Progress on Pay to Play
States begin to shine light on the plaintiffs bar-AG business.
The Wall Street Journal
February 12, 2010
The cozy relationship between elected state officials and the plaintiffs lawyers who contribute to their campaigns and win state business has always been ethically troublesome, if not illegal. So we're happy to report that a number of states have been taking steps to address pay to play.
For more than a year, Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum has been working to reform the process for hiring private attorneys who represent the state on a contingency-fee basis. He scored a partial victory late last month when Florida's Board of Trustees, which oversees public pension funds, approved a $50 million per case cap on legal fees paid to outside securities litigation counsel. That may seem like a generous cap, but in 1997 Florida settled a lawsuit with tobacco companies for $13 billion, and the lead law firm got $250 million.
