Alabama State Bar

The shame of judicial races – [Editorial]
Anniston Star
10-27-2008

Every two years, candidates try to convince Alabamians that they are best able to serve the state's appellate courts.

Aspiring judges seek a serious vocation. Alabama's system includes three appeals courts — the Court of Civil Appeals, the Court of Criminal Appeals and the Supreme Court. All told there are 19 seats on those three courts. Depending on the court in question, judges will weigh in on the merits of multi-million (and often multi-billion) dollar civil cases, the rights of the accused in criminal cases that could include execution or, in the case of the Supreme Court, both types of jurisprudence.

It's weighty stuff. Alabama needs judges with wisdom, a deep understanding of the complexities of the law, an intellect capable of probing deeply, an open mind to all sides and an even temperament not easily swayed by emotions.

To our great shame, the way most of these candidates sell themselves to the voters is by circus shenanigans. Costly ones at that — as much as $54 million was spent on Alabama Supreme Court races from 1993 until 2006.

30-second assaults

During the campaigning, opponents, particularly those aiming for the Supreme Court, tear each other apart. They toss out carefully tested buzzwords about their opponents in 30-second TV commercial blasts.

They skillfully punch a set of hot buttons. Candidates are true, Alabama conservatives. They are committed to their families. They are deeply involved in their church. They are tough guys (and gals) just itching to put away the bad guys, damn the facts.

Who and what funds this high-tech sliming? Answer: The various interests competing for favor on those courts — corporate concerns, trial lawyers, religious elements seeking a sort of theocracy-lite, advocates for a get-tough form of justice and on and on and on.

What a senseless waste.

Worse still, this exercise is an abuse of an institution — Alabama's legal system — that depends on the trust of the people in order to function properly. We've gained the right to elect judges, and in the process diminished the people seeking the job.

Part of a newspaper's duty is to weigh in on important matters such as who should sit on state appellate courts.

This Editorial Board has and will again perform that function. Yet, before we do there's something more important to discuss than next week's judicial elections.

Guns and values

A Supreme Court race to fill the seat that will soon be vacated by Justice Harold See is being contested much like previous high-stakes contests for that nine-member court. The Republican is Greg Shaw, a member of the Court of Criminal Appeals. The Democrat is Deborah Bell Paseur, a longtime Lauderdale County district judge.

Both candidates possess qualities that commend themselves to the state's highest court. Both have track records of success, experience, knowledge and judicial bearing.

Yet both campaigns have moved well beyond those arguments. In one TV commercial, Shaw, dressed in hunter's camouflage, fires his shotgun and discusses a Second Amendment gun rights case recently decided by a narrow 5-4 majority in the U.S. Supreme Court. Shaw says the ad's point is one vote can make a difference. A more realistic interpretation is that Shaw's campaign is sending a message to voters: He fits right in with the majority of Alabamians who like to hunt and own guns. Furthermore, he will, in his words, "work hard to protect our family values."

Firearms are not the sole domain of Shaw. In a Paseur ad, the judge fires a pistol at a target while touting the time she spent as a police officer. Family gets a nod in her commercial as well, as the announcer claims she is "the only mother and foster mother" in the campaign. The translation: Paseur is tough on criminals and a respecter of "family values."

There's nothing wrong with hunting or being a police officer or locking away lawbreakers or caring deeply for one's family, especially given Alabama's criminally high divorce rate. Yet, none of those qualities guarantee a person is ready to sit on an appellate court.

The fault is not with the candidates; it's with the system.

Impartial partisan?

The judicial ads are not out of the ordinary compared to races for president, governor or Congress. In fact, they could be worse.

Just because candidates can sink lower is no cause for celebration. There's something unseemly about judicial candidates for statewide offices swimming in those partisan waters.

Candidates compile huge war chests of cash. Candidates compress a lifetime's experience into 30-second slices designed to push the emotions. These same candidates seek a seat on a court where emotional reactions must be set aside in order to serve the rule of law without favor to interests that may or may not have contributed to one's campaign.
Judges, therefore, must wallow in the muck of partisan campaigning for months and then present themselves on the other side as clean, impartial arbiters of the rule of law. Judges who are to be impartial in matters of law must run as either Republicans or Democrats. What a contradiction — the impartial partisan.

It's too much to ask of a judge.

Until we fix this system in ways that remove the obscene amounts of special-interest cash and deflate the partisan posturing, then Alabama's form of justice will be less than it should be. Better forms of selecting judges for state courts exist. It's our duty to implement them.
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Bar association wants clean race – [Editorial]
Tuscaloosa News
October 19, 2008

We're glad to see the state bar association's attempt to keep a lid on the Alabama Supreme Court race between Deborah Bell Paseur and Greg Shaw. Given the out-of-control spending that typifies state Supreme Court contests, however, it may be an exercise in futility.

Democrat Paseur faces Republican Shaw in the contest to fill the seat being vacated by retiring Supreme Court Justice Harold See. Paseur is a retired Lauderdale County district judge and Shaw is a member of the state Court of Criminal Appeals.

Historically, Supreme Court races in Alabama are the most expensive in the country. Pitting trial lawyers against business interests, they attract donors nationwide. The combined spending of Shaw and Paseur exceeded $923,000, according to recent campaign finance reports, and was expected to easily top $1 million.

The candidates are pouring that money into televised advertisements that try to paint each other as guilty by association for accepting donations from business associates of major oil companies.

The president of the state bar asked Shaw and Paseur to meet with a judicial campaign oversight mediator to air their disputes. It isn't clear if there will be a meeting and the ads continued.

A Shaw spokesperson released a statement saying Paseur was to blame for the negative tone of the race. It looks like the state bar association faces an uphill battle.
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Mediators meet with candidates for court
By Dana Beyerle Montgomery Bureau Chief, Tuscaloosa News
October 24, 2008

MONTGOMERY | Two candidates for a seat on the Alabama Supreme Court met with mediators on Thursday about their escalating campaign rhetoric, but few details about the meeting emerged.

Retired Montgomery County Circuit Judge William Gordon, co-chairman of the Alabama State Bar Association’s judicial campaign oversight committee, said he and two other committee members met with Supreme Court candidates Deborah Bell Paseur and Greg Shaw.

“I can tell you we had a meeting, but what was said and what was done is confidential,” Gordon said. Candidate representatives said Paseur and Shaw also agreed to confidentiality.

Paseur, a Democrat, and Shaw, a Republican, have been attempting to link each other’s political contributions to the oil industry.

State Bar President Mark White asked the candidates to resolve their dispute because he fears the race will escalate into a more negative and expensive campaign, further tarnishing the state’s judicial election image.

Democrat and Republican representatives said they have not had recent contact from the campaigns asking them to tone down their rhetoric.

Republican spokesman Philip Bryan said the GOP may respond independently to what it considers attacks on Shaw.

The last e-mail communication from either campaign since Tuesday was a positive announcement of law enforcement endorsements of Paseur.

Paseur and Shaw seek to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice Harold See on the Nov. 4 ballot.

Paseur is a retired Lauderdale County district judge. Shaw is a Court of Criminal Appeals judge.
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Supreme Court hopefuls meet with the Judicial Campaign Oversight Committee over the negative campaigning
ERIC VELASCO, The Birmingham News
October 24, 2008

Both candidates for an Alabama Supreme Court seat met Thursday with a campaign oversight committee to talk about the negative tone the race has taken this month, but neither would comment on the meeting.

Deborah Bell Paseur, a Democrat, and Greg Shaw, a Republican, referred questions to the state Judicial Campaign Oversight Committee co-chairman, William R. Gordon.

"The executive committee is pleased that the candidates took time to meet with us," Gordon said by e-mail. "The discussions are confidential."

J. Mark White, president of the Alabama State Bar, said in a written statement that he was glad the meeting took place. He said he hopes both sides will return to the kind of civil campaign they promised to conduct in a written pledge they signed in the summer.

"We should all continue to emphasize how important it is for the candidates to follow their pledge and talk about their positive qualities," White said. "We owe it to the voters to conduct judicial campaigns in a manner consistent with the dignity and the integrity of the judicial system."

Both campaigns and the state Democratic and Republican parties have hurled accusations at the opposing candidates and have resorted to name-calling.

As Alabama built a national reputation in the 1990s for nasty Supreme Court races, legal leaders created the campaign oversight committee. It is designed to monitor candidates' conduct, resolve disputes and advise candidates on how to conduct campaigns that help maintain voter confidence in the judicial system.
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To no one's surprise, spending on Alabama's lone Supreme Court race leads the country's high court races – [Editorial]
The Birmingham News
October 23, 2008

THE ISSUE: To no one's surprise, spending on Alabama's lone Supreme Court race leads the country's high court races.

Maybe there's a study out there somewhere proving that the more money state judicial candidates spend, the uglier their races become.

We're not aware of such, but we don't really need a study to believe that premise is true. We've watched appellate court races in Alabama for years.

It shouldn't surprise anyone who has been besieged by TV ads in the battle for Alabama's lone Supreme Court seat that ad spending in that race accounted for almost half of the national total among the six states with high court races. So says the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University, a judicial campaign watchdog group.

Spending on air time in Alabama totaled $479,134 for Oct. 11-17, which is 41 percent of the nearly $1.2 million spent nationwide during that time on Supreme Court ads, the Brennan Center said. Democrat Deborah Bell Paseur, Republican Greg Shaw and the Center for Individual Freedom ran ads last week. The Center for Individual Freedom is a Virginia-based nonprofit group that supports conservative causes, according to SourceWatch, a project of the Center for Media and Democracy. Paseur's campaign has tied the group to tobacco and gambling concerns and said it has represented oil and gas industries before Congress.

