Here Come The Lawyers
Wallstreet analyst Jim Cramer, of the RealMoney Radio Show, had this to say about last night's election:
Although this is not a political show, where the left vs. right is discussed, whenever there is a big election with a political shift, it is important to focus on the financial realities of such a change.
One such reality is class-action lawsuits. One area that nobody's talking about with the Democrats coming in is the repeal of the reform against class-actions . . . (I) fear that one of the unintended consequences of the Democrats taking over the House is that the people who bring these lawsuits are going to be back, and drug stocks are going to be sued.
I would really hate for this to be true, but one thing that Cramer seems to have forgotten is that the Class Action Fairness Act was passed by a resounding and bipartisan 72-26. This means that there were plenty of Donkeys braying their "Yea" right along with the GOP.
Class-Action lawsuits were (and still are, in many cases) a huge problem, and we still need a lot more focus directed toward reform of the legal system in this country, though with a Senate comprised mainly of lawyers (and the Dems receive huge contributions from the Trial Lawyers Association, soon to be renamed "The American Association for Justice" . . . whatever), further reform is unlikely, no matter how necessary.
And lest we forget, John Edwards was a Trial Lawyer, and he was almost one-step away from the Presidency. Can you imagine the accelerated bloat of the Trial Lawyers Association if that had happened?
*shudder*
One good measure of (Trial Lawyers') size is their political clout: In 2002 the trial lawyers' PAC ranked third in America -- and was the Democratic Party's most generous contributor. We're not saying that there's no role for trial attorneys in the American legal system, or that they don't occasionally secure justice for a wronged individual. But with the billions its firms rake in each year putting them squarely in the category of Big Business, shouldn't their self-serving claims be treated with the same skepticism routinely directed at, say, Halliburton or Philip Morris?
On second thought, maybe I should be worried about the repeal of tort reform . . .