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Posted By: Reid Bruce

Ramram, point well taken. I will be the first person to agree that there are unscrupulous plaintiffs lawyers out there that lie, cheat and steal. Unfortunately, every profession suffers from bad apples. I would urge people to realize that you can't throw the good out with the bad, though. If you punish all plaintiffs for the actions of a few plaintiff's lawyers, the vast majority of people who lose out are people who have done nothing wrong to begin with...the clients. As to bad lawsuits, there are some, and my opinion is that a lawyer who pursues this path repeatedly should face severe sanctions and lose his license. One quick note about medical malpractice insurance and I'll shut up and get back to baseball. Insurance companies exist to abate risk and pay out judgments. That is their only function. The problem that we are facing is not higher judgments (which is a myth), but insurance companies who made extremely bad investments in land and stocks during the middle to late 1990's. When profit margins started to decrease, stock prices did as well. Hence the rate increases...across the board (even my legal malpractice insurance shot up at a rate equal to medical malpractice insurance and lawyers weren't getting sued any more than they usually do). As California's tort reform tought us, insurance reform must occur simultaneously with tort reform if malpractice rates are to decrease. If I were a doctor who had never been sued, I'd be angry at my insurance company for raising my rates, not the trial lawyers who sue the bad doctors out there. At any rate, the bottom line is that there should be fewer lawyers and the lawyers we have should be competent and well regulated. I just hate to see those persons who are truly injured have their compensation cut because of a few greedy idiots.