Total spending on air time in the Alabama Supreme Court race between late August, when the ads began running, and last Friday is about $1.8 million, the Brennan Center said. Paseur spent almost $968,000 on ads that ran almost 2,900 times; Shaw spent almost $566,000 to air his ads nearly 1,400 times; and the Center for Individual Freedom spent almost $250,000 on ads that aired 464 times supporting Shaw.

Invariably, judicial candidates in every state election cycle start out playing nice with feel-good ads about themselves. Then, things turn nasty, as special-interest group money vies for political advantage. In Alabama, the battle lines are well-established: business interests vs. trial lawyers.

The result is an onslaught of distortions and lies, as well as the very real concerns about huge campaign donations influencing judge's decisions. It is downright disturbing.

Unfortunately, it is not disturbing enough to move the Legislature to change the way judges in Alabama are selected. Lawmakers have shown no interest in making elections nonpartisan, or in setting up a system in which the governor would appoint judges from a list recommended by a judicial panel. At election time, voters would decide whether to retain those judges.

Alas, Alabama remains one of just a few states that choose judges through partisan elections, the main reason it has become notorious for its costly and embarrassing contests.

This newspaper absolutely believes the public has a right and a need to know who bankrolls a political candidate's campaign. That's why we argue year after year the law should be changed to prevent campaign contributions from being moved from one political action committee to another in such a way voters can never trace the money back to its source. Too, groups such as the Center for Individual Freedom should have to report the source of the dollars they use to influence judicial elections.

As long as we're stuck electing appellate judges in partisan elections, the least we can hope for is that we know who's behind every dollar spent turning the campaigns so ugly.
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Court Fight in the Heart of Dixie - Dyspeptic dueling for an Alabama Supreme Court seat
By Viveca Novak, factcheck.org as published in NEWSWEEK.com
Oct 23, 2008

Summary
Alabama holds the distinction of having had the nation's most expensive Supreme Court races, with $54 million spent from 1993 through 2006. This year's battle for an open seat on the bench seems likely to sustain the pattern, with heaps of cash being thrown down for ads and a tone that has turned ugly.

The attacks in the Alabama campaign have been a departure from what we've seen in high court races in most states this year, with the notable exception of Wisconsin. We wrote about some of the ads in that mudfest back in March and April, but subsequent campaigns in other states have been mostly civil affairs, to the surprise of many observers of recent trends in judicial elections.

In Alabama, though, things have taken a decidedly negative – and misleading – turn.

Paid phone callers claimed that Democrat Deborah Bell Paseur had been given an "F" rating by the state bar association. In fact, the group gives no such grades to judicial candidates, and its president says the false calls are "reprehensible."

A Paseur ad said Republican Greg Shaw is "backed by more than a million dollars tied to gas and oil lobbyists." But that's just her guess. The group she's referring to doesn't disclose where it gets its money, and it deals with more than just oil and gas issues.

A Shaw ad claims that he is "serving Alabama with Supreme Court experience." But Shaw is only a judge on the Criminal Court of Appeals, not a Supreme Court justice. He once worked as a lawyer for two justices.

Analysis
The race between appellate court judge Greg Shaw and retired district judge Deborah Bell Paseur seems likely to cement Alabama's place as the state with the nation's most expensive Supreme Court races. Currently, there is only one Democrat among the nine justices on the high court; Paseur, if elected, would be the second. Alabama is one of eight states where candidates for the courts run with clearly identified party labels.

Falsehoods on Line 1
Just as robo-calls have been deployed in the presidential race, at least one phone campaign of a type known as a push poll (in which the caller appears to be conducting a poll, but spreads negative information about a candidate) has played a role in the Alabama court contest.

We don't have a recording of the call, but according to press reports in Alabama, the caller claims that Paseur got an "F" from the state bar. The calls appear to originate from a Virginia phone bank, though it's unclear who is behind them.

But the Alabama State Bar doesn't do any such evaluations. "Let me make this very clear," said its president, Mark White, in a statement. "The state bar does not conduct an evaluation poll of any judicial candidates. ...These falsehoods and misrepresentations are nothing short of reprehensible." We're with him.

Owned by Oil?
Looming over the race is a decision by the Alabama Supreme Court last year to drastically trim a whopping $3.8 billion jury verdict against ExxonMobil for cheating the state of natural gas drilling royalties. All eight Republican justices voted to cut it back to $52 million, while the sole Democrat on the court, Sue Bell Cobb, dissented.

Deborah Bell Paseur Ad: "Choice is Clear"
Announcer: Greg Shaw's cronies are being condemned for attacking Deborah Bell Paseur with lying phone calls. Greg Shaw has never served on the Supreme Court, he was a staff attorney. He's backed by more than a million dollars tied to gas and oil lobbyists from this building near Washington, D.C. So the choice is clear: Deborah Bell Paseur is the only judge who's sentenced criminals to jail, and Deborah can't be bought.

Paseur: If you honor me with your vote, I'll serve you with honor.

With Big Oil being the bad guy in the state these days, Paseur has run several ads attempting to tie Shaw to the oil and gas industry, saying that his campaign has been funded by those interests while she has taken "not one dime" from them.

In one ad, Paseur accuses Shaw of being "backed by more than a million dollars tied to gas and oil lobbyists from this building near Washington, D.C." The camera shows a nondescript office building.

The ad is referring to the Center for Individual Freedom, a conservative group headquartered in the Washington suburbs. Paseur may be close on the amount of money the group has spent supporting Shaw: According to Paseur's media buyer, it had purchased nearly $1.1 million worth of air time as of Oct. 21. Alabama media reports put the figure at $500,000 as of Oct. 14.

But can it be said that the group is tied to "gas and oil lobbyists"? That's a stretch. CFIF is a 501(c)(4) organization under the tax code, and as such it isn't required to disclose its donors. Alabama law would require it to do so if it advocated the election or defeat of a candidate, but its ad praising Shaw does not explicitly do so. This means that we don't know how much of its budget might come from oil and gas interests – and neither does Paseur.

Here are a few of the things we do know about CFIF and the energy sector:

According to its Web site, the group takes positions that are often in line with those of the oil and gas industry, such as drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. On one page titled "Will Sarah Palin's Energy Wisdom be Contagious?" the group says, "Governor Palin already brings a refreshing change to a political arena saturated with environmental foolishness."

In August, the group was part of a coalition that lobbied against a provision in an energy bill that could have increased taxes for some energy companies.

CFIF was one of many groups to sign a letter urging the Senate to reject the Lieberman-Warner climate change bill earlier this year, which, the letter said, would do "grave harm to our economy, the poor and U.S. competitiveness."

CFIF has received some funding from the Carthage Foundation, of which Richard Mellon Scaife is the chairman. Scaife's fortune has resulted in part from large family holdings in Gulf Oil.

But for every bit of evidence that might support Paseur's charge, there's ample material to discount it.

The group is involved in many issues that have nothing to do with energy. On CFIF's home page is a link to a plea asking readers to urge George Bush to pardon two Border Patrol agents; one to the group's analysis of McCain's proposal to tax health benefits; another to an interview with someone explaining that the U.S. must win the war in Iraq (okay, that one might have something to do with oil!).

The group's second quarter 2008 lobbying disclosure report indicates that it was making the rounds on Capitol Hill on two telecommunications issues: Net neutrality (CFIF was opposed) and retroactive immunity for telecom companies in amendments to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (it was in favor).

The Carthage Foundation's grants have provided only a small amount of funding ($125,000 in 2005, for instance) to CFIF, whose budget is in the millions, to judge from how much the group is spending on ads this year and the $1.2 million it spent in 2007 in Pennsylvania's Supreme Court contest.

Paseur would have a much better case if she accused CFIF of being a pro-business group, and Shaw of receiving most of his contributions from business interests that want to limit monetary damage awards in civil lawsuits. In fact, most of his campaign funds have come from political action committees with names like Lawsuit Reform PAC and the Alabama Civil Justice Reform Committee (ACJRC PAC), and the donors to those PACs overwhelmingly tend to be corporations that do business in the state, such as Alfa Insurance and Compass Bancshares. The Alabama media have not identified any contributions to Shaw from oil companies or their PACs, or from other PACs that received money directly from oil companies.

It's true that two ExxonMobil lobbyists are involved in running a number of the PACs that have given to Shaw: Bob Geddie and Stephen Bradley. It's also true that it can be difficult to untangle the real sources of funds in Alabama, where it's common for PACs to give to one another and send their money through a sort of maze of committees. And Shaw has been careful not to deny that he may have received contributions linked to a certain oil company: "I'm sure there may be some individuals that have connections to ExxonMobil," he said.

But if oil and gas money is playing much of a role in Shaw's campaign, it has remained a hidden one. And neither we nor the Paseur campaign has the goods to prove that the Center for Individual Freedom is a front for Big Oil.

Not Yet a Justice
One of Shaw's ads wraps up by saying that Shaw is "serving Alabama with Supreme Court experience." What with all the images of Shaw in judicial robes, one might think that he was an incumbent running to retain his Supreme Court seat.

That's not the case. According to Shaw's own Web site, he worked as an attorney for two Alabama Supreme Court justices for 16 years. That means he might know where the legal pads are kept and what happens to a case once it arrives at the court, but it's a far cry from being Justice Shaw. "Supreme Court experience" is a nice – and misleading – way to dress up a staff job. In 2000, Shaw was elected to the state's Court of Criminal Appeals, where he currently serves.

