Today's New York Post contains a story about how Elliot Spitzer, the Attorney General of the State of New York gave back approximately $124K in campaign money donated by the securities litigation firm of Milberg, Weiss, Bershad & Schulman which was indicted Friday for allegedly making illegal under the table payments to the same lead plaintiff in several class action suits.
My recent post concerning the Society of Settlement Planners was met with consternation from a few of its members. indeed I had some very heated yet constructive discussions with two members, including its President Chuck Derenne. I welcome the debate. Much reference has been made by this organization about the work that Elliot Spitzer is doing with respect to insurance companies business practices. They should now follow Spitzer's example and return contributions made by factoring companies whose business practices are incompatible with the interests of the structured settlement and settlement planning industries. I am told that the organization doesn't need money so if that's the case the return of $10,000 or so to a firm such as Novation Capital should be a drop in the bucket. Put the money where your mouths were (you know who you are)!
Earlier this week, in the Structured Settlement Advertising Wall of Shame, I highlighted how Novation Capital made a mockery of Wikipedia which is supposed to be an educational tool by leading consumers to believe they are going to a resource for more information about structured settlements and instead giving them a full blast solicitation. Totally bogus!
Some have asked "what should NSSTA do about contributions from Symetra Financial?" Symetra on the one hand owns a life insurance company that sells structured settlement annuities and on the other hand has set up a company called Clearscape Funding that solicits structured settlement payment recipients of both Symetra and other structured settlement annuity issuers to sell their structured settlement payment rights.
Some of the trial lawyer associations may also want to re look whether taking money from some of these folks is incompatible with their association's interest (beyond the notion that money in whatever form helps fight the fight). I see that one factoring company is advertising "the only factoring company owned by an ATLA member" as if deep discounting plaintiffs with stuctured settlements is somehow more justified because you are an ATLA member trial lawyer.
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