights Abusive Lawsuit Stories - 2/11/2008 By now you've probably heard of the Washington, D.C. judge who sued his dry cleaners for millions of dollars over a pair of pants. Now there's a Web site that tells their story -- and many other personal stories of lawsuit abuse -- in their own words.
	Judge Who Sued Over Pants Loses Job - 11/14/2007 A judge who lost a $54 million lawsuit against his dry cleaner over a pair of missing pants has lost his job, District of Columbia officials said.
	Opinion Editorial: AGs Gone Wild - 11/13/2007 District Attorneys have "National Prosecution Standards." U.S. Attorneys have their own ethics manual. But what about state Attorneys General? They get to make everything up as they go, as their increasingly aggressive prosecutions are showing. The problem is laid out in a new report by the Institute for Legal Reform, an affiliate of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, that deserves more publicity.
	Lawyers in Iowa lawsuit against Microsoft to get $75M - 9/05/2007 A $75 million payout to the lawyers who sued Microsoft Corp. over antitrust claims in Iowa has some people in the state hopping mad.
	Ohio Supreme Court paves way for referendum on tort reform law - 9/04/2007 The future of Ohio's most debated tort reform law appears to be in the hands of its citizens.
	Lost luggage prompts lawsuit - 9/03/2007 A Tacoma couple and another traveler whose bags were lost on British Airways flights filed a federal lawsuit Wednesday against the airline. The lawsuit charges that British Airways has lost 550,000 bags this year -- some of them permanently -- and is suffering from a "massive backlog" of misplaced luggage.
	Lawyers in lawsuit get $75 million - 9/01/2007 Lawyers who sued Microsoft Corp. will receive $75 million in legal fees and expenses, or an average of about $575 an hour for each of the 117,000 hours that about 150 lawyers, paralegals and law clerks worked on the case. That average rate is well above the $300 to $400 an hour billed by top partners in Des Moines' larger law firms.
	Makeover, Trial Lawyer Style (Blog) - 8/23/2007 Last year, the Association of Trial Lawyers of America decided that a few among their ranks had brought disrepute to the trial lawyers' reputation. So they decided to take a stand against the bad actors in their ranks and call for reforms to reduce outrageous lawsuits.
	Pants Update: When Shaming Doesn't Work - 8/20/2007 While I was away--and many thanks to Valerie Strauss for her energetic and entertaining posts while she filled in for me--there were some developments in the Pants Suit that gave us both reason for hope and a reminder of just how petty and small man can be.
	Same Trial Lawyers, New Spots (Blog) - 8/03/2007 When the Association of Trial Lawyers of America changed its name last year to the American Association for Justice, it said the impetus was to better communicate the organization's mission in the face of criticism by big business and Republicans. But anti-tort advocate Victor Schwartz, president of the American Tort Reform Association, saw it differently, analogizing it to a shark calling itself a kitten fish.
	Overly Punitive? - 2/26/2007 The Supreme Court overturns a big tobacco verdict.
	Justices Overturn Tobacco Award - 2/21/2007 The Supreme Court yesterday overturned a nearly $80 million verdict intended to punish the Philip Morris tobacco company for endangering the lives of smokers, and the justices set limits on how jurors can decide to make big business pay for wrongdoing.
	Bush renews call for tort reform - 2/08/2007 President's criticism of suits is rejected by lawyers association
	Physician lobby shifts strategy on medical-liability reform - 2/01/2007 Although physician lobbyists recognize that their years-long quest for a federal law capping medical-malpractice lawsuit awards is unlikely to be fulfilled by the Democratic Congress, they are taking the long view.
	Class-Action Settlement Size Is Surging - 1/04/2007 While the number of cases declines, payouts -- and investor losses -- climb.
	Many Police Officers Fear Being Sued More Than Being Murdered - 11/22/2006 U.S. law enforcement agencies are struggling with the threat of lawsuits regarding the conduct of officers.
	Paulson Says Business Is Over-Regulated - 11/21/2006 Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. yesterday criticized the nation's "ever-expanding rulebook" and its burdensome legal system for constraining the economy but rejected wholesale revisions to a corporate accountability law under attack from business groups.
	Class-action firms irate over proposed legal curbs - 10/30/2006 Prominent plaintiffs' attorneys Monday lashed out at proposals by private-sector groups that would make it tougher to bring shareholder lawsuits against corporations.
	Op Ed: First, Rename all the Lawyers - 10/24/2006 If a rose would smell as sweet by any other name, will trial lawyers smell better with a new one? That's the question posed by the impending self-reinvention of the Association of Trial Lawyers of America.
	Four Supreme Court Cases for Small Businesses to Watch - 10/24/2006 The U.S. Supreme Court is back to business this fall term as it decides several important cases impacting employment, punitive damages, patent and antitrust laws.