Republished with permission from factcheck.org.
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Alabama ethics rules vague on judicial donations
By BRENDAN KIRBY, Mobile Press-Register
October 29, 2008

With millions of dollars coursing into the campaign coffers of candidates for Alabama's appellate courts, an age-old question has resurfaced: What should judges do to remove doubt about their impartiality?

The two candidates waging battle in the most expensive race — for the state Supreme Court seat of retiring Justice Harold See — agree that bowing out of any case that might involve a campaign contributor is impractical.

"Certainly, you can't recuse yourself every time you know somebody," said Democrat Deborah Bell Paseur, a former district court judge from Lauderdale County.
Republican Greg Shaw, a judge on the Court of Criminal Appeals, said political considerations should play no role on decisions from the bench.

"When you get through the political process, you have to cast that aside and get to the hard work of judging," he said. "I decide every case the same — on the law and the facts."

Others, however, said it is impossible to reassure voters who see attack ads financed by large contributors with interests before the courts.

"The money spent in Alabama judicial campaigns is obscene, and a lot of it is wasted," said Mark White, a Birmingham lawyer who serves as president of the Alabama State Bar. "I think that it demeans the judicial branch of government."

White said each candidate for judicial office should "act like a judge, not a political hack." That means refraining from personal and political attacks on opponents, he said. He added that judges should take themselves out of cases involving someone who has made a significant contribution — in his view, more than $500.

Kimberly Drake, a Democrat seeking to knock incumbent Bill Thompson off the Alabama Court of Civil Appeals, said she believes state law should restrict campaign contributions. Short of that, she added, judges should take themselves out of cases involving large donors.

"He's receiving so many contributions," she said. "I don't think he can rule fairly on the cases."

Thompson counters that he has a hard-earned reputation for integrity that contributions cannot sully.

Rules governing judicial ethics do not specify how judges should handle cases involving campaign contributors. They state that a judge should "avoid impropriety and the appearance of impropriety in all his activities."

William Gordon, a retired Montgomery County circuit judge who serves as co-chair of the 2008 Alabama Judicial Campaign Oversight Committee, said that is left up to the "reasonable man" standard and is up to each judge to define.

"I do not think justice is for sale in Alabama. I do not think that at all," said Gordon, whose organization monitors and can speak out about judicial campaigns but which has no power to sanction them. "The question is, what does the average man on the street think?"

The Justice at Stake Campaign, a Washington-based organization that tracks judicial campaigns across the country, said that Alabama has some of the least-restrictive campaign finance laws in the country.

"Our concern is that when small groups spend that money to elect justices, the question is whether they're accountable to the public or special interest groups that fund that campaign," said the group's spokesman, Charlie Hall.
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Attorneys Help First Responders Draw Up Wills
By Haley Baker, WAAY-TV, Huntsville
October 24, 2008

DECATUR, Ala. (WAAY) - A simple last will and testament and living will could cost up to $500. But some Morgan County attorneys are writing them up for free for first responders.

Nearly 70 Decatur police officers, firefighters and other emergency responder are taking advantage of a new program called "Wills for Heroes." Local lawyers volunteer their time to draw up wills, living wills and powers of attorney.

"We're so thankful we can do this four our first responders," said attorney Julia Roth.

Wills for Heroes started as a national program after the 9/11 attacks that killed hundreds of police officers and firefighters. But it's just recently been adopted by the Alabama State Bar.

"If you don't have a will and something were to happen to you the state would decide what happens to your assets," said Decatur Lt. Jonathan Green. "For an officer, he doesn't want that to happen.

Green said many of Decatur's police officers have never even thought of having a will drawn up.

"It may seem kind of funny being in the kind of work they're in to have-never thought about it for whatever reason, but they haven't done it, haven't had time," he said.

But now they're getting their last will and testament drawn up for free.

"You want to have peace of mind that if something were to happy to him that his family is taken care of and his directions of how his proceeds are distributed are followed," Green said.

"If something terrible does happen, it's good that their loved ones are taken care of," Roth said. "And I know the first responders are walking out of here feeling like they've done what they should to take care of their families."
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State bar moves to tone down campaigns
By Dana Beyerle, Tuscaloosa News
October 15, 2008
MONTGOMERY | The state bar association president has asked the two candidates for the Supreme Court to meet with a campaign integrity committee chairman before the race gets out of hand.

Alabama State Bar Association Mark White is concerned that the race between Democrat Deborah Bell Paseur and Republican Greg Shaw will be consumed by negative campaigning like some past Supreme Court races that degenerated into back-and-forth charges of “Big Oil” and “trial lawyer” financial influence.

The race had been relatively free of controversy until recently, when Paseur and Shaw began accusing each other of negative campaigning.

“I don’t think it’s reached the point where it can’t be corrected,” White said Tuesday.
White said he asked the candidates to meet with William Gordon, co-chairman of the bar association’s Judicial Campaign Oversight Committee.

“My concern is in this Supreme Court race [that] candidates conduct their campaigns based on their merits and not get into the negative campaigns that we have had in the past,” said Gordon, a retired Montgomery County circuit judge.
Paseur campaign spokeswoman Marion Steinfels said the Nov. 4 election should be decided on the merits of the two candidates.

“We think that’s what the focus of the campaign is to be, and we will meet with anyone who will help get us back there,” Steinfels said.

Shaw’s campaign spokesman Josh Cooper responded that Shaw has run a positive campaign and is already talking with Gordon and the committee.

“This is a one-campaign problem, a Paseur campaign problem,” Cooper said. “Judge Shaw has run and continues to run a positive campaign, and we call on Deborah Bell Paseur to immediately stop her negative ads and apologize for the negative and misleading attacks being leveled against Judge Shaw.”

Paseur and Shaw have run ads that feature contributions by representatives of oil companies as the central theme.
Paseur is a retired Lauderdale County district judge and Shaw is a judge on the Court of Criminal Appeals. They seek to succeed retiring Republican Supreme Court Justice Harold See.

A new wrinkle in the Paseur-Shaw race is the Alexandria, Va.-based Center for Individual Freedom has bought about $500,000 worth of television time in support of Shaw.

His campaign said he has nothing to do with ads by the pro-business CFIF that seeks to “educate” voters, according to its Web site.

Because the ads do not advocate voting for a candidate, the CFIF is not subject to campaign laws requiring disclosure of the source of the money, whether from business, trial lawyers or oil companies.
University of Alabama political science professor Bill Stewart has been watching the race.

“The campaigns haven’t degenerated to the point to what we characterize as dirty,” he said. “Back in the 1990s we had the skunk ad. This is very mild by comparison.”

In the 1996 Supreme Court race, incumbent Justice Kenneth Ingram’s campaign compared See to a skunk, a new low for Alabama judicial campaigns and one that started calls for reform.
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State Supreme Court race includes attacks, big spending
ERIC VELASCO, The Birmingham News
October 14, 2008

A relatively tranquil Alabama Supreme Court race turned last week toward more familiar territory of big spending, special-interest politics and attacks on the candidates.

Deborah Bell Paseur's campaign and the Alabama State Bar last week condemned a telephone poll that spreads false information about her.

Spending to buy air time for campaign ads passed the $1.5 million mark, one-third of which came from a Virginia-based organization supporting Republican Greg Shaw.

Shaw denounced a new Paseur ad that implies he's been bought by oil companies.

That touched off a flame war between state Democrats and Republicans. The former called Shaw an oil-company lap dog; the latter called Paseur a liar.

Now Shaw contends he is the subject of what he calls the "biggest political smear of my lifetime" saying his family business has pending tax liens. His father sold Shaw Oil in 2001, he said.

"Sounds like a typical Supreme Court race, doesn't it?" said Joe Turnham, the state Democratic Party chairman.

Most observers expect the tone will only get worse leading up to the Nov. 4 vote.

"Alabama has long been at the forefront of contentious, big-money judicial elections," said James Sample, spokesman for the Brennan Center for Justice, which tracks judicial elections nationwide. "But this year, some of the tactics have reached a new low."

Push poll:

Republican candidates are on a three-week bus tour making more than 100 stops in all 67 counties.

In cities along the route, voters are getting calls from a Virginia-based phone bank.

The caller asks a few questions, then says Paseur got an "F" in a state bar evaluation.

It's a "push poll" that's actually designed to influence voters, said J. Mark White, the state bar president.

It's also not true.

"Let me make this very clear: The state bar does not conduct an evaluation poll of any judicial candidates," White said. "These falsehoods are reprehensible."

Paseur's campaign said it is concerned about the tactic.

"They are lying about her record," said Marion Steinfels, Paseur's campaign manager. "During her 27 years as a district court judge, she has been supported by both Democrats and Republicans."

Shaw campaign officials said they don't know who is behind the push polls.

"Judge Shaw rejects them and knows that the State Bar doesn't rate judges," said his spokesman, Josh Cooper.

Sample, of the Brennan Center in New York, said it is a new tactic in court races.

"This should have absolutely no place in politics, especially with respect to choosing judges," he said.

Special interest ads:

The Center for Individual Freedom spent $203,000 for air time in Alabama last week and has booked another $291,000 worth for this week to run ads promoting Shaw.

The nonprofit group, based in Alexandria, Va., has targeted five key markets, including Birmingham.

The group's first ad praises Shaw's history of upholding death sentences during his tenure on the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals. It refers viewers to a Web site where they can send online thank-you cards to Shaw.

The Center for Individual Freedom said it's part of a multistate effort.

"In addition to educating the public, our television ad encourages the citizens of Alabama to ask officials with an established history of following sound jurisprudence and policies to continue protecting Alabama families," the center's president, Jeffrey Mazzella said.

