Everybody knows there is money to be made in lawsuits these days — suits against breast implants, asbestos, Norplant, and the like. Fabulous riches to be made, amounting to billions of dollars for hard-working trial lawyers. So should it come as any surprise that this money has entered the bloodstream of politics?
It turns out there’s more of it floating around than anyone could have imagined. The astonishing extent of political giving by trial lawyers has been brought to light for the first time in a report by the non-profit Contributions Watch. Trial lawyers are bankrolling politicians at a level unmatched by any profession: $ 100.4 million in combined state and federal giving from 1990 through 1995, heavily concentrated among a tiny core of extraordinarily rich plaintiffs’ attorneys. The amount of money involved, as well as the results that money has bought, tell us something new, fascinating, and troubling. Trial lawyers have become the most powerful professional special-interest group in American politics.
