The Texas Trial Lawyers Association (TTLA) is an organization made up of plaintiff's attorneys. The group was founded in 1949.
The TTLA is a powerful force in Texas politics. Trial lawyers, both individually and through their political action committee, have contributed millions to Texas candidates for public office. They largely, though not exclusively, support Democratic candidates and political action ...
Gov. Rick Perry torments Democrats and disparages trial lawyers, but he likes Aggies. Even if they're Democratic trial lawyers. His appointment of Anthony Buzbee to the Texas A&M System Board of Regents is a case in point.
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For a second time — and likely the last — the Texas Supreme Court refused to hear the case of Michelle Gaines, who suffered debilitating injuries in a 2006 car accident.
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Trial lawyers, the most reliable and generous source of cash for Texas Democrats, generally sit out Republican primaries. But this year the are pouring huge sums into key Senate races, hoping to elect Republicans who are more friendly to their agenda than the establishment-preferred GOP candidates.
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If the 2012 primaries are any guide, the plaintiffs’ bar is becoming less shy about investing in the Republican side of the ballot — and Republican candidates are not being bashful about accepting the money.
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What started with a notebook full of proposed changes to civil law in Texas has become a permanent fight between seemingly permanent institutions.
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Texans for Lawsuit Reform is the biggest and richest tort reform group in the state. But as its PAC has become the dominant financial engine for legislative races, it has helped create a Legislature that’s not only more conservative about legal issues, but more conservative, period.
Full StoryA Texas Tribune analysis found that the Texas Windstorm Insurance Association mishandled claims after Hurricane Ike and paid millions of dollars to defend its fraudulent behavior and claimants’ lawyers profited from huge settlements and legal fees.
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State legislators say they've reached a compromise on reform of the Texas Windstorm Insurance Association, potentially averting a second special session this summer.
Full StoryWant a quick recap of some of the happenings this week in the Texas Legislature? We've made it easier for you with our weekly video rundown of the action under the dome.
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Lawmakers and consumer groups say special interests need to butt out of the battle over the Texas Windstorm Insurance Association.
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Calling it "absolutely" must-pass legislation, Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst said this afternoon he is working with senators to hammer out a bill to reform the Texas Windstorm Insurance Association.
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The bill has pitted Republican Gov. Rick Perry and trial lawyer Steve Mostyn, the largest Democratic donor in Texas, against one another, and it is a key reason that lawmakers are in a special legislative session.
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Texas got one step closer today to becoming one of the few states with a rule that awards legal fees to prevailing parties in lawsuits.
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Advocates say requiring the losing parties in litigation to pay their opponents’ legal fees is the cure for courts choked with the costs of “junk” lawsuits.
Full StoryThe president of Texans for Lawsuit Reform on why the group spends spend so much money on state elections, what it still wants from the Legislature, what he thinks the trial lawyers on the other side are after and what's wrong with the Democrats these days.
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The tort reform state lawmakers passed in 2003 made it more difficult for patients to win damages in any health care setting, but none more so than emergency rooms, where plaintiffs must prove doctors acted with "willful and wanton" negligence. Tort reform advocates say the law is needed to protect ER doctors operating in volatile environments. But medical malpractice attorneys argue the threshold is nearly impossible to cross. “You’d have to be a Nazi death camp guard to meet this standard,” says one.
Full StoryThe trial-lawyer-as-epithet strategy, a perennial favorite of Texans Republicans, is playing big in the effort to oust longtime Democratic House member Jim Dunnam, D-Waco.
Full StoryIt's still poisonous in Texas politics to be painted with the trial lawyer brush.
Full StoryIn a courtroom Monday, a Galveston County judge will decide whether to release details of millions of dollars in fees earned by attorneys in the largest class-action settlement paid out by the Texas Windstorm Insurance Association.
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Is a hospital bed an integral part of medical care? As a federal judge considers the constitutionality of Texas’ 2003 medical malpractice reform — and Gov. Rick Perry campaigns for more lawsuit restrictions — the state Supreme Court has ruled that hospital injuries seemingly unrelated to doctor error can fall under Texas’ stringent medical malpractice caps. Some legal observers say the decision is a perversion of legislative intent, but tort reform advocates contend the high court simply closed a huge loophole in liability reforms.
Full StoryIf the Larry Taylor-Steve Mostyn battle over windstorm insurance payouts wasn't a proxy war for the tort reformists and the trial lawyers before, it certainly is now.
Full StoryHe may still be recovering after a near-fatal four-wheeler accident this summer, but Steve Mostyn's in a fightin' mood.
Full StoryThe past president of the Texas Trial Lawyers Association, who testifies before two House committees today, tells the Tribune that Texas liability law shortchanges workers caught in industrial accidents — an issue of renewed interest since the Deepwater Horizon disaster.
Full StoryGrissom's three-part series (here, here and here) on prosperity and peril along the U.S.-Mexico border, Hu on the Division of Workers' Compensation audit report, Stiles puts more than 3,000 personal disclosure forms filed by politicians, candidates and state officials online, M. Smith on attempts to curb the practice of barratry (better known as ambulance chasing), Ramsey interviews the chair of the Texas Libertarian Party, Hamilton on attempts to improve the success rates of community colleges, Galbraith on whether electric deregulation has helped or hurt Texans, Aguilar talks to a chronicler of the bloody narco-wars and Ramshaw on doctors who most often prescribe antipsychotic drugs to the state's neediest patients: The best of our best from July 12 to 16, 2010.
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Curbing the practice of barratry — "ambulance chasing," in the vernacular — has prompted an uneasy alliance between tort reformers and the Texas Trial Lawyers Association: They agree on reform ... just not on the form it should take.
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