{"id":4935,"date":"2004-08-04T19:41:24","date_gmt":"2004-08-04T23:41:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/formerlyknownas\/inquiry-to-obama-on-tort-reform\/"},"modified":"2008-09-21T22:31:52","modified_gmt":"2008-09-22T03:31:52","slug":"inquiry-to-obama-on-tort-reform","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/inquiry-to-obama-on-tort-reform\/","title":{"rendered":"Inquiry to Obama on Tort Reform"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

update (April 29, 2008): See our posting “obama’s tort reform creds<\/a>.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

On August 4, 2004, the editor of this weblog sent the following email to the Barack Obama Campaign<\/a> information center:<\/p>\n

\n

to<\/em>: info@obamaforillinois.com<\/a><\/p>\n

re<\/em>: Tort Reform Inquiry<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Hello, Obama Campaign!<\/span><\/p>\n

I’ve praised Mr. Obama at my weblog — <\/span>obama, o mama!<\/span><\/a> (July 27, 2004) — and am pleased that my alma mater<\/em>, Harvard Law School, has produced a uniter. [update<\/em><\/strong>: In postings such as this one<\/a>, I have now publicly noted my support for Sen. Obama for President.] <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Yesterday, Evan Schaeffer, editor of the weblog Notes from the (Legal) Underground<\/a><\/em> wrote about “tort reform” laws passed by two Illinois cities. Today, Ted Frank of <\/span>Overlawyered.com<\/span><\/a><\/em> left a <\/span>Comment<\/span><\/a> at (Legal) Underground<\/em> in which he quotes Barack Obama as saying \u201cAnyone who denies there\u2019s a crisis with medical malpractice insurance is probably a trial lawyer.\u201d His source is a news Bulletin<\/a> of the Chicago Automobile Trade Association<\/a>, dated May 10, 2004, which also says “Obama<\/span><\/span> acknowledged a need for tort reform.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Mr. Schaeffer is a trial lawyer and opponent of tort reform. Mr. Frank is a strong supporter of tort reform. I am not a tort reformer (and do not advocate limiting the size of personal injury awards), but have written extensively on the topic of the standard contingency fee, which I believe consistently extracts excessive fees from clients (see, e.g<\/em>., my ethicalEsq<\/em> posting Some UnCommonly Good Advice on Contingency Fees<\/span><\/a>; and the four-part essay<\/a> on the ethics and economics of contingency fees):<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Because I respect Mr. Obama’s intelligence and integrity, I would very much like to know his position on tort reform and his reasoning. Can you clarify?<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>
\nthank you,<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>
\nDavid<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

update<\/em><\/strong> (Sept. 4, 2004): August Vacation?<\/strong> After a whole month, there\u2019s still no reply from the Obama campaign on his tort reform position. However, Jeff Berkowitz<\/a> interviewed Obama\u2019s former opponent, Jack Ryan, in May and has the transcript comparing their tort reform positions here<\/a>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

afterwords<\/strong><\/em>: As we pointed out here<\/a>, and elsewhere, the Obama Campaign has never responded to our request, and we have not found any other explanation from his campaign. Disappointing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

update (April 29, 2008): See our posting “obama’s tort reform creds.” On August 4, 2004, the editor of this weblog sent the following email to the Barack Obama Campaign information center: to: info@obamaforillinois.com re: Tort Reform Inquiry Hello, Obama Campaign! I’ve praised Mr. Obama at my weblog — obama, o mama! (July 27, 2004) — […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":94,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-4935","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/P6kP1R-1hB","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4935","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/94"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4935"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4935\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4935"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}