Biden Raids 9/11 Victims Fund To Help Havlish Lawyers?

WSJ excoriated the plaintiffs’ trial bar for its “Raid on a 9/11 Victims Fund” as “a strange White House order means a windfall for a few plaintiffs’ firms & short-changing other victims of terrorism.” What’s that old saying about “only the lawyers win” in a lawsuit … as even corporate lawyers charge $1K per hr & up to “defend” against one bogus strike suits?

First, WSJ’s concern over the 9/11 fund that was supposed to give families of victims a legal path to claim significant additional damages. “In Feb, in a move that seemed out of the blue, Pres Biden signed an executive order to [circumvent the existing federal victims fund and] divide some $7B in seized Afghan assets” [while] directing “half go to humanitarian aid for Afghans & the other half for Taliban’s US victims. The big surprise … [was that] rather than make $3.5B available to thousands of terror victims throughout the US, the President’s plan directs most of it to about 150 [Havlish who?] people … & plaintiffs’ lawyers repping them are set to claim up to a third of the multi-billion payout.”

Well, no surprise here after managing the PR for three Am Law 100 firms over 17 years, all of which repped corporations & fed agencies to the tune of millions in “defense” fees. The game works like this: Plaintiffs’ law firm sues a deep pocketed company, fund, agency, whatever can be accused of bad conduct for break the bank figures & the accused rush to the “defense” lawyers who charge so much in fees that a multi-million dollar settlement is better than running up the legal bill even further & risking some crazy jury to go along with a sometimes crazy lawsuit. By systematically caving in, these “defendants” arguably encourage what some experts have claimed is a legal shake down. Sort of like Biden’s “sanctions-incentives only” plan for stopping dictators who make up stories to excuse their bad actions in Ukraine, Middle East, Asia…& eventually settling with the wrong people for the wrong reasons.

Davd Soul