WELCOME TO THE LA LAWSUIT ABUSE BLOG!

Congratulations. This should contribute to an important dialogue about a cruciual issue. I look forward to reading your commentary.

Most people do not know LA was named by the Institute for Legal Reform as the worst environment for legal fairness in the nation. Our city is joined by others in a current piece on Forbes.com focusing on the problem.
If it’s a personal injury lawsuit, avoid Starr County, Texas. Class actions? Hopefully you won't find out why John Grisham sets so many thrillers in Mississippi. Construction suits? Building's not the only thing booming in Clark County, Nev. Journalists hoping to avoid libel suits may wish to avoid courts in Philadelphia, according to ATRA's report for Forbes. Last summer, Arelia Margarita Taveras, who represented victims of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and earned as much as $500,000 annually, was disbarred after she admitted to using client funds to pay for her gambling. So Taveras sued casinos in Atlantic City and Las Vegas for allowing her to gamble away $1 million. She had an embarrassment of riches as far as deciding where to file her lawsuit. Taveras sued in New Jersey, rather than Nevada, underlining an important difference in how defendants measure litigation risk in certain venues. Mississippi is particularly hostile to class-action defendants, and local business defendants often have an advantage, whereas other states like New Jersey treat in-state defendants as roughly as out-of-state defendants.
So many doctors in Palm Beach County, Fla., got hit with lawsuits that by 2003, they began to flee the state. The legislature cracked down and the exodus slowed, but premiums remain astronomically high, especially for specialists like neurosurgeons. In 2004, the County had only 4 neurosurgeons covering 13 hospitals.
Our state legislature will review MICRA this year. Look for a fight to change this important law so the trial bar can make more money, increase the opportunities for lawsuits and hurt the businesses, health care providers and citizens of our state.