Speaker Bill Howell and State Senator Mark Obenshain jointly authored an op-ed this morning lamenting Governor McAuliffe’s short sighted veto of SB 1059, among other proposals for ethics reform coming from the Republican-led General Assembly:
This legislation, which passed both the House and Senate with bipartisan support, would do two things: First, it would cap what are called “contingency fees” that could be paid to third-party lawyers. Second, it would increase transparency by requiring the governor and attorney general to post contracts with these lawyers online.
Seems rather innocuous, right? So what’s the big deal?
This concept is perfectly acceptable for clients who can’t afford to pay a lawyer up front but still need access to justice. Virginia, however, isn’t one of those clients, and too often contingency fees paid by taxpayers are used to line the pockets of out-of-state trial lawyers.
Here’s how it works. The Attorney General’s Office will hire a law firm on a “contingency fee” basis and become part of a lawsuit. When the trial lawyers win, they take a large part of the settlement as payment. In some instances, these out-of-state lawyers are on corporate witch hunts, filing frivolous and unnecessary lawsuits against businesses just to force a costly settlement.
There you have it.
I’ll let others debate the merits and demerits of the current ethics reform proposals being drafted and debated on Capitol Square. The bottom line remains: if Terry McAuliffe can’t even get this right, how can Virginians trust him on the rest?
