Illinois Takes Another Beating

Today the conservative Manhattan Institute released the latest in its line of "Trial Lawyers, Inc." reports, this time focusing on the state of Illinois. The study is full of the usual scary--and dubious--numbers from compromised sources about the ever-increasing size of the "litigation industry" and all those itinerant doctors fleeing the state in search of happier legal climates.

The MI report will no doubt be effectively deployed by the big companies that helped make the Illinois  2004 judicial races the most expensive in American history (read more about that election here) and which are gearing up for another round in November.  No surprise, but some of the Manhattan Institute's biggest funders are the same companies that occasionally get whacked in Illinois courts, including Philip Morris, the victim of a recently overturned $10 billion verdict in Madison County.

The Doctors Aren't Disappearing, but the Lawsuits Might Be...

One interesting item from the MI study: Since George W. Bush signed the Class Action Fairness Act in 2005, the number of class actions filed in the famous Madison County "judicial hellhole" has plummeted. After seeing more than 100 in 2003, this year, according to the MI, Madison County has had but one. This news does beg the question: If all the lawsuits are disappearing, how can "Trial Lawyers, Inc." be growing exponentially, as the researchers claim?