The center, which does not identify its donors, supports conservative issues, according to SourceWatch, a project of the Center for Media and Democracy. The center spent $1.2 million last year on ads in Pennsylvania judicial races.

Paseur's campaign said the center has had ties to tobacco and gambling concerns and has represented oil and gas interests before Congress.

Paseur started running an ad over the weekend questioning why an out-of-state group is interested in an Alabama Supreme Court race.
"This is not a real organization," said Steinfels, Paseur's campaign manager. "It appears to simply be a bank account for industries who want to hide the source of their cash."

Gunslinging ads:

Both Paseur and Shaw have run multiple ads showing them shooting guns.

Shaw's latest ad makes a pitch to preserve gunowners' rights. In one recent ad, Paseur hits a target bull's eye and exclaims "I've still got it."

Paseur has blitzed the airwaves in late September and early October, outspending Shaw more than 3-1, according to the Brennan Center.

In a little more than a month ending Oct. 3, the two candidates spent nearly $980,000 to buy air time, which doesn't include production costs, the Brennan Center said.

Several ads with Paseur's campaign theme song, "Amazing Grace," aired nearly 1,200 times through Oct. 3, to the tune of $543,000. Shaw aired nearly 1,000 ads, spending $436,000.

Ad spending is expected to continue to climb. In 2006, the two candidates for chief justice spent about $1 million on ads just in the last week leading up to the election.

"Competing special interests continue to see state Supreme Courts as a political prize," said Charlie Hall, spokesman for Washington-based Justice at Stake. "The newest TV ad numbers show that this competition is a driving force again in 2008."
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State bar condemns push poll attack on Paseur - Phone calls a dirty campaign trick, group chief says
By BOB LOWRY, Huntsville Times
October 10, 2008

MONTGOMERY - The Alabama State Bar on Thursday condemned "swift boat" tactics that are being used against the Democratic nominee for the state Supreme Court.

The state bar said a telephone "push poll" is being used to "spread misinformation and disinformation about one of the candidates running for a seat on the state Supreme Court."

Some voters are getting "push poll" telephone calls claiming the state bar has conducted a judicial evaluation that gave Deborah Bell Paseur an "F" grade and that the bar's membership is primarily affiliated with the Democratic Party.

A push poll is a dirty tricks campaign technique in which an organization tries to influence a voter under the guise of conducting a poll. Instead, it's a form of telemarketing-based propaganda.

"Let me make this very clear: the state bar does not conduct an evaluation poll of any judicial candidates and the state bar has no way of knowing the political affiliations of its members," said Birmingham attorney Mark White, president of the association. "These falsehoods and misrepresentations are nothing short of reprehensible."

Paseur, a Lauderdale County district judge, faces Republican Greg Shaw, a member of the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals, in the Nov. 4 elections.

White said he had spoken with both candidates and shared the bar's concern with the Judicial Oversight Committee. He said there was no evidence that either candidate was aware of or condoned the tactic.

Meanwhile, Rep. Mike Hubbard, R-Auburn, chairman of the Alabama Republican Party, said his party had no involvement.

"We're not doing any push polls," he said. "We have some volunteers making calls to actually target Republican voters."
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Supreme Court hopefuls feud over a Democrat ad that implies candidate Greg Shaw is accepting money from oil companies
ERIC VELASCO, The Birmingham News
October 10, 2008

Alabama Supreme Court candidate Deborah Bell Paseur's campaign said Thursday it stands behind its ad linking opponent Greg Shaw to Big Oil, which Shaw says is a false and desperate attack.

The state Republican Party plans to call a news conference today to say Paseur's ad not only unfairly portrays her Republican opponent but also hides her own contributions from similar sources.

Shaw called on Paseur Thursday to drop the ad and for state judicial watchdogs to denounce it.

"I signed the pledge to run a positive campaign, and I intend to keep that pledge," Shaw said in a prepared statement. "I will not sit back and allow my opponent to attack my integrity. I can't be bought."

Joe Turnham, the state Democratic Party chairman, said the topic is fair game in a state in which eight Republican Supreme Court justices voted last year to overturn a $3.8 billion jury verdict against ExxonMobil over oil drilling royalties.

The ad, which started running last week, says Paseur is the only candidate "not backed by oil companies." Paseur says she has taken "not one dime" from oil interests.

Marion Steinfels, Paseur's campaign manager, said the ad does not attack Shaw.

"These are facts, not attacks," she said. "If he wants to change the facts, he just needs to return the money."

Mike Hubbard, chairman of the state Republican Party, said the ad spins a "conspiracy theory" to mislead voters.

The state Democratic Party issued a statement Wednesday that Turnham said "connects the dots" on contributions from lobbyists and lawyers with links to ExxonMobil to Shaw's campaign.

Shaw, for example, received $215,500 from "ExxonMobil lobbyist Bob Geddie's group ACJRC," the state Democratic Party statement said.

Geddie is on the board of the Alabama Civil Justice Reform Committee. Its political action committee, AJCRC, is Shaw's top contributor.

But the AJCRC is not one of the 11 PACs that Geddie runs. State campaign disclosure forms show AJCRC - run by Automobile Dealers Association of Alabama lobbyist Tom Dart - got its money mostly from insurance, medical, banking and business groups.

Republican officials plan to charge in today's press conference that a $5,000 contribution to Paseur from one of Geddie's PACs was filtered through the State Democratic Executive Committee. The committee, which has given Paseur $50,000, is her top contributor.

Turnham and Paseur's campaign also cited $32,500 given to Shaw by four PACs run by Stephen Bradley, another Exxon lobbyist.

Campaign disclosures show those four PACs got most of their money from the Birmingham law firm Haskell Slaughter Young & Rediker, and the Drummond Co.

"There are myriad ways to wash Big Oil money through these groups," Turnham said. "You won't ever see a direct oil link. It can come from law firms, lobbyists, subcontractors. With so much money at stake, it makes sense for Exxon Mobil to play ball ... in Alabama Supreme Court races."

State Democrats also cited a $2,000 donation to Shaw by Lightfoot Franklin White, the law firm that represented Exxon Mobil in the royalties case.

The same firm also contributed $2,000 to Paseur.

"If, by her standards, that is part of her definition of taking money from Big Oil, well she is taking money from the same source," said Philip Bryan, state Republican Party communications director.

Steinfels said Paseur will return the law firm's donation.

William R. Gordon, co-chairman of the state Judicial Campaign Oversight Committee, said it has not received a complaint from Shaw about the ad. Gordon said he could not comment unless the committee takes action.
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Paseur, Shaw raise $1 million in race for Supreme Court seat
By Alvin Benn, The Montgomery Advertiser
October 12, 2008

The two candidates for a seat on the Alabama Supreme Court have a couple of things in common -- judicial robes become them and they know how to raise lots of money.

Democrat Deborah Bell Paseur served as a district judge in north Alabama for 27 years; Republican Greg Shaw has served on the state Court of Criminal Appeals for eight years and currently is the presiding judge.

Together, Paseur and Shaw have raised more than $1 million for a job that probably isn't going to change the conservative political philosophy that leads to decisions from the state's highest court. Only one of the nine members of the Supreme Court -- Chief Justice Sue Bell Cobb -- is a Democrat.

The latest campaign finance reports released by the Secretary of State's office show Shaw has raised $591,270 to Paseur's $521,009. Most of Shaw's financial support comes from political action committees while Paseur's funds come primarily from more than 1,400 small contributors.

"It's troubling," said Paseur, 56, referring to the large amount of money raised by both candidates. "We need to get politics out of this race."

Shaw, 51, also expressed concern about costly campaigning for judicial positions, especially on appellate courts.
"I don't think anybody really likes the high cost of Supreme Court races," he said. "It's been this way for a number of races, but, in order to compete at this level we have to have financial support."

Cobb shares Paseur's concerns and supports the nonpartisan selection of judges.

"It is wrong to require judges to raise millions of dollars in order to win a seat on the Supreme Court or other appellate courts," Cobb said. "My race in 2006 was the most expensive in the country."

Paseur favors a plan that would provide for the selection of appellate judges based on merit but allow voters to retain or to remove a judge.

Shaw, whose wife Samantha is state auditor, wants to continue the practice of voters electing judges.
"I don't want to change any process that takes the people out of it," he said. "The right to vote is sacred and is part of the democratic process."

Paseur has nearly 20 endorsements, many from law enforcment officials. Shaw has endorsements from more than two dozen groups including the Business Council of Alabama, which favors the election of judges.

The BCA has had a "long standing policy" of opposing any effort to remove "the people's right to choose their judges."
"Instead of disenfranchised voters and selection methods that promote hidden, back-room dealings, we should have more openness and transparency in our current democratic process," according to the association.

Political scientist William Stewart believes Shaw has the edge because Republican presidential candidate John McCain and running mate Sarah Palin should win in Alabama.

"This election should be a fascinating test because (Paseur) has stirred up a lot of interest in how judges should be chosen," said Stewart, professor emeritus of political science at the University of Alabama. "Alabama judicial races are just too expensive. A lot of Democrats are calling for nonpartisan elections."

Any effort, though, in the Legislature to change the way appellate judges are picked would probably die because a solid Republican minority stands ready to kill any bill aimed at change, according to Stewart.

Paseur and Shaw both share the belief that a judge, once elected, should put aside partisanship for the good of the state.
"I'm a judge first," Paseur said. "When people come before the bench, they are on a level playing field as far as I am concerned. I do not believe that politics should play a role in judicial decisions."

