Defense Lawyers' Despair

Tort reform is often designed to put plaintiffs' lawyers out of business, but a new article in the ABA Journal this month suggests that defense lawyers may be starting to rediscover their love of the Seventh Amendment. Few would go on the record--after all, complaining about tort reform would be complaining about your best clients' agenda--but defense firms in Texas have apparently taken a big hit since the state passed passed extreme tort reform in 2003.

The journal quotes defense lawyer Rob Roby, whose firm Gwinn & Roby has shrunk in half since the new law passed."Some of our significant clients, such as large hospital groups and similar entities, have little or no work to assign now," Roby says.

Roby's boo hoo rings a little hollow given that he and his colleagues could have spoken up a little earlier to prevent the bloodbath. But it's even more troubling to learn that malpractice "reform" worked so well that some hospitals in Texas aren't seeing any lawsuits at all. Given the well known stats on medical errors in this country, Texas hospitals can't be that good, can they?

Comments

[mythago]

This article is no surprise to anyone in the plaintiffs' bar. For all their griping about lawsuits, defense firms are the absolute last group that would REALLY want "tort reform". What they do want is a restriction of the right to win; they don't want a restriction of the right to sue.

[Lynn]

I was an insurance defense lawyer in TX from 1986 through 1999 and saw the entire "tort reform" shift. Our firm never supported tort reform. We saw the writing on the wall. I practice in NC now, but my defense freinds have either suffered financially or have left the state.