Guest Commentary: Oil Spill Settlement Makes Lawyers, Administrators Rich While Disaster Victims Await Payments

By Margaret Viator
03/10/2015
BATON ROUGE, LA- Nearly five years after the Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, a legal watchdog group is calling into question who is benefiting most from the unprecedented class action settlement set up to compensate victims in the aftermath of the 2010 oil spill. “Class action lawsuits are notorious for producing highly...

TAGS: BP oil spill, Deepwater Horizon, Louisiana Lawsuit Abuse Watch, Tort Reform

Louisiana Lands on “Judicial Hellholes” Watch List Again

By Robert Ross
12/18/2012
With astonishing multi-million dollar verdicts being rendered nearly every other week, and laws and judges that seem to give plaintiffs the upper hand in legal proceedings regardless of the facts of the case—it is no wonder that we’ve become a regular on the Hellholes watch list.

TAGS: American Tort Reform Association, Buddy Caldwell, Litigation Reform, Louisiana Lawsuit Abuse Watch, Melissa Landry, Tort Reform

Louisiana Can Learn a Lot from Texas About Creating Jobs, Cutting Lawsuits

By Editor
10/02/2012
When it comes to the very important issue of legal reform, we are worlds apart. Despite the fact that residents in both Louisiana and Texas share the common goals of creating jobs and cutting down on lawsuit abuse, we have chosen remarkably different paths to address these issues.

TAGS: Lawsuit Abuse Awareness Week, lawsuits, Litigation Reform, Louisiana, Louisiana Lawsuit Abuse Watch, Melissa Landry, Texas, Tort Reform

Study Alleges Majority of Legacy Lawsuits Fail to Produce Hard Evidence of Contamination

By Kevin Mooney
03/29/2012
Are the attorneys and plaintiffs who file lawsuits built around oilfield contamination allegations genuinely concerned about environmental damage? Or, are they instead motivated by a loophole in the law that allows for financial awards to be detached from cleanup efforts?

TAGS: American Tort Reform Association, department of natural resources, environment, Legacy Lawsuits, Louisiana Lawsuit Abuse Watch, Louisiana Oil and Gas Association, Sierra Club