THE SECOND (WORST) CITY The legal climate has improved downstate, but a storm is brewing in the Windy City. In 2005, Cook County made the American Tort Reform Association’s list of the nation’s worst Judicial Hellholes for the first time, debuting all the way up at Number Two.[147] The Chicagoland jurisdiction’s rising share of Illinois’ litigation—its share of state claims skyrocketed from 47 to 64 percent from 1994 through 2003—is troubling, particularly when you consider that Cook County’s share of Illinois’ population dropped slightly over the same period.[148]   Cook County’s emergence as Trial Lawyers, Inc.’s new venue of choice can in part be traced to the housecleaning that’s been going on downstate. After Judge Daniel Stack took over Madison County’s asbestos docket from Nicholas Byron in 2004 and began dismissing out-of-state claims, plaintiffs’ lawyers began filing cases in Cook County in greater numbers. The Chicago asbestos firm Cooney and Conway, for example—which boasts of handling 90 percent of northern Illinois’ mesothelioma cases—was more than eager to accommodate any displaced litigants.[149] In 2004, Cook County asbestos filings rose 40 percent, to 236, even as national filings dropped considerably.[150] And this year, the firm’