Further emails to candidates

[below email sent to full candidate list]


From: RDShatt@aol.com
To:
Sent: 6/18/2010 ______.M. Central Daylight Time

Subj: Forbes article on BP fund, fraud and big legal bills

I have previously urged you to make plaintiffs' lawyers a campaign issue. It may now be full blown in the wake of the BP fund that has been created. Check out this Forbes article:
http://blogs.forbes.com/docket/2010/06/16/bp-fund-a-recipe-for-fraud-and-big-legal-bills/

Rob Shattuck


[below email sent to candidates who replied to above email]

From: RDShatt@aol.com
To: __________
Sent: 6/20/2010 _____.M. Central Daylight Time
Subj: Re: Forbes article on BP fund, fraud and big legal bills


Dear _______,

Thank you for replying to me.

You might consider advocating that BP Fund administrator Feinberg could save money for the Fund by structuring the program so that all legal work (including on behalf of claimants) is done by lawyers who are hired on a salaried basis. Not only would this greatly reduce the diversion of the Fund to plaintiffs' lawyers, it would also probably result in a fairer treatment of "little guy" claimants.

For your information, I have posted a comment on The Wall Street Journal making such a proposal. My comment appears at these two links:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704122904575315283350034668.html?mg=com-wsj#articleTabs%3Dcomments

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703650604575313203010325166.html?mod=ITP_pageone_2#articleTabs%3Dcomments

This comment I posted on The Wall Street Journal reads as follows:

The BP Fund offers an excellent opportunity to attack the problem of growing
lawyer unemployment and also to save money for the Fund. If history
is any guide, total attorneys' fees that can be expected to be paid from
the BP Fund are going to be upwards of $5 billion. Unemployed lawyers
should consider applying to the Fund administrator Kenneth Feinberg for
jobs. The job applicants should make the argument to Mr. Feinberg
that those total legal costs could be greatly reduced, maybe by 80%,
if he structured the program so that all legal work was done by lawyers who are
compensated on a salary basis. The applicants should express willingness
to work for, say, $100,000 per year. An 80% reduction of a $5
billion legal cost down to $1 billion would allow the hiring of 2500 attorneys
for four years at annual salaries of $100,000. That would make a dent in
the lawyer unemployment problem. At the same time, it should provide
adequate manpower to do the needed legal work (including on behalf of
claimants) in the administering and making awards from the $20 billion
Fund and save the Fund $4 billion for use in making more awards to persons
who have been harmed by the oil disaster.

I hope you decide to advocate such an idea yourself in your campaign.

Sincerely,
Rob Shattuck