A long time ago and in another blog, a comment by NoMiss said:
I don’t know if this is the NYC law firm mentioned above, but I noted on the IRS report that NYC firm Bernstein Litowitz Beger & Grossman LLP contributed $25,000 on 9-14-07 and contributed $50,000 on 10/22/2007. Their aggregate contribution year-to-date was $105,150.
Going back to my reference of all things MooreScruggs (Orey’s “Assuming the Risk”), I find this information about Bernstein on page 246.
“Although Scrugg’s plan after moving back home to Pascagoula was simply to open a law office and take virtually anthing that came in the door, he did not start out with a completely empty file drawer. In May 1979, a court put New York attorney Lawson Bernstein in charge of the affairs of Frigitemp Marine, which had gone bankrupt, in good part due to problems in its relationship with Ingalls. When Scruggs confided in him that he was thinking of striking out on his own, Bernstein encouraged him. ‘I told him, Dick, these guys [at the big firms] are not for you. You’ve got too much ability to be wearing someone else’s collar.’ When Scruggs left Watkins & Eager, Bernstein gave him the Frigitemp account.”
The IRS report (which was in the blog post connected to the comment) is here.
This was all brought to my mind reading a recent opinion by a district judge in New York. The question was which of two law firms could best represent the plaintiff class in a securities litigation involving Merrill Lynch. The opinion spends most of its length tossing about what seem to me relatively abstract questions about whether the United Mine Workers’ law firm had a potential conflict because they contracted to monitor the pension’s securities accounts for potential claims at no charge, with the payoff being a commitment to hire the firm should a lawsuit turn up.
The opinion has exactly the quality of the scenario Alfred Hitchcock used to describe how he builds tension: Two guys sitting at a table having a banal conversation and unaware that under the table is a suitcase with a ticking bomb.
And this time, the bomb goes off in the very last frame of the film!
There is, of course, another firm contending with the mine-workers. It seems that a lawyer in Mississippi happened upon this claim and brought it to the attention of the Attorney General. What was the AG’s response? Why, the AG’s response was to say, “Yes, I am interested in pursuing this claim! Let me introduce you to the lawyer who will take the lead while you carry his brief case!”
This is what happened with tobacco and Dickie Scruggs.
This is what happened with the MCI tax claim and Joey Langston.
And this is what happened with the Merrill Lynch litigation and the lawyer Mississippi’s Attorney General selected, Bernstein Litowitz. I will now ask the reader to go up and reread NoMiss’s comment.
So the opinion knocks along for its length worrying about an abstract possible conflict and then concludes with this footnote (yes! It’s in a footnote, with the law licenses of Joey Langston and Dickie Scruggs hanging over it like Banquo’s ghost!)
The Court in not unaware of disturbing allegations that state entities not unlike MissPERS [the Mississippi state retirement system], and law firms not unlike Bernstein Litowitz, have engaged in “pay-for-play” arrangements, by which such an entity will not even consider hiring such a law firm unless the law firm has contributed to the campaign fund of the relevant state elected official, such as the attorney general. See, e.g. John C. Coffee, Jr., ‘Pay-to-Play’ Reform: What, How, and Why, New York Law Journal, May 21, 2009, p. 5. But no such allegations are presently before the Court in this case.
BOOM!
Here’s the opinion
is that a tell-tale for someone to now bring this argument before the courts in similar cases? or is it some form of CYA by saying it wasn’t brought up here, therefore it isn’t of consideration?
I think your analogy is wrong. It seems from the opinion that Pond Gadow Tyler is more of the Joey Langston/Dickie Scruggs in your analogy. The opinion states that Pond Gadow has no securities litigation experience. Why do we have 12 firms monitoring these securities and then a firm with no class action securities experience get these cases? Who is Pond Gadow and what did they do to get the case cut a newspaper article?
I think the statement about how the tobacco case came together is WAY oversimplified. And there is no comparison between that and the MCI deal.
