February 3, 2010

Updated: Readers of Point of Law have known about many of these specifics for years, but here comes another wave of major media coverage: the Wall Street Journal weighs in with a front-page news account on the contributions and other cozy relations between politicos in Ohio, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and elsewhere and leading class action firms. And it quotes a dissident in the class-action ranks:

"Plaintiffs' lawyers donate because they think it buys them access to people who make decisions over how pension funds select counsel," says Fred Isquith, a partner at Wolf Haldenstein Adler Freeman & Herz LLP, a plaintiffs' firm in New York. Such giving "creates an appearance of complete impropriety," he says, and "should be outlawed."

Earlier: A Washington Times editorial reviews some eyebrow-raising episodes in outside-counsel-hiring by the past or present attorneys general of California, New Mexico and Alabama.