Group: Lawsuit process unfair

Drugmaker Eli Lilly and Co. will pay Mississippi $18.5 million - what it spent on Zyprexa, plus some.

But because Bailey and his firm have contributed thousands of dollars to state attorneys general - including $75,000 to Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood - a business organization has made him the target of its campaign to shed light on the relationships between elected officials and trial lawyers who sue on behalf of states.

"Pay-to-play might be good for (Attorney) General Hood and the law firms, but it is bad for the people of Mississippi to have their legal system tainted in this way," said Lisa Rickard, president of the Washington-based U.S. Chamber Institute for Legal Reform.

Rickard's group is using the Eli Lilly case and others to give new life to a well-worn saga that has been playing out in Mississippi since former Attorney General Mike Moore and the now-fallen attorney Dickie Scruggs orchestrated the state's 1997 multibillion-dollar settlement with the tobacco industry.

"It's an issue that goes on and on and on," said Moore, now in private practice in Jackson.




Clarion Ledger
2/14/10