Subject:  (Reuss) Tobacco Lawyer$... (fwd)
Date:     Sat, 2 Jan 1999 211545 -0600 (CST)
From:     "Roy L. Beavers" <rbeavers@llion.org>
To:       emfguru <rbeavers@llion.org>
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.................PEOPLE ARE MORE IMPORTANT THAN PROFITS...............

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sun, 3 Jan 1999 01:48:02 +0100
From: Christoph Reuss 
To: "Roy L. Beavers" 
Subject: Tobacco Lawyer$... (fwd)

Dear Roy,

Happy New Year, and may EMF-L shine on...

Cheerio,
Chris



> Raiding the Cookie Jar Dept.
>
> There are some new candidates in the race for Best Rationalization for the
> $8.2 billion awarded to lawyers in the tobacco settlement. One of my
> personal favorites is by John Calhoun Wells, chair of the arbitration
> panel that determined the fees, who noted that without the lawyers "there
> would be no multi-billion settlement for the states..." I mean imagine the
> embarrassment to the states if no lawyers had shown up because, say, only
> a $billion had been offered. Attorney Joseph Rice, whose firm earned a
> cool $1billion for two years work, asks "Why should the lawyers who
> carried the burden and led the fight not be paid like a chief executive
> officer of a corporation?" And we all know how fair their compensation is.
> Then there is the elegant simplicity of Florida attorney Robert Kerrigan's
> answer after being awarded $200 million for his work: "It sounds fair to
> me." I'm sure it does. (AP 12/12/98, NYT 12/22/98)





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