For Lawyers, No Clear Favorite: Litigators Backed Edwards in 2004, but He Has New Competition

WP: For Lawyers, No Clear Favorite
Litigators Backed Edwards in 2004, but He Has New Competition
By Matthew Mosk
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, February 10, 2007; Page A04


John Edwards, a former trial lawyer, was a favorite among Democrats in the profession in 2004. This time, aides say, he is expanding his base of support. (By Mary Ann Chastain -- Associated Press)

In the last presidential election, John Edwards had the powerful support and deep pockets of the nation's trial lawyers behind him. But when the lawyers gather for their winter conference today in Miami Beach, it will be Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.) delivering the meeting's keynote speech.

Edwards, a trial lawyer who became a senator and now a presidential candidate, will be there, too. But the North Carolina Democrat no longer has a lock on the backing of the lawyers. This time around he will be battling it out with others in the Democratic field, who are seen as sympathetic to plaintiffs and their attorneys....

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Winning the backing of trial lawyers is a significant coup for Democratic candidates. The 55,000-member American Association for Justice, which advocates for trial lawyers, ranks fifth on a list of the nation's 100 largest donors since 1989, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. The group's members gave more than $27 million to political candidates during that period, with 90 percent going to Democrats....

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Edwards was a principal beneficiary of the group's giving in the 2004 campaign. Lawyers' contributions accounted for almost two-thirds of the money he raised during the first quarter of 2003, when he surprised pundits and rivals by outraising the rest of the field. By the end of the campaign, more than $10 million had flowed to Edwards from lawyers, many of whom were plaintiffs' attorneys.

They were giving to one of their own. In the mid-1980s, Edwards developed a reputation as a skilled attorney who won significant damage awards for his clients. A North Carolina legal journal calculated that, in the two decades before he joined the Senate, Edwards won $152 million in 63 lawsuits....

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/09/AR2007020901750.html?nav=hcmodule

. . . seen as favorable to the interests of trial lawyers?

Being one myself, I'll share my thoughts. Biden seemed competent to me until the "clean" remark, then I thought he was stupid. Obama has electric-charged charisma, and I think will be my candidate unless Wes Clark gets into the race. I also like Bill Richardson and John Edwards. Edwards still seems light on executive experience, although I deeply respect his talents as a trial lawyer.

I don't see trial lawyers buddying up to Hillary, after her votes on the bankruptcy reform bill. Or has everyone forgotten she sold out to Wall Street on that one?

Seems like most trial lawyers are populists at heart. Edwards has the most populist message. I don't know anyone - lawyers, doctors, plumbers, or butchers - who supports Biden or believes that he will finish in the top 3 spots in any key primary.

Personally, I'd be happy with any ticket that included any two of these four: Gore, Edwards, Obama, and Clark.

doctors are actually more conservative than the general population now.