ConfirmThem

By krempasky Posted in SCOTUS — Comments () / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

Quin posted mention of a story that's been making the rounds...and Beldar had his way with him in the comments. I'm going to reprint his comment in full - with a note: I'd have printed it too. Not because of my eagerness to smear Ms. Miers - but because: 1) I'm not a lawyer and 2) There's not a better place to have asked for an explanation. So, with due respect to Bill Dyer - easily my favorite legal blogger that goes quiet for months and then on a rampant socratic tear - I don't think there's any shame involved in asking the question in the hopes of getting the facts. And thanks to Bill, we did.

This, frankly, is an outrageous smear. And this website ought to be ashamed to be spreading it.

Strong words, I know, and not the sort of condemnation I usually level against conservative bloggers I genuinely respect. But the suggestion that some sort of fraud is imputable to Harriet Miers over this is — well, it’s more outrageous than I can adequately express without slipping into profanity.

Every major law firm in the country has been sued on grounds like these at some time or another. If you have a contrary impression, you’re full of crap.

Why do law firms get sued in cases like these? For the same reason that banks, investment bankers, and insurance companies often do: Because they’re the deepest pockets left standing after a bad deal goes south.

Which firms pay out the biggest settlements? The very best ones. Why? Because they’ve been the lawyers involved in the biggest deals.

I am here to tell you, from my first-hand experience as a practicing lawyer from Texas, that during the hard times in the oil patch in the early 1980s, and during the S&L collapse around that same time, every major firm in Texas was sued repeatedly. Every one, without exception. Only a tiny, tiny percentage of those ever resulted in any proof of misconduct or impropriety. But they sure made life difficult for us. I still get a W-2 and a check for about $40 every year from a Dallas-based firm in which I was a partner in the early 1990s, as part of a refund over time out of some reserves set-aside that had been set up as part of some settlement. I have absolutely no clue what the underlying lawsuit was about, but whatever it was, I’m sure you could make charges against me with exactly the same credibility as the charges you’re peddling against Ms. Miers’ here — that is to say, with ZERO credibility.

I know some of the lawyers who were on the plaintiffs side in this particular lawsuit, and they’re formidable. I’m sure that added a lot to the settlement value of the case — i.e., what they could basically extort from the law firm. But look at the facts, folks:

No fraud or other misconduct on the part of the law firm was ever proved. That remained an unproved allegation, an accusation never tested by any judge or jury. The firm denied that it had committed misconduct; the settlement, as is universal in such matters, repeated that denial and made very clear that no admission ought to be implied from it.

The specific lawyers involved were apparently in a branch office, not in either of the firm’s two main hubs (Dallas and Houston), and it appears that by the time of the settlement, they’d left the firm. Now, there’s always an argument to be made that the captain of any ship is responsible for his/her crew’s misconduct. But if you want to draw inferences, I’d suggest that the appropriate one is that Ms. Miers and the other top management of the firm did such housecleaning as may have been necessary, if there was any misconduct on the part of those branch-office lawyers. That’s a good thing, not a bad thing.

Unless you’re similarly willing to ride out of town on a rail the top management from every major bank and securities firm in the country — ’cause they’ve all been sued, and all paid out money to settle such lawsuits — you ought to rethink these allegations.

And ask yourself this: If you’re a conservative in favor of tort reform and curbing litigation abuse, what in a Justice’s background is likely to make him or her more receptive to the need for such things than having been targeted with bogus lawsuits?

Shame, shame guys and gals — you ought to know better than this, and if you didn’t, you ought to have asked a lawyer who did.