Florida looks to restrict litigation privateering, will Mississippi follow?

This letter to the editor in Sunday's Clarion Ledger nails it.

The Clarion Ledger's recent editorial ("Secrecy: Senate backslides on openness," Feb. 13)) made a great point: Secrecy is comfortable for some officials, but it is bad for taxpayers. Efforts have been made in the Mississippi House and the Senate to remove the comfortable secrecy surrounding the office of attorney general when it comes to secret contingency fee lawsuits. Not only is it the public's right to know to whom the attorney general is giving contracts, but we also ought to know who he is empowering to litigate against our businesses with the power of the state.

Currently, trial lawyers can get the blessing of Attorney General Jim Hood, fly the flag of Mississippi and use the power of the government to sue a business, and then after taking their share, give a piece of the booty to the government. If we can't end the days of privateering, we should at least know who is sailing the seas on our behalf.

Indeed.

Florida, it seems, is seeking to put that end the trial bar racket by putting sunshine on lawyers, according to this piece in the Wall Street Journal.

The relationship between trial lawyers and state Attorneys General has been one of the more lucrative rackets of the past decade. In the latest sign the tide may be turning, the Florida legislature is now considering a law, supported by Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum, that would limit the amount plaintiffs lawyers could take home when they piggyback on lawsuits brought by state prosecutors.

This unholy alliance was employed most famously in tobacco cases and copied in shakedowns from pharmaceuticals to insurance. AGs send jackpot cases to the trial attorneys, who turn around and kick some of their contingency-fee winnings back to the AGs in campaign contributions. By outsourcing the work, Attorneys General can file more cases, raising their political profile. The lawyers, meanwhile, wield the power of the state and its publicity machine to force companies to settle.

The Florida bill would cap attorneys fees, require competitive bidding, and make contracts transparent by posting them online.

Legislation similar to the Florida bill has been on the march in other states where contingency fees have been a source of legal abuse. Colorado, Connecticut, Kansas and Minnesota, North Dakota, Texas and Virginia have all passed reforms governing the attorney general or the state's ability to retain personal injury lawyers. Among the laws are requirements for competitive bidding, limits on contingency fee contracts and increased transparency.

As former Virginia Attorney General Jerry Kilgore, who oversaw similar reforms in his state in 2002 puts it, "You need to make sure that the outside counsel works for the state, not the other way around."

Will Mississippi be one of those states, or will Jim Hood continue handing out no-bid contracts to his campaign contributors?