From the St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Plaintiff bar gives top dollar to judges' campaigns
By Kevin McDermott
Of the Post-Dispatch
©2004, St. Louis Post-Dispatch
09/20/2004

The biggest recipient of donations was Democrat Gordon E. Maag, a 5th District appellate judge now running for the Illinois Supreme Court.
(AP

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. - Madison County judges, who are among the most successful in the state in attracting political donations, are getting the biggest chunk of that money from just one side of the courtroom: the plaintiff attorneys.
A Post-Dispatch analysis of campaign records has found that plaintiff law firms in the Metro East area donate in far bigger amounts to the judges who hear their cases than do defense lawyers or any other group of identifiable contributors.
The top 10 donating firms gave more than $200,000 in the past two years to Madison County judges and to the 5th District Appellate Court judges who review their cases. Nine of those top 10 donors are plaintiff firms, which have a national reputation for their success at suing industries like tobacco and asbestos in Madison County.
The Post-Dispatch analysis focused on the eight circuit judges from Madison County and the seven judges on the 5th District Appellate Court in Mount Vernon, Ill. Of those 15 judges, eight have received political donations in the past two years, totaling $810,560.
The fund-raising success of those judges comes as no surprise. A Post-Dispatch analysis last year found that judges on the 2002 ballot in Madison County and the 5th District Appellate Court took in three times the state average in political contributions in general, most of it from the attorneys who argue in their courtrooms.
The new analysis shows that the plaintiff bar dominates these donations, creating a clubby system in which Democratic plaintiff lawyers promote the election of Democratic judges, many of whom are former law partners or relatives of their donors.

All current Madison County circuit judges are Democrats, six of the seven appellate judges are Democrats and both Supreme Court justices who have represented Southern Illinois the past 10 years are Democrats.
"The plaintiffs' lawyers, almost uniformly, are Democrats. We represent individuals, generally, against corporate interests," said Bruce Cook, whose plaintiff firm, Cook Ysursa Bartholomew Brauer & Shevlin, of Belleville, gave more than $9,000 to area judges in the past two years. "Judges here were Democrats long before there were class-action lawsuits."
People who represent business interests see a different motivation.
"There is a direct correlation between the plaintiff-friendly nature of Madison County and the (political) donations from plaintiffs firms" to judges, said Ed Murnane of the Illinois Civil Justice League, a pro-business group that has been pushing for restrictions on lawsuits in Illinois. "The plaintiffs attorneys understand they have to keep the judges happy. This confirms it's business as usual in Madison County."
In Missouri, Supreme Court judges, appellate judges and some circuit court judges (including those in St. Louis and St. Louis County) are appointed by the governor. Those judges must stand for retention to remain in office. While campaign committees could be formed on their behalf, it is rarely done.
In Illinois, judgeships are determined by the voters, and judicial candidates routinely set up campaign committees, and buy political advertising. Thirty-eight other states also have some type of judicial election. Among the findings of the Post-Dispatch analysis were:
Almost all of the identifiable donations to the judges came from attorneys. That's in addition to thousands more hidden within "nonitemized" donations that are made under the $150 threshold that Illinois sets for reporting donations.
"We're generally pretty slick on how we give money," said one top Metro East plaintiff attorney, speaking on the condition of anonymity. "We can give quite a bit at $150 a check, if we don't want our name in lights. Some of them, we give as much (that way) as we do under our names."
The biggest recipient of donations was Democrat Gordon E. Maag, a 5th District appellate judge now running for the Illinois Supreme Court, with receipts of $170,066 in the past two years.
The single highest donor firm was SimmonsCooper of East Alton, the region's top asbestos litigator. Since January 2002, the firm has donated $44,800 to area judges.
Firm founder John Simmons dismissed the idea that there is something intrinsically questionable about lawyers making campaign donations to the judges who hear their cases.
"I don't spend a lot of time thinking about the critics," Simmons said.
SimmonsCooper and its top asbestos litigator, Randall Bono, each wrote $100,000 checks to the state Democratic Party this year.
These donations, along with three other $100,000 donations from law firms, dwarf anything else given to the party this year.
Lawsuit-reform groups, noting that both the presidential and U.S. Senate races in Illinois are considered locked up by the Democrats, have speculated that the money would be funneled into Maag's Supreme Court campaign.
The Democratic Party and Maag have denied that the $500,000 was earmarked for Maag's campaign.

