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Same Trial Lawyers, New Spots
When the Association of Trial Lawyers of America changed its name last year to the American Association for Justice, it said the impetus was to better communicate the organization's mission in the face of criticism by big business and Republicans. But anti-tort advocate Victor Schwartz, president of the American Tort Reform Association, saw it differently, analogizing it to a shark calling itself a kitten fish.
Since then, 11 state trial lawyers' associations have followed suit, changing their names to substitute "justice" for "trial lawyers." First was the Louisiana Trial Lawyers Association, changing its name three months after the AAU's vote to the Louisiana Association for Justice. Florida followed soon after with a name change to the Florida Justice Association. Others that have made the change are Alabama, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, Ohio, Rhode Island and West Virginia, and others still are considering the change.
Now a new Web site portrays this series of name changes as a "secret strategy to hide the truth of who they are from the American public." The site, Same Leopard. New Spots, is published by the Institute for Legal Reform, an affiliate of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce founded to advocate for pro-business tort laws. (As I've noted before, I avoid the phrase "tort reform.") The new site charges:
"In a secret memo last summer, the Association of Trial Lawyers of America notified its members of its scheme to rename the organization the 'American Association for Justice' and planned secret conference calls and meetings to convince them to support the name change. Even now, their website contains an 'FAQ on the recent name change' that is hidden behind password-protection."
Think what you will of the name change, to portray it as some kind of secret conspiracy seems alarmist. The secret memo the site describes is nothing more than a letter to members notifying them of the vote on the name change and setting out the arguments in favor of it. The "secret conference calls and meetings" were a series of events described as intended to allow "a full and spirited debate among the membership before we make this decision." Nor was the proposed change kept from the public; it was reported by several sources nearly a month before the vote.
Leopards prowl on both sides of the tort debate, it seems, each camouflaging its arguments as best suits its goals.
Posted by Robert J. Ambrogi on August 3, 2007 at 06:07 PM | Permalink
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