Bets on this year's judicial hellholes

Tomorrow, the American Tort Reform Association will release its annual Judicial Hellholes report for 2006. These are sort of ridiculous rankings cooked up without much scientific data--just the impressions of a few corporate counsels. Strangely enough, they always seem to dovetail perfectly with U.S. Chamber of Commerce efforts or other big lobbying campaigns to bring legal "reform" to various jurisdictions. Usually, too, you can just pick any part of the country that's heavily minority or really poor and it's likely to be on the list.

Last year, the Rio Grande Valley and South Texas took first place, despite the state's 2003 radical reforms that killed off most malpractice and nursing home litigation. Cook, Madison and St. Claire counties in Illinois all dominated the list, along with the entire state of West Virginia.

Just for kicks, I thought I'd make some predictions on this year's winners. Given the media coverage (sub required) this year and the renewed focus on "patent reform," I'm betting that Marshall, Texas suddenly jumps to its own special spot on the top of the billing for 2006. I'd put money on California getting a bump up, too, now that class action "reform" has supposedly killed off the "magic jurisdictions" of Madison and St. Claire counties. But West Virginia will probably still make the list. Of course, ATRA could surprise me, so stay tuned and I'll report back tomorrow on the winners.  Meanwhile, any other educated guesses out there?

Comments

[Aaron]

Isn't the term "Judici...", er, that you used trademarked? Perhaps we should speak of "Juridical Heckholes" to avoid what would obviously be a highly meritorious lawsuit over trademark infringement.