	U.S. companies shoulder costly suits, investigations - 10/13/2006 U.S. companies face steep legal costs from juggling an average of 305 lawsuits, as well as internal investigations prompted by Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 and other corporate-governance regulations. American companies also funneled an average of $12 million, or 71% of their legal budgets, to litigation costs, not counting judgments and settlement payments, according to the third annual corporate counsel study from Houston-based law firm Fulbright & Jaworski.
	Chamber announces legal reform awards - 10/13/2006 The U.S. Chamber Institute for Legal Reform announced today the recipients of the 2006 Legal Reform Awards. "The five individuals and two organizations selected to receive the prestigious award have all played a significant role in legal reform successes over the course of the last year," according to Lisa Rickard, president of ILR.
	McDonald's Didn't Make Them Fat - 10/11/2006 I have a question for federal Judge Robert Sweet: If your own children blamed McDonald's for making them fat, would you buy it? I don't think so.
	Rate Cuts Show Tort Reform Is Working (Opinion Editorial) - 9/20/2006 When the Mississippi legislators were battling a few years ago over reforming the state's civil justice system, those who fought the changes claimed that the doctors who lobbied for the reforms were being hoodwinked by the insurance industry.
	Lawyers Who Won $200M Fen-Phen Settlement Suspended by Kentucky High Court - 8/25/2006 Kentucky's highest court suspended three attorneys Thursday over questions about how they divided a $200 million settlement over the fen-phen diet drug.
	Bush Prods Congress on Medical Liability Limits - 8/22/2006 President George W. Bush on Tuesday renewed his call for Congress to curb medical malpractice lawsuits and signed an executive order aimed at providing Americans more information about the cost and quality of health care service.
	'We Just Want to Practice Medicine' - 8/18/2006 Even though he and others in the local medical field have seen some recent changes, Dr. Morris Kugler says the fight to level the judicial playing field hasn't been won.
	Trial Lawyer Group Changes Its Name - 7/20/2006 A trial lawyers' trade group is removing the words "trial lawyers" from its name.
	Lawyers Anonymous - 7/19/2006 What's in a name? More, it would seem, if the name doesn't contain the words "trial" or "lawyer."
	Excessive - 7/07/2006 You don't have to like Big Tobacco to appreciate yesterday's Florida Supreme Court decision to reject a $145 billion punitive damages award against that industry for injuring smokers. The ruling is also a notable victory against jackpot justice.
	Off the Deep End: Lawyers Take Our Diving Board - 6/23/2006 I'm now an official victim of the trial lawyers. So are my kids and the 800 members of our community pool that opened this summer without a high diving board.
	Only Caps Work to Lower Malpractice Awards, Premiums - 6/14/2006 Reforms other than caps don't make a dent in the cost of malpractice awards or premiums. That is among the findings of a study, "The U.S. Medical Liability System: Evidence for Legislative Reform," in the May/June issue of Annals of Family Medicine.
	That's Outrageous: Lawsuit Lunacy - 6/14/2006 Three years ago Bob Dougherty had some bum luck at a Home Depot in Louisville, Colorado. Dougherty sat down on a toilet in the store's bathroom -- and couldn't get up. A prankster had smeared glue on the seat, and Dougherty was bonded to the toilet. As paramedics rushed him to the hospital, the toilet seat came free -- but not without leaving some skin behind.
	The Asbestos-Fraud Express - 6/02/2006 If the Milberg Weiss indictments are anything to go by, federal prosecutors are finally getting serious about tort lawyer corruption. So let's hope they've also noticed a federal lawsuit in West Virginia that describes some of the most sordid asbestos fraud to date.
	The Nuisance That May Cost Billions - 4/02/2006 On a frigid night in January, lawyers for four of the nation's largest paint manufacturers gathered in a rented office space in downtown Providence, R.I., to strategize on how to counter contentions that their clients were to blame for the state's decades-old lead-contamination problem.
	The State of Torts - 4/01/2006 So tort reform really is good for the economy. That's the bottom line of a new survey this past week from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's Institute for Legal Reform, which helps explain why so many states are jumping on the legal-reform bandwagon.
	Companies like Missouri's tort reforms - 3/27/2006 Missouri's legal system is no longer one of the 10 worst for businesses, thanks to legislation passed last year that limits civil lawsuits, according to a poll of corporate lawyers released Monday by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
	Wisconsin falls in legal system rankings - 3/27/2006 The U.S. Chamber of Commerce said Monday that for the second year in a row, the state of Wisconsin plunged in national rankings of the state's legal system, dropping 13 places in two years
	Report: Mo., Ill. legal systems improve in fairness - 3/27/2006 Missouri's legal system improved, in 2005 climbing to No. 35 among all 50 states in a national ranking of legal systems for fairness, according to a report released Monday.
