Dean's Address

The cry is for federal tort reform; yet Michael Williams, President of the ABA, estimated that state courts hear 99 percent of all court proceedings.⁴⁴ This is also in spite of the fact that a new report by the National Center for State Courts reveals that tort filings have leveled off and there is a dramatic increase in cases involving contracts and property disputes,⁴¹ a sign of hard economic times.

The loudest cry for reform comes in the area of medical malpractice. Yet medical malpractice claims peaked in 1985.⁴⁶ A Texas study shows that medical malpractice insurance and lawsuits have contributed only slightly to the rapidly rising health‑care cost. The study done for the Texas Health Policy Task Force revealed the medical liability cost insurance premiums and damages from lawsuits ‑make up less than one percent of health care expenditures in Texas and the United States.⁴⁷ The report concluded:

The findings indicate that changing the medical professional liability system will have minimal cost savings impact on the overall health care delivery system in Texas.⁴⁸

The report also found that punitive damages were not a major factor in malpractice settlements in Texas.⁴⁹ Our legal system may not be perfect, but it is submitted that it is the best in the world. It can and does have a wholesome effect on our society. Our legal system acts as a restraint on the ability of the wealthy to conspire to monopolize and to dominate. It insures that the downtrodden and the afflicted have access to justice just as surely as they were multi‑million dollar corporations. Punitive damages as we know them today insures that a reputable, honest, and red‑blooded individual or corporation can compete on an equal footing with one that is dishonest, immoral and corrupt and who cares not for the rights or safety of others.

Such a system will rekindle our desire for the safety and welfare of others. It will encourage and reward our citizens for seeking to achieve higher values and not sacrifice safety on the altar of profits.

CONCLUSION

It is popular today to lawyer bash and I am sad to say this includes fellow lawyers such as one‑time Vice President Dan Quayle. Those who do so, do so without any real knowledge or appreciation of what the legal profession does. They are unmindful of the fact that our forefathers wrote the Constitution and Bill of Rights. They forget about the giant contributions of the legal profession to our society ‑ in such land‑mark decisions as Malberry v. Materson, PaIsgraff and Brown v. Board of Education. They forget that our brethren avoided a constitutional crisis and national calamity in the Nixon affair.

I am proud to be a trial lawyer. It is the trial bar that makes up the vanguard of social change. Yet it is the trial bar that nurtures and protects the freedoms that this great nation was founded upon: Freedom of speech; freedom of religion; freedom to our own beliefs; and the right of trial by jury. We are the guardians of the poor, the unfortunate and oppressed. It is our lot to stand at the bar of justice. Whether it be for a large corporation or the poorest individual on earth, our charge is the same: to seek truth and justice with honor. Let us go forward and perform our obligations with courtesy, dignity and due respect to our fellow man to the end that Lady Justice shall prevail.

Finally, I am proud to be a member of this Academy made up of the greatest trial lawyers in the world.

Footnotes