Mississippi Reins In Use Of Contigency-Fee Lawyers
Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant is scheduled to sign into law tomorrow restrictions on the state’s use of outside, contingency-fee lawyers. The law, opposed by Attorney General Jim Hood,would require all outside counsel to keep detailed time and expense records and limit contingency-fee lawyers to a total fee of $50 million.
The law would curb a practice that has raised eyebrows and made many politically-connected lawyers extremely rich. Mississippi was the epicenter of the 1997 tobacco settlement that included $14 billion in fees for the private attorneys who helped negotiate it, including such firms as Motley Rice and jailed former attorney Dickie Scruggs, who was hired by his friend, then-Miss. Attorney General Michael Moore. Here in my home state of Connecticut the tobacco bonanza showered cash on recipients including Silver, Golub & Teitell, which just so happens to be the former law firm of U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, who hired them when he was the state’s attorney general.
Forbes
5/21/12
Magnolia Tribune
