From ... http://www.blogsforbush.com/
Posted on 07/18/2004 3:50:03 AM PDT by pookie18
John Edwards famously proclaims to all comers that he has no apologies about the cases he handled as a personal injury lawyer, which has not quite sufficed to prevent some of his best-known cases from coming under critical scrutiny. In a Jan. 31 New York Times article, Adam Liptak and Michael Moss explored doubts about Mr. Edwards's lucrative specialty of blaming infants' cerebral palsy on mistakes by obstetricians, in particular their reluctance to perform caesarean sections. (C-section rates have skyrocketed under pressure from such suits, yet rates of cerebral palsy do not seem to have dropped as a result.)
In a Feb. 25 National Journal column, Stuart Taylor Jr. criticized Mr. Edwards's successful bid for $4 million in punitive damages against a trucking company after a crash, on top of $2.5 million in compensatory damages, Mr. Edwards's argument being that the company's practice of paying drivers by the mile had encouraged recklessness. (When he read the relevant passage of Mr. Edwards's book "Four Trials," Mr. Taylor happened to be sitting in the back of a taxi whose driver, like most cabbies, was being paid by the mile, an arrangement seldom deemed unconscionably careless.)
The Kerry campaign--now trying vigorously to soften its running mate's business-bashing image--counters that whatever grumblings may be heard from docs and other sore losers, Mr. Edwards at least wasn't the kind of plaintiff's lawyer who really gives the bar a bad name. He never sued whole industries in class actions, they've been pointing out, or grabbed big fees in cases where clients got peanuts. They might add that even his most vocal critics have not charged Mr. Edwards with using unethical means to chase business, or signing up people to sue who weren't really injured, or steering cases to "special" jurisdictions where he had a cozy relationship with the judge, or exploiting ties to political officials to shake the legal plum tree.
(Excerpt) Read more at opinionjournal.com ...
From ... http://www.blogsforbush.com/
So paying lawyers on contingency does not encourage recklessness?
It claims that Edwards doesn't pay people to "steer work" to his firm. Apparently, the reporter hasn't gotten wind of the fact that his firm hires emergency room and pediatric nurses on staff, to have a pipeline into the places where the really juicy cases are first known.
Nor does the article note that Edwards IS connected at the hip with the worse of trial attorneys through his pattern of accepting contributions in false names from friends and employees of such attorneys who have given the maximum, and now spread the wealth in ways that are felonies under federal campaign laws.
Manure is manure, even if you put it on roses or strawberries.
Congressman Billybob
Latest column, "John Kerry & John Edwards: You've GOT to be Kidding"
Hummmm something I didn't know...
Edwards is a personal injury attorney; what makes him so bad is that he does, in fact, "cherry pick" only cases that have the possibility of big rewards.
The two witnesses that had the information to do Clinton in.
Edwards successfully limited their questioning.
A few weeks after Edwards became a senator, he won a key role in President Clinton's impeachment trial. Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, the top-ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, wanted Edwards to assist in the deposition of Monica Lewinsky, the intern with whom Clinton had had an affair. "He was just extraordinary," Leahy said.
I din't know he was involved in those depos either. Interesting.
'Junk science' propelled Edwards' career?
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1166687/posts
http://www.cnsnews.com/Politics/Archive/200401/POL20040120a.html
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