	Tort Reform Bill Passes Florida House - 3/17/2006 A business-backed bill that could reduce the number of lawsuits filed against 'deep-pocket' companies passed the Florida House on Thursday and was sent to the Senate, where its fate is still uncertain.
	Pennsylvania Legislature Passes Tort Reform Bill - 3/16/2006 The Pennsylvania Legislature has passed a bill that would ensure civil defendants only pay damages they are found to be directly responsible for in most lawsuits.
	Oklahoma House Passes Comprehensive Lawsuit Reform Package - 3/16/2006 Oklahoma House lawmakers advanced a lawsuit reform package, sending a series of bills to the state Senate for consideration. The package is led by the comprehensive Common Sense in the Courtroom Act.
	Tillinghast Study: U.S. Tort Costs Reach a Record $260 Billion - 3/13/2006 U.S. tort costs reached a record $260 billion in 2004, or approximately $886 per person, according to the U.S. Tort Costs and Cross-Border Perspectives: 2005 Update from the Tillinghast business of Towers Perrin.
	Math Divides Critics As Startling Toll of Torts Is Added Up - 3/13/2006 The latest study puts the cost in 2004 at $260 billion, almost equal to the annual sales of Wal-Mart -- nearly $900 for every man, woman and small child in the nation. It projects that cost will rise to nearly $315 billion by 2007, outpacing the expansion of the overall economy.
	Editorial: New cap deserves approval - 3/09/2006 It has taken two tries, but the Legislature has finally arrived at a reasonable compromise on a cap on pain-and-suffering awards in medical malpractice cases. Unlike the previous cap that was vetoed by Gov. Jim Doyle, we believe this cap is far more equitable and deserves the governor's signature.
	Malpractice bill one step away - 3/01/2006 The state House approved the recent compromise on medical malpractice legislation Tuesday, sending the agreement to Gov. Chris Gregoire for signing.
	A Challenge for Mr. Frist - 2/23/2006 Anyone who thinks the tort system can handle asbestos claims should consider some numbers from the Rand Corp. think tank. Of the $70 billion paid out in settlements for asbestos-related injuries since the 1970s, about $41 billion went to lawyers; only $29 billion went to sick people. A system of compensation that burns up more than half the dollars it consumes in administrative costs is utterly broken
	Trial lawyers make America sick - 2/23/2006 If doctors could prescribe litigation to improve human health, every American would resemble an Olympian and reach age 110. Of course, the opposite is true. As the free-market Manhattan Institute discovered, the barrage of lawsuits battering the medical and pharmaceutical industries is incredibly expensive. Even worse, it shackles doctors, spooks researchers, and leaves patients sick or dead.
	Battle heats up over legal reform in Florida - 2/20/2006 Lawsuit industry is taxing all Floridians. Thanks to Florida's trial attorneys, there's no running allowed on playgrounds.
	AIA Calls Georgia Supreme Court Decision a Blow to Tort Reform - 2/14/2006 In a setback for Georgia's recent progress on civil justice reform, the state Supreme Court overturned a key venue law, which was part of the comprehensive tort reform legislation enacted in 2005, according to the American Insurance Association (AIA).
	Litigation Raising Health Care Costs, Study Says - 1/01/2006 An October 2005 report from the Manhattan Institute shows the efforts of trial lawyers to target health care providers for profit are raising U.S. health care costs.
	'Magnets' for tort lawsuits criticized - 1/01/2006 Certain state courts in Texas, Illinois, West Virginia and Florida are sought out the most by "litigation tourists," who are guided by personal-injury lawyers to jurisdictions they know will produce a victory, according to a recent report by a national tort-reform interest group.
	New Survey Finds That Only Sixteen Percent of American Adults Trust the Legal - 7/17/2005 A new survey commissioned by Common Good and conducted by Harris Interactive(R) among American adults has found that only 16 percent of those surveyed trust the legal system to defend them against baseless claims.
	Millions of Americans Have Lost Doctors Because of Liability Fears, Poll Finds - 7/06/2005 Ten percent of Americans have lost their doctor to retirement or relocation because of the threat of lawsuits or high malpractice insurance premiums, according to a new poll conducted by Caravan Opinion Research on behalf of The Doctors Company, a physician-owned insurer.
	Sham lawsuits kill worker benefits, chase away jobs - 7/03/2005 Lose your pension? Health insurance slashed? Job gone? Call one of those bleating trial lawyers who blare their luring ads on the TV.

U.S. Chamber Institute for Legal Reform | 1615 H Street, N.W. | Washington, D.C. 20062-2000