Said Shaw: "I'm a firm believer that once the political process is over and you put on a robe, you can't act as a Democrat or a Republican. You have to be a judge for everybody."
---
Program set to help stop foreclosures - Lawyers kick off plan here to aid state homeowners
By DAVID HOLDEN, The Huntsville Times
October 6, 2008

Lawyers in Huntsville will kick off a statewide program here today to assist homeowners in danger of losing their houses because of mortgage foreclosures, according to the Alabama State Bar Association.

The campaign will have a staggered rollout throughout the state, said Tom Methvin, president-elect of the bar association. The Huntsville/Madison County area is being targeted first because of the high number of reported foreclosures, he said.

"The Alabama State Bar is concerned about the high number of foreclosures in the state," he said. "It's very easy in Alabama for lenders to foreclose on a mortgage and take someone's house."

In August alone, 55 homes were in some stage of foreclosure in the Huntsville area, compared to 19 the previous year, according to RealtyTrac, a company that follows foreclosures nationwide and posts the results on the Internet. Alabama reported 827 foreclosures in August, up 30 percent compared to a year ago.

Additionally, about 30 percent of the population of Alabama is below the federal poverty line, Methvin said. They are "sitting ducks" for predatory lenders, he said.

"We don't want anyone to lose their house without a chance to have assistance from a lawyer," he said.

There are various ways distressed homeowners can receive free help from a lawyer through Legal Services Alabama, Methvin said. Help negotiating with lenders is available to those of all income levels. Assistance for those who need to go to court is available only to low-income homeowners, he said.

"At no cost, legal aid attorneys will interview homeowners by phone and may write a letter on their behalf to the lender, for example, or, depending upon the circumstance, they will try to negotiate a workout of the mortgage," he said.

"In some cases, the attorney may represent the homeowner in various stages of foreclosure litigation, including mediation, but this option is limited to low-income individuals."

Under a public-awareness and education campaign, homeowners facing foreclosure can call a toll-free hot line at 877-393-2333. They will be connected with a legal aid attorney who will advise them about the various stages of the process and furnish free legal assistance.

"Homeowners need to know there are options, but the key to a successful outcome is early intervention, and I can't stress that enough," Methvin said. "If you are having a problem making your monthly payments and believe foreclosure is imminent, you must act now."

The bar association has available a public-information pamphlet that provides answers to some of the most frequently asked questions about foreclosure. Copies may be downloaded from the bar association's Web site: www.alabar.org/, then click on "foreclosure resources," Methvin said.

"We are very concerned about people losing their homes," he said. "We are also concerned about other related effects of foreclosure such as reducing property values, creating blight with vacant and abandoned properties in neighborhoods, and diminishing the local tax base, which often supports important services, and straining court dockets."

The state bar and the state Broadcasters Association have produced a series of broadcast messages that will begin airing on radio and TV in Huntsville and surrounding areas, Methvin said.

Alabama allows for two kinds of foreclosure proceedings, judicial and nonjudicial, Methvin said. Nonjudicial foreclosures, the more common type, can occur in a time frame as short as 21 days.

"It is crucial for homeowners who have missed making even one monthly mortgage payment to call the hot line immediately," he said. "We are committed to assisting consumers who are facing the difficult prospect of losing their homes or filing for bankruptcy."

Legal Services Alabama is a nonprofit organization providing free civil legal and law-related services to low-income Alabamians in all 67 counties.

The 15,700-member Alabama State Bar is dedicated to promoting the professional responsibility, competence and satisfaction of its members, improving the administration of justice, and increasing public understanding and respect for the law, Methvin said.
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Foreclosures significantly on the rise in Huntsville/Madison County
By Jeanie Powell, WAFF-TV 48 News (Huntsville)
October 6, 2008

Alabama lawyers are offering free advice to homeowners about to foreclose, beginning with Huntsville and Madison County.

Due to the mortgage foreclosure crisis, Monday the Alabama State Bar and Legal Services Alabama announced their partnership with a plan to help Alabama homeowners remain in their homes.

I found through the Madison County Probate Office that foreclosures have been on the rise in the past three to four months.

At the same time the Alabama State Bar is offering help until our nation sees better financial stability, we got insight from U.S. Senator Jeff Sessions, in town giving his support to Republican District Five Congressional candidate Wayne Parker.

Senator Sessions says in 1981, 1991, and after 9/11, our nation witnessed an adjustment in the form of a recession and we have survived.

The mortgage meltown's affected the average American in a big way.

Senator Sessions tells WAFF 48 News, "Housing prices particularly were booming too high. I believe everybody could see there was a bubble in the housing."

Foreclosure deeds filed in Madison County during certain months in 2008 have increased since the same time frame last year.

When we broached the subject of Valley foreclosures Sessions says, "Foreclosures are up and we've had massive building all over the state, some places more than others. Huntsville's built dramatically anticipating large numbers of people coming from here from BRAC, but right now here, and some houses can't be sold."

Sessions is more optimistic Huntsville will pull through as opposed to cities in other parts of the country because of the thousand of homes available with not enough people will to pay for them.

"I think we'll have people coming into our area the numbers are going to continue to come down either from BRAC people transferring or new people moving in to take those jobs so I think Huntsville will work it's way through this."

His outlook for getting through this financially draining time is good policy.

"There are things we can do. We should not underestimate the dangers that we face in the economy. Good policy can help make things better and we need to strive to do that, but bad policy in the long run could hurt our country."

He says he believes if we work hard and continue to honor our debts and honor values our parents taught us, American will work it's way through this.

Sessions sympathizes with those struggling during tough economic times, "But for some people right now it's very painful. Some people, your heart goes out to them."

Beginning Monday, through radio and television, the Alabama State Bar launched a campaign to help those on the brink of foreclosure, offering free legal advice.

PSA's will air in the Huntsville and surrounding areas.

Members began working on the campaign about a month ago.

Thomas Methvin, State Bar President-elect tells WAFF 48 News, "It's a way to give back to the public and to try and keep people from losing their homes. There have been so many people that have been victims of predatory lending practices and we just want to make sure they're rights are enforced before someone tries taking their house."

"It could be advice dealing with trying to work with the lender, it could be actual litigation or it could be working out a solution with lender."

Methvin, who also chairs the Mortgage Foreclosure Task Force says, "We wanted to start in one city to begin with and Huntsville was a good place to start. There are a huge number of foreclosures going on in the area."

If your home is being foreclosed upon or you've missed several payments, you can call the toll-free hotline 1-877-393-2333 and a legal aid attorney will advise you free of cost.

You can download an informational pamphlet that provides answers to many commonly asked questions at www.alabar.org.

Then click on "foreclosure resources."
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Alabama State Bar Launches Campaign to Help Homeowners Facing Foreclosure
WHNT-TV, Huntsville
October 6, 2008

The Alabama State Bar and Legal Services Alabama have joined to form a unique partnership with a plan to help Alabama homeowners remain in their homes.

Both groups announced a public awareness and education campaign today. If you're facing foreclosure, you can call a toll-free hotline (1-877-393-2333) and get free legal advice. You'll be connected with a legal aid attorney who will advise you about the various stages of the foreclosure process. Such assistance can take the form of limited representation, negotiation or litigation, if necessary.

"Help is available. Homeowners need to know there are options, but the key to a successful outcome is early intervention and I can't stress that enough," said Thomas J. Methvin, State Bar President-elect. "If you are having a problem making your monthly payments and believe foreclosure is imminent, you must act now."

The campaign will have a staggered rollout throughout the state. However, the Huntsville/Madison County area will be targeted first because of the high number of reported foreclosures here.

"We are very concerned about people losing their homes," said Methvin, of Montgomery. "We are also concerned about other related effects of foreclosure such as reducing property values, creating blight with vacant and abandoned properties in neighborhoods, diminishing the local tax base which often supports important services, and straining court dockets."

The state bar worked in cooperation with the state Broadcasters Association to produce a series of broadcast messages that will begin airing on radio and television stations in Huntsville and surrounding areas. In addition, the bar has a public information pamphlet available that provides answers to some of the most commonly asked questions about foreclosure.
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Campaign breaks tradition - Race for state Supreme Court says no to attacks
Gadsden Times – [Editorial]
October 8, 2008

Mudslinging in any campaign is something that happens all too often, especially when a race is tight. You see it almost daily in the presidential race, with both sides critical of the other. In some instances, the attacks call into account a candidate’s judgment or character, while in others the harsh words are an attempt to just swing undecided voters, whether the claim is fair or not.

Some will say it is necessary for a campaign to sling allegations at an opponent in order to counteract what is being thrown at them. Others say it is unjust.

A lot of allegations in this presidential race involve relationships a candidate might or might not have with someone. Some involve voting records or stances made on a particular subject.

Whether you agree with it or not, mudslinging is too often the norm. But that does not have to be the case.

As proven in the race for the Alabama Supreme Court, personal attacks are not necessary to run a campaign. In fact, Democrat Deborah Bell Paseur and Republican Greg Shaw signed a pledge from the Alabama Judicial Campaign Oversight Committee agreeing to not question the integrity of the candidates or the judicial system.

So far, both are keeping their word.

Paseur and Shaw have said there is no reason for mudslinging if a candidate has a clean personal record, which the candidates hope is enough to win the election in November.

There are just eight states — Alabama included — that elect judges from political parties. With partisan politics entering the courtroom, Alabama Supreme Court races have been the most expensive in the country. A Washington-based group, Justice at Stake, claims that candidates for the state Supreme Court raised $54 million between 1993 and 2006. That is $24 million more than the next closest state, Texas.

Paseur’s and Shaw’s pledge does not include interest groups, which could run mudslinging campaigns and advertisements on their own. But the two candidates have kept their campaigns positive. Both candidates have the support of key groups and each could top the $1 million mark in contributions by the time the election gets here. As the election gets closer, those groups might choose to run their own ads and attacks, but the candidates have continued to say they will not be a part of it.

