A Houston law firm’s questionable practices are now making national headlines, as Forbes recently reported. The curtain has been pulled back on an unscrupulous practice among tort mills and warehouses in this Houston case involving AkinMears. The buying and selling of civil lawsuits exposes the inner workings and ugly underbelly of a lawsuit machine driven by greed, not justice.
Most troubling is the fact that these tort mills, where suits are bought and sold among trial lawyers, are most directly and destructively impacting real people. When litigation mills are exposed, it raises the question, what happens to the plaintiffs that these trial lawyers supposedly care about? Treating lawsuits like a commodity destroys the integrity of the civil justice system and devalues the real people affected in these lawsuits.
As legal consumers, business owners and everyday citizens, we can and should call out these abusive practices whenever we can. And, remind policymakers and state leaders that we’re sick of lawsuits.
