Free Republic

...If a recent federal indictment that refers to Milberg Weiss is anything to go by, the trial bar has its Enron.... Sham "screenings" to round up asbestos plaintiffs, forum shopping for friendly juries, "coupon" settlements that enrich only lawyers and frivolous lawsuits have all become staples of today's tort system. Yet they have received almost no media, much less legal, scrutiny. ...The focus of the charges is retired Palm Springs lawyer Seymour Lazar, who seems to have had a second career as a plaintiff in Milberg Weiss lawsuits. From 1976 to 2004, Mr. Lazar and family members... served as named...

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - California, armed with what it calls hard, new evidence of rampant power market manipulation, handed federal regulators on Monday the names of about 60 energy companies it alleges were behind the state's 2000-2001 energy crisis. Loretta Lynch, a member of the California Public Utilities Commission, told Reuters a 1,000-page final report on the crisis filed Monday at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission names "almost 60 companies that participated in gaming our energy market." The crisis, triggered by a badly flawed attempt to open the electric industry to competition, cost California billions of dollars, bankrupted the state's...