After some particularly nasty Supreme Court races in the past, Paseur and Shaw have run campaigns that are refreshing. Now, if the presidential candidates could only do the same, voters might be able to decide based on a platform instead of mudslinging and negative ads.
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Supreme Court candidates turn personal
By PHILLIP RAWLS, The Associated Press
October 8, 2008

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — The race for the state Supreme Court is upholding Alabama's reputation for expensive court races, with businesses backing the Republican and lawyers supporting the Democrat.

It's also upholding Alabama's reputation for having campaigns that start out talking about qualifications and then get rough.

Republican Greg Shaw and Democrat Deborah Bell Paseur initially made speeches and ran ads talking about their long years of experience. Both signed a pledge from the Alabama Judicial Campaign Oversight Committee to avoid impugning the integrity of each other and the judicial system.

But as the Nov. 4 election draws near, the tone of the campaign is changing.

Shaw took offense Tuesday at a Paseur ad saying Paseur is "the only candidate not backed by the oil companies." Shaw said the ad implied he could be bought.

"I will not sit idly by and let Deborah Bell Paseur attack my integrity," Shaw said Tuesday. "I have never made a single decision based on anything but the law, and it is reprehensible that my opponent would imply that I could be 'bought.'"

Shaw called for an apology, but none was forthcoming.

Paseur's campaign spokesman, Marion Steinfels, said the ad was talking about Paseur's record, not Shaw's. But she said campaign finance reports show Shaw received $32,500 from political action committees run by an Exxon Mobil lobbyist and more than $215,000 from a separate PAC whose board includes a different Exxon Mobil lobbyist.

In response, Shaw's campaign spokesman, Josh Cooper, said the Republican's campaign finance reports do not show any direct contributions from oil companies.

On the other side of the campaign, Paseur was troubled by phone calls to voters saying she had received an "F" rating from the Alabama State Bar.

"That's not true because the Alabama State Bar doesn't rate candidates," State Bar spokesman Brad Carr said Tuesday. Carr did not know who was behind the calls. Neither did Paseur's campaign.

Cooper, Shaw's spokesman, said the campaign was unfamiliar with the phone calls and had nothing to do with them.

William Gordon, chairman of the oversight committee, is watching to see if Alabama will again have interest groups running ads in the final days of the campaign attacking the candidates.

"What you have to watch is when interest groups get involved. They can do as much damage to the courts as the candidates," he said.

At least one Virginia-based interest groups has already reserved ad time in Alabama. Steinfels said she expects the ads from the Center for Individual Freedom to try to damage Paseur's campaign.

A call and e-mail to the center for comment were not immediately returns. The center's Web site says it is concerned about "an alarming number of lawsuits" against businesses and about courts using litigation to legislate.

Alabama has had no-holds-barred elections for the Supreme Court because the state chooses its justices through partisan elections, which is different from most states.

Alabama is one of just eight states that elect judges from political parties. Justice at Stake, a Washington-based group that tracks spending in judicial races nationwide, says the Supreme Court races in Alabama have been the most expensive in the nation, with candidates raising $54 million between 1993 and 2006. Texas was second at $30 million.

Through mid-September, Shaw had reported raising $591,270 and Paseur $521,009. They could easily top $1 million each when their next campaign finance reports are filed a few days before the election on Nov. 4.

Shaw has drawn much of his support from business groups, including the Alabama Civil Justice Reform Committee and similar organizations advocating limits on lawsuits.

Paseur has received lots of contributions from attorneys, including some prominent plaintiff lawyers, the state Democratic Party and organized labor.

So far, the cost of the 2008 race is the only similarity with the nasty races in the past.

In 2006, Drayton Nabers, the Republican incumbent for chief justice, and his Democratic challenger, Sue Bell Cobb, attacked each other in public remarks and in ads.

Nabers ran ads tying Cobb to Alabama's gambling industry. Cobb, who won, ran ads indicating Nabers was backed by $990,000 in oil industry money while the court was considering a $3 billion judgment against Exxon Mobil.

In the campaign this year, the focus is family, guns and gospel music.

One of Paseur's ads features her mother, former big band singer Jeanne Bell, performing "Amazing Grace" and shows Paseur wielding a pistol while working as a police officer.

"What I hope to convey is a picture of my background, the kind of person I am and my experience," Paseur said.

For Paseur it also conveys law experience beyond the courtroom. She said she spent two summers working in Virginia Beach, Va., while in law school, with full police power, including carrying a gun. Paseur said she and other law school students got hired to be officers to make sure the tourist town retained a family atmosphere.

Shaw's ads mention his family's background as gospel music singers. They also show him throwing a baseball to his son and shooting sporting clays with a shotgun.

"It conveys a value system that people are interested in," Shaw said.

For Shaw, the ad also conveys his feelings about Second Amendment gun rights.

"Even before the U.S. Supreme Court ruled (against the Washington, D.C., handgun ban), I always thought the Second Amendment provided individual rights to bear arms," he said.

In campaign travels across the state, Shaw stresses the 16 years he spent as a staff attorney at the Supreme Court — one year for Justice Janie Shores and 15 for Justice Gorman Houston — and his 7 1/2 years as a criminal appeals court judge, weighing everything from drunken driving cases to capital murders.

Shaw figures he has written more than 600 court opinions, either as a staff attorney or judge.

"The people of Alabama expect a person to understand the decision-making process at the appellate level and be ready to serve on the Supreme Court from day one. I believe that my background and over 24 years of appellate court experience have prepared me well for this challenge," he said.

Paseur also is stressing experience, including being the first female judge in Lauderdale County, where she handled thousands of cases in non-jury trials.
But like the mention of her law enforcement summer job, her campaign also seeks to show her life outside the courtroom by discussing how she was a foster mother, working to instill positive values in a troubled girl's life.

Paseur figures it must have worked because the girl is now grown and married with her own family.

"We are very close," Paseur said.

One major difference between the candidates is their view of Alabama's elections for judges.

Paseur would like to see Alabama go to nonpartisan elections. In her view, "the partisan election of judges has not served the integrity and impartiality of the judicial branch of government well. Although there is no perfect solution to this problem, it is of paramount importance that judges be free from even the perception of any outside influences."

Shaw favors keeping the election method that is outlined in Alabama's constitution. He said most Alabamians want to have a voice in who serves as judges, and the elective system is open to more people.

"Due to a lack of political clout in 2000, when I was first elected, I would never had had an opportunity to serve my state as an appellate judge if it were not for the present electoral process, and I suspect that the same can be said for many of our present and past appellate judges," he said.
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Supreme Court candidates avoid personal attacks
By PHILLIP RAWLS, The Associated Press
10/07/08

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — The race for the state Supreme Court is upholding Alabama's reputation for expensive court races, with businesses backing the Republican and lawyers supporting the Democrat.

But one thing is different.

No personal attacks — yet.

Republican Greg Shaw and Democrat Deborah Bell Paseur have been running on their long years of experience rather than attacking each other. Both signed a pledge from the Alabama Judicial Campaign Oversight Committee to avoid impugning the integrity of each other and the judicial system.

So far, neither candidate has run an attack ad.

"Even if there had been no pledge, I would have run my campaign the same way," Shaw said.

Shaw and Paseur said there is no need to attack an opponent if a candidate has an extensive personal record to talk about. Both candidates have that, with Paseur spending 27 years as s district judge in Florence and Shaw working as an appellate court staff attorney before being elected to the Court of Criminal Appeals in 2000 and getting re-elected in 2006.

"I truly hope that this campaign will be the first, in years, to not devolve into a mud fight," Paseur said.

William Gordon, chairman of the oversight committee, said some past Supreme Court campaigns have created negative images for judges, but Paseur and Shaw deserve credit for keeping their campaigns positive.

The unknown, he said, is whether interest groups will run ads in the final days of the campaign attacking the candidates.

"What you have to watch is when interest groups get involved. They can do as much damage to the courts as the candidates," he said.

Alabama has had no-holds-barred elections for the Supreme Court because the state chooses its justices through partisan elections, which is different from most states.

Shaw has drawn much of his support from business groups, including the Alabama Civil Justice Reform Committee and similar organizations advocating limits on lawsuits.

Paseur has received lots of contributions from attorneys, including some prominent plaintiff lawyers, the state Democratic Party and organized labor.

So far, the cost of the 2008 race is the only similarity with the nasty races in the past.

In 2006, Drayton Nabers, the Republican incumbent for chief justice, and his Democratic challenger, Sue Bell Cobb, attacked each other in public remarks and in ads.

In the campaign this year, the focus is on family, guns and gospel music.

One of Paseur's ads features her mother, former big band singer Jeanne Bell, performing "Amazing Grace" and shows Paseur wielding a pistol while working as a police officer.

"What I hope to convey is a picture of my background, the kind of person I am and my experience," Paseur said.

Shaw's ads mention his family's background as gospel music singers. They also show him throwing a baseball to his son and shooting sporting clays with a shotgun.

"It conveys a value system that people are interested in," Shaw said.

For Shaw, the ad also conveys his feelings about Second Amendment gun rights.

"Even before the U.S. Supreme Court ruled (against the Washington, D.C., handgun ban), I always thought the Second Amendment provided individual rights to bear arms," he said.

Shaw figures he has written more than 600 court opinions, either as a staff attorney or judge.

Paseur also is stressing experience, including being the first female judge in Lauderdale County, where she handled thousands of cases in non-jury trials.