What everyone forgets (as we live off the tobacco payments) is that the State couldn’t (and/or wouldn’t) fund the tobacco litigation. The only funding source was a group of plaintiffs’ attorneys (much broader than Scruggs) that were willing to risk something to make the case go. And unlike the typical 48 state suit, Mississippi was the lead dog on this one, meaning that there wasn’t some law firm that came shopping the case to Mississippi and then it got passed to a local. This one started here.
There is the issue about Lewis and his claim to have invented tobacco but he wasn’t willing or able to fund it.
Reminds me of a Joint Legislative Budget Committee Hearing years ago when someone asked why Scruggs was handling the State Asbestos Abatement Case. Something along the lines of, “we’re the State of Mississippi, why do we need Scruggs to fund our case?” To which (then) Speaker Tim Ford said, “his plane’s bigger than ours.”
People forget that Fordice tried to shut the case down – and that he was acting on behalf of Joe Camel. Back then, Scruggs was the good guy.
Most of the Scruggs stuff is seen through the lens of the criminal case but if you go back to the beginning here’s a smart guy with guts enough to risk everything several times to succeed in PI asbestos, then the property damage asbestos then tobacco. Same guy that flew planes off of aircraft carriers. A flawed guy but he put a lot of money in the coffers down in Jackson.
dd511dd,
If you think Scruggs first bribe was to Judge Henry Lackey after he had made his $500 million, then you are an idiot. That was just the way of doing business to Dickie see P.L. Blake and his infamous I won’t get indicted because the GOP’s are hypocrites Trent Lott.
Mike, at 11:13: Do you think Scruggs’s last bribe was to Judge Henry Lackey?
If he was smart, he has paid for some guards a new vacation and a car for the local thug of his new residence. and do tobacco payments count?
in the opinion, the court actually sees it as a benefit that pond gadow brought the case to light. the ghost of steve patterson is more visible in that new york opinion.
As I have stated before, we badly need new legislation that specifically prohibits “pay for play” related to the AG’s office. Any campaign or other contributions or benefits paid or provided to the MS AG/office from an attorney (or by any attorney in the same firm) should prohibit that attorney and/or firm from being hired by the MS AG to represent the state of MS in any legal matter. Such a law would put an absolute stop to “pay to play” re the AG’s office, without affecting the AG’s legitimate right to select counsel and negotiate the terms of representation.
It is surprising to see Pond Gadow & Tyler involved with this. They advertise heavily for 7′s and 13′s around Jackson. The best place to find one of their lawyers is a Sect. 341 docket call. I don’t mean this disparagingly, that firm just doesn’t strike me as the type to be mentioned in this.
“[H]anging over it like ‘Banquo’s ghost.’” This is why I read this blog!
Up to the minute Mississippi legal news; good. Insightful legal analysis, better yet. However, to combine all that with a literate sensibility, that’s what keeps this ‘blogeur’ coming back for more!
Thanks NMC!
P.S. Blogeur’s not in quotation marks because it’s an original coinage, all of 30 seconds old. In the unlikely event it hasn’t been used before its all yours.
Meanderline, I checked on the novelty of your new coinage “blogeur.” Google only gave me 40,400 hits. Is this not a great time to be curious? Is Google not a great tool?
along time ago on another blog = Last February on Folo.
In the old days we thought payments by way of campaign contributions, as opposed to payments into an elected offical’s private pocket, were kosher. Then came Alabama’s Governor Don Siegelman, whose conviction was recently upheld by the Eleventh Circuit (for accepting a campaign contribution in exchange for action favorable to a donor). Granted, there was an insider testifying against both the Alabama Governor and the donor (both were convicted). Looks like our AG can safely say these payments and this temporally “fishy-looking” action are coincidental, UNLESS someone on the inside decides to tell an inquiring FBI agent something about a quid pro quo.
Response to Outsider:
Yup; that’s a few more than I got when I googled it just after posting. Enough to make one feel quite superfluous. They do say we’re at least each physically unique, but you know what they say about dopplegangers…