Dallas firm's interest

Though not among the top 10 donors, a generous donor to Madison County and 5th District judges is the firm of Stanley, Mandel & Iola of Dallas.
It specializes in mesothelioma suits, working with Wise & Julian of Alton.
Among Stanley, Mandel's Madison County cases was a suit in 2001 that ended in a $16 million settlement. The firm had earlier donated $1,500 to Madison County Judge Nicholas G. Byron, who presided over that case.
"I was asked to (donate) and it's my constitutional right to give money to whoever the hell I want to," partner Mark Iola said two years ago, when asked by the Post-Dispatch about that donation. "But in no shape or form did I think that by giving (Byron) money he could be influenced to rule in my favor."
Since then, Iola and others in the Dallas firm have donated about $8,000 more to two Metro East judges.
About $2,000 went to Byron in 2002 when he ran successfully for retention.
The remaining $6,000 was donated last year to Maag - $5,000 from the firm and $1,000 from Iola.
Maag's campaign subsequently returned $3,000 of the firm's donation, in keeping with his self-imposed $2,000 limit on donations.
The Supreme Court race - Maag against Republican Lloyd A. Karmeier of Nashville, Ill. - has become a focal point of Illinois' ongoing battle over the tort system, in which Republicans are seeking monetary limits on lawsuit awards and Democrats are opposing such limits.
Though Karmeier, a circuit judge from Washington County, and Maag haven't specified positions on the issue, lobbyists on both sides have made it clear they believe the battle is one for and against continued unlimited awards for plaintiffs.
Maag offered no theories as to why a Texas law firm would donate to his Illinois Supreme Court campaign. "I don't even know who they are," Maag said.
The records for Karmeier indicate his biggest donations have come from business interests rather than from attorneys - including a $5,000 donation from the Illinois State Medical Society, the lead opponent to the attorneys' lobby in the tort reform debate.
Iola, the Dallas firm's partner, declined to comment on the firm's donations. "I have no interest in talking with you," Iola said in a recent telephone interview at his office in Dallas. "I don't think it's consistent with my professional obligations."
The Supreme Court race spurred one of the biggest donations from a single law firm to a single judge this year.
Carey & Danis, a St. Louis-based plaintiffs firm, gave Maag $10,000 in June - staying within Maag's self-imposed $2,000 limit by giving the money in the form of five donations of $2,000 each from three of the firm's attorneys and two of their spouses.
"We think Gordon Maag is a good judge ... (and) it's a critical election," said partner Joseph Danis. "Given the significance of the Supreme Court, we're of the position that (the election outcome) is important to our clients."

Defending the gifts

Some other plaintiff attorneys here were equally upfront in defending their donations of tens of thousands of dollars to the judges who hear their cases.
"I would hope we're on the list. ... Is that all? I'm sure we gave more than that," said Rex Carr, a former partner of the Korein firm, when told of the $34,275 in donations to judges that the firm gave while Carr was there.
Carr called it "nonsense" to infer that the overwhelming support of sitting judges by plaintiff attorneys was meant to sway cases. He also noted that all current Madison County circuit judges are Democrats, and that plaintiff attorneys (as opposed to defense attorneys) generally support Democrats rather than Republicans. "We're for the little guy, and against the big guy," Carr said.

Area plaintiff firms interviewed say there is no coordination among attorneys from the same firm to donate to the same judge, and no pressure on associates to give money.
But one attorney who formerly worked for a major law firm here said he was routinely hit up for donations to judges while at work, usually in the form of tickets to campaign fund-raisers.
"There were times when (a donation) was pretty much required" by the upper management of the firm, said the attorney, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
"There would be a walk down the hall, and (the manager) would say, 'I need a check for $500 for (a judge's) campaign, now.' And you wrote the check."
Unlike the federal government and many states, Illinois places no limit on the amount or source of political contributions, as long as the contributions are disclosed in state campaign records.
Under Illinois law, it is illegal to give a political donation in someone else's name. But Steve Sandvoss, deputy general counsel for the Illinois State Board of Elections, said that rule wouldn't bar a firm from telling an attorney to give his or her own money to a candidate.
While coercion of employees to give donations may be addressed under the state's labor laws or the state attorney disciplinary system, Sandvoss said, the state's narrowly drawn campaign code doesn't specifically address it.
Most firms interviewed say their donations to judges are merely a nod to the political system that exists, without regard to which judges are asking for the money.
"We just attend their fund-raisers, like most other firms in the Metro East," said Will Miller of Goldenberg, Miller Heller & Antognoli. The Edwardsville firm donated $11,100 to area judges in the past two years. "I understand what people perceive . . . (but) we just attend the local fund-raisers for the local judges as a matter of courtesy," Miller said.
Some leaders of top firms say they are uncomfortable with making political contributions to judges.
"To be honest, I'd like to see the system changed," so that judges are publicly financed instead of supported by private donors, said Brad Lakin of the Lakin Law Firm of Wood River, which donated about $24,000 to area judges in the past two years. "It would be nice not to have to ... step up to the plate and help out. It's not always an easy burden."
Cook, whose Belleville firm gave $9,225 to Madison County and 5th Appellate judges since 2002, acknowledged: "There's a thin line between supporting a judge who agrees with you philosophically, and suggesting that supporting them influences their decisions."

Questions of appearance

The area's top asbestos-suit defense firm, Burroughs, Hepler, Broom, MacDonald & Hebrank of Edwardsville, gave less than $9,000 in the past two years.
The firm did not return phone calls seeking comment on its thinking on contributions to judges.
In fact, the only firm among the top 10 donors that isn't a plaintiff firm is Lucco & Brown of Edwardsville, which gave just over $10,000 in the past two years to local judges, putting it ninth on the list.
Partner Joe Brown described the firm as "general practice," with much of its work lately focused on defending against asbestos suits.
Brown said he did not believe "by any stretch" that plaintiff firms gave more money than defense firms because they're trying to buy cases. "It's probably just because they make so much money," he quipped.
But he added that Illinois' judicial election system as a whole raises questions of appearances.
"It would be naive to say the plaintiff firms do not strongly support the bench in Madison County ... (and) I see pretty good attendance by defense firms at these judges' fund-raisers" as well, Brown said.
"I wish there was a way to do these judicial elections" without the influence of money and the questions it raises, he said. "If elections were free, that would be great."
Reporter Kevin McDermott
E-mail: kmcdermott@post-dispatch.com
Phone: 217-782-4912