But like the mention of her law enforcement summer job, her campaign also seeks to show her life outside the courtroom by discussing how she was a foster mother, working to instill positive values in a troubled girl's life.

Paseur figures it must have worked because the girl is now grown and married with her own family.

"We are very close," Paseur said.

One major difference between the candidates is their view of Alabama's elections for judges.

Panel to debate whether Alabama judges should be chosen in partisan elections
ERIC VELASCO, The Birmingham News
October 01, 2008

Alabama's method of choosing judges will be the topic of a debate next week called "Judicial Selection Forum - Is Change Needed in How We Fill Our Courts?"

Speakers will discuss whether Alabama needs to move from its current method of choosing its top judges through partisan elections.

The panel discussion, moderated by former Gov. Albert Brewer, will be held Tuesday starting at 5:30 p.m. in the moot courtroom at Cumberland School of Law at Samford University.

Alabama has been the focus of a national debate about its reliance on partisan elections to choose justices on its nine-member Supreme Court.

Alabama is the most expensive state in the nation to run for Supreme Court, with interest groups pouring more than $55 million into state high-court races since 1993. Critics say it has fostered a perception that justice is for sale, but proponents say residents should maintain the right to vote for their justices.

Alabama is one of eight states that uses partisan elections to choose appellate court judges, according to the American Judicature Society. Voters in another 13 states pick top appellate judges in nonpartisan races.

In 25 states, the top appeals court judges are appointed after a screening by a judicial qualifications commission, then run solo after one term for voters to decide if they should be retained. In five states, they are appointed by the governor or legislature and do not face voters.

Selection methods also vary among states for intermediate- and trial-level courts.

Jefferson County and three other Alabama counties use qualifications commissions to recommend candidates when trial court judgeships are vacated mid-term. The governor appoints the judge, who runs in an open race during the next general election.

About 60 percent of the state's trial-court judges are chosen by that selection method. Chief Justice Sue Bell Cobb has recommended expanding that approach to trial courts across the state. She also has recommended changing to nonpartisan elections for appellate judges in Alabama. The Alabama State Bar has pushed the appointment/retention method, but now plans to support Cobb's proposals.

Speakers at next week's panel discussion include Cobb, retiring Supreme Court Justice Harold See, former Alabama Bar Association president Bill Clark and state Rep. Demetrius Newton, D-Birmingham.
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County Bar offers more than legal advice
By Hamilton Richardson, Prattville Progress
September 27, 2008

Those who watch television shows featuring courtroom scenes, like "Law and Order" and "Boston Legal," might wonder how all that legal wrangling really works.

Thanks to the Autauga County Bar Association, local viewers will get the chance to find out by attending The People's Law School.

The People's Law School, which is actually in its fifth consecutive year, is a nine-week program taught by local judges and attorneys. The fee for the program is $25. The classes, which began Sept. 11, meet every Thursday at 6 p.m. at the Autauga County Courthouse. The program, which accepts only 50 applicants, will end Nov. 6.

"I would like very much to build on the remarkable success this program has enjoyed since its inception," said Attorney Louis Colley, secretary of the course committee. "The response to this project has been tremendous and we have had many students attend from Montgomery and Wetumpka, as well as Prattville."

The program includes seminars on legal topics such as contracts, torts, worker's compensation, property law, wills and estates, criminal law, debt collection, and court procedure.

An example of classes that will be taught during the program is The Judicial Process and the Court System, which will be taught by Colley. Other examples are Torts, which will be taught by Chip Cleveland and Chris Howell, and Domestic Relations and the Juvenile Process, which will be taught by Jennifer Jordan and Terry Gregg.

Heather Dixon, president of the Autauga County Bar Association, said that the quality of the program was recognized by the Alabama State Bar Association when it presented a first-place award to the ACBA for its organization, sponsorship, and participation in The People's Law School.

"We weren't expecting to receive an award or any special recognition for The People's Law School program," Dixon said. "It turned out to be hugely successful and we certainly appreciate the State Bar's recognition of the quality of the program and the commitment of our local attorneys."
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Civil rights attorney Chestnut dies
By Alvin Benn, The Montgomery Advertiser
October 1, 2008

SELMA -- J.L. Chestnut Jr., who built a solo practice into the state's largest black law firm and helped create the Alabama New South Coalition, died Tuesday morning after a lingering illness.

Chestnut, 77, was rushed to a Birmingham hospital over the weekend and slipped into a coma, state Sen. Hank Sanders, D-Selma, said Tuesday afternoon.

Funeral arrangements will be announced soon, said Sanders, who, along with his wife, joined Chestnut to create a law partnership in 1972.

Chestnut, Sanders and Sanders and their employees continued to grow and the firm eventually became the largest black legal team in Alabama.

"At one time, we had 13 lawyers in our firm, but now we're down to two," Sanders said. "We began our partnership when Ches beat a problem that he had for a long time."

Chestnut, who often would refer to years of hard drinking, was proud to report that he put it behind him in order to form the law firm with his new friends.

"He was the best, the most gifted trial lawyer I've ever seen," Sanders said. "It seemed he had a sixth and seventh sense about the questions to ask during a trial."

In addition to his many courtroom victories, Chestnut helped lead the fight to reopen a federal case to pay out millions of dollars to black farmers who had been overlooked by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Late in life, Chestnut and his partners obtained a license from the Federal Communications Commission and built Selma's first black radio station.

When he wasn't writing "The Cold, Hard Truth" -- the title he used for columns printed in weekly newspapers in Alabama -- Chestnut was on the radio fielding phone calls from listeners and explaining complicated legal matters in "The Teaching Corner."

When he turned 60, Chestnut -- along with co-writer Julia Cass -- published his autobiography.

"Back in Selma: The Uncommon Life of J.L. Chestnut Jr." detailed his early years as a young man living in segregationist Selma and then recounted his efforts to establish himself as the city's first black lawyer.

In a review of the book, The New York Times noted that Chestnut grew up "as a saxophone-playing cardsharp son of Alabama's schizoid black middle class."
The review said his return home after picking up his law degree from Howard University was akin to "a rogue elephant in eerily placid Selma."

One of his biggest supporters during that time was Edgar Russell, a white circuit court judge who gave Chestnut a set of used law books. Chestnut did not have the money to buy his own.

U.S. Rep. Artur Davis, D-Birmingham, said Chestnut "lived long enough to see Selma transform itself."

"He labored in the trenches during the brutally cruel years when blacks faced racial violence and abuse (and) he was instrumental in shaping the coalitions and arrangements that made the city more equal."

One of Chestnut's best friends in Selma's legal community was Henry Pitts, a white lawyer who occasionally worked with him on controversial cases in the state.

One involved a capital murder case involving Alabama State Trooper Joe Duncan, who was charged with killing Elizabeth Cobb, his trooper girlfriend.

Chestnut and Pitts weren't able to win an acquittal for Duncan, but he did escape a death sentence by pleading guilty to a reduced charge. Duncan remains in prison.

"He was one of the most talented lawyers I've ever known in my 45 years of practicing law," Pitts said. "He also was one heck of a man, a compassionate person who went out of his way to help people."

Chestnut was a supporter of the Alabama Democratic Conference -- the black arm of the state Democratic Party -- but his disillusionment with ADC director Joe Reed led to creation of the Alabama New South Coalition two decades ago.

"Ches was the first chairman of the board of New South," Sanders said. "He did so many things, and his passing means we're going to have a vacuum in our community."

Dallas County Probate Judge Kim Ballard called Chestnut "an icon who's not likely to be replaced in our town."

Ballard said Chestnut's sense of humor was much in evidence in the months that followed publication of his autobiography.

"We were on a plane together when he mentioned his book and said I was in it," said Ballard. "When the plane landed in Washington, D.C., I rushed to the nearest bookstore to pick up a copy. It cost me $27.95."

To Ballard's disappointment, his name was not included and he mentioned that fact to Chestnut the next time he saw him.

"I said to him 'you lying rascal,' and he told me, 'I've sold a lot of books to white folks just like you,'" Ballard said with a big laugh.

When it came to trying cases, Chestnut was so good that, at times, he won cases without knowing basic facts of the upcoming trial.

"We drove to Wilcox County one time and all the way down I'd ask Ches details and he'd tell me 'don't worry, we'll handle it when we get there,'" Sanders recalled.

When the two lawyers walked into the courtroom, Sanders discovered that his senior partner didn't have a clue about the case or even the name of his client.

It didn't really matter, Sanders said, "because Ches got a quick acquittal."

Davis, a lawyer who won quick support from Chestnut when he began running for Congress, said his friend knew that he had helped improve conditions for everyone in Selma.

"In his final years, he was honored by both the black and white communities as a leading member of the establishment that once was closed to him," Davis said, in a statement issued Tuesday afternoon.
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Public defender council votes to cut its budget - Some members want to face off with Perdue, keep budget same
By BILL RANKIN, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
September 26, 2008
The state public defender council voted Friday to pare back its budget amid concerns the cuts will disable the agency.
The council complied, more than three weeks late,– with a directive by Gov. Sonny Perdue that state agencies trim their budgets because of lagging tax revenues.
The system’s circuit public defender offices, which represent thousands of indigent defendants across Georgia, received the softest blow. The local offices will get to decide for themselves how to cut a little more than 2 percent from their current spending.
Some offices are expected to impose furloughs while others will make their cuts through other means. Other state council employees will take furloughs, the board decided at a meeting in the State Bar of Georgia building.
The council’s goal is to avoid impairing its core mission, defending the poor, and to minimize the impact on the state’s court system, the council’s director, Mack Crawford, said before the vote.
But Gainesville attorney Wyc Orr said he was unconvinced the statewide system could absorb any more spending cuts without being irreparably harmed.
“We don’t want to be a part of dismantling the statewide public defender system,” Orr said. “We ought to have no part in that.”
He asked the board to refuse any spending cuts and let the system keep operating until it runs out of money. That would cause a shutdown of the criminal justice system, but force the state to correct the problem, Orr said. DeKalb County Superior Court Judge Mark Scott, a board member, said the council is one of the few state agencies with a constitutional mandate.
“I’m not saying spend more money like that’s no tomorrow,” Scott said. “But our role is larger than just bringing in a budget.”
Fellow board member Paul Kurtz, a University of Georgia law professor, agreed. But Kurtz said he believed it would be “irresponsible” for the council not to comply with Perdue’s directive that most state agencies cut their budgets by at least 6 percent.
The council, by an 11-3 vote, approved the cuts. Orr, Scott, and Walker County attorney Don Oliver voted to reject them.
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Incumbents face tougher road over the last decade after 'tort reform' battles
Sid Salter, Clarion-Ledger (Jackson, Mississippi)
September 28, 2008

With four seats up for grabs in the November general election, the state's non-partisan judicial elections are drawing increasing attention from old adversaries - the business/medical community and trial lawyers.

The groups have been feuding for more than a decade over so-called "tort reform" efforts. While this year's elections are following the same script in terms of philosophies, there are differences.

Several major political players among the state's trial lawyers - people who have pumped money into statewide and judicial campaigns over the last two decades - are no longer in a position to influence those campaigns.

Oxford attorney Richard "Dickie" Scruggs, his law firm associate Sid Backstrom, Booneville attorney Joey Langston, New Albany attorney Tim Balducci and former state auditor Steve Patterson have all pleaded guilty in connection with federal judicial bribery charges in two separate investigations.

Scruggs' son Zach pleaded guilty to a lesser charge in connection with the same judicial bribery probe that brought down his famous father.

Langston has pleaded guilty in a separate case from Scruggs and is also cooperating in a case involving an alleged conspiracy between him and Scruggs to win a favorable ruling from Hinds County Circuit Judge Bobby DeLaughter.

DeLaughter has denied any wrongdoing.

Back as late as the early 1980s, judicial elections in Mississippi were low key races that didn't draw significant campaign contributions. But the emergence of the tort reform battle and the powers of the judicial offices to impact mass tort cases changed all that in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

In the old days, incumbent Supreme Court justices were rarely defeated. But in 2000, then-Chief Justice Lenore Prather was upset by current Justice Chuck Easley and in 2002, Justice Chuck McRae was defeated by current Justice Jess Dickinson.

The Supreme Court, the state's highest court, is comprised of nine justices elected three each from the state's three Supreme Court districts to staggered eight-year terms. The court holds appellate jurisdiction over all matters.

The post of chief justice (head of the state's judicial branch of government) pays $115,390 annually. A presiding (senior) justice receives $113,190 and an associate (less senior) justice $112,530.

By law, all Mississippi judicial elections are non-partisan - meaning that judges don't seek office as members of political parties such as Democratic or Republican.

In Mississippi's 2004 judicial elections, $2.56 million in campaign funds was raised to elect three state Supreme Court justices.

Some 67 percent of those 2004 funds was donated either by lawyers or pro-business and medical groups, according to the Institute for Money in State Politics.

Under Mississippi law, corporations - like automakers, law firms and entities such as Indian tribes if they are incorporated - are limited to $1,000 in campaign contributions to non-judicial candidates. Current law caps donations to judicial candidates at $5,000 a donor.

But political high rollers -including major corporations and wealthy trial lawyers - are side-stepping that state corporate campaign contribution limit by making huge donations to special tax-exempt political action committees known as "527 committees" by virtue of their Internal Revenue Service designation.

The "527s" are political action committees - fund-raising entities - that can raise unlimited funds from virtually any source and expend those funds for almost any political purpose conceivable other than direct contributions to federal candidates.

But there is no prohibition against these groups making direct campaign contributions to state candidates - effectively circumventing state laws like those in Mississippi that limit corporate donations to candidates.

Efforts to close that loophole by former Secretary of State Eric Clark and Attorney General Jim Hood failed in the 2004 legislative session when Gov. Haley Barbour vetoed a campaign finance reform bill. Barbour said he objected because it limited corporate donations to political action committees. A second effort by Hood and Clark to address campaign finance reform in the 2005 and 2006 legislative sessions died in committee.

There are other factors influencing the 2008 judicial races.

Southern District Mississippi Supreme Court Justice Oliver Diaz Jr., who was acquitted of bribery charges in 2005 after a high-profile federal trial, is seeking re- election to the high court from the state's Southern district.

Diaz and his wife, Jennifer, were indicted in 2003 along with two other Gulf Coast lower court judges and wealthy attorney Paul Minor, who was accused of bribing all three judges. Oliver Diaz was found not guilty of all charges. Jennifer Diaz pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of tax evasion.

Diaz will face Chancery Judge Randy "Bubba" Pierce of Leakesville in his re-election bid. Pierce, a former Democratic state legislator, was appointed to the state court bench by Republican Gov. Haley Barbour. Gulfport lawyer Paul Newton Jr. qualified but withdrew from the race.

Easley is facing the challenge of Court of Appeals Judge David Chandler of Ackerman in a race that has been particular heated. Easley said recently to a press group that he would "squash him like a cockroach" in the election, but Chandler has a substantial campaign finance lead over Easley.

Justice Ann Lamar of Senatobia, who was appointed to the court in May 2007 by Barbour, faces the challenge of Okolona attorney Gene Barton.

But the race drawing the most attention is the race between incumbent Chief Justice Jim Smith and challengers Jim Kitchens of Crystal Springs and Ceola James of Vicksburg.

Reacting to the judicial bribery scandals, Smith has again argued that state appellate court judges should be appointed because it would lead to the selection of more qualified and experienced judges.

But with no legislative action in support of his call for the appointive system, Smith returned to the political wars this year and was leading the pack in campaign finances in his race.
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Proposal would let some nonlawyers practice law
By Deirdre Gregg, Portland Business Journal (Oregon)
September 26, 2008

Washington attorneys are concerned about a proposal before the state Supreme Court that would allow nonlawyers to practice law in certain limited circumstances.

The proposed rule would create a new kind of legal-services provider called a “legal technician,” who could provide some assistance with family law issues, presumably at a lower cost than a lawyer.

The proposal pits the legal profession’s long-standing goal of making legal services more affordable against concerns about maintaining high standards. A number of small firms, solo practitioners and other family lawyers say the rule may not only undermine their business, but leave clients in more serious legal trouble than if they’d hired an attorney in the first place.

Opponents say the advent of legal technicians could be particularly tough on entry-level lawyers just launching a business and struggling to pay off law-school debt.

The state’s Supreme Court justices will make the ultimate decision at a later date.

The legal-technician rule has been controversial: The leaders of the bar’s family law section are opposed. And some small-firm attorneys and solo practitioners believe that supporters of the proposal are focusing on high-minded ideals such as equal access to justice, but not focusing on the way the proposal would work on the ground and would affect individual attorneys.

“There is an element in the Bar Association that is firmly, clearly and properly concerned about access to justice for people without means,” said John Mitchell, an attorney at Sanchez Paulson Mitchell & Schock, in Bremerton. “But they may throw the Bar Association under the bus in the process.”

The proposal offered by the Practice of Law Board, a panel created by the state Supreme Court, would create a pilot program that would authorize legal technicians to practice in certain areas of family law. Legal technicians could help a client with the preparation of documents necessary for child support and could draft petitions for dissolution or parenting plans. But they wouldn’t be able to negotiate with opposing parties or appear in court. Legal technicians would be somewhere between lawyers and paralegals — trained, tested and certified to provide certain services, and subject to ethical and regulatory guidelines, but restricted from many of the functions lawyers can perform.

If the pilot program is successful, legal technicians could eventually practice in areas such as elder law and landlord and tenant law.

Advocates say that legal technicians would help expand access to legal services for low- and moderate-income people.

Based on roughly equivalent programs in other states, advocates of the rule say legal technicians could offer much cheaper services than lawyers.

Lawyers charge an average of $1,880 for a divorce with no property or children involved, while nonlawyer legal services in Arizona and California can cost from $325 to $599, according to the Practice of Law Board report.

“There are too many people who just cannot afford attorneys but find themselves in the middle of legal disputes and don’t know how to do the simplest kinds of things,” said Rita Bender, a member of the Practice of Law Board who supports the proposal.

But critics say that particularly in the delicate area of family law, legal technicians could do more harm than good.

Elizabeth Dronkert, a Bainbridge Island attorney, says that in her family law practice, she sometimes has to ask tough and uncomfortable questions.

Clients or potential clients may come to her with narrowly targeted requests, but she will often broaden the conversation to make sure they’re aware of the risks and implications of their decisions.

Dronkert says what she and other attorneys offer clients is legal counsel, not just technical assistance.

Then there’s the issue of competition, particularly if legal technicians expand into areas such as elder and tenant law.

Mitchell, for example, says a large part of his work has been in areas that might fall under the scope of a legal technician rule, such as elder law and divorces.

“If you’re on the 40th floor of an office tower in Seattle and working for Boeing, that may seem unimportant,” he said. “But if you’re serving real people, that’s the guts of the practice. And they’re just as entitled to be served competently as anyone else.”

Mitchell said corporations have the expertise to know if their attorneys are doing a good job. Individuals would have a much harder time evaluating the quality of the legal service they’re getting.

“It frightens me that these unqualified people would be turned loose on an unsuspecting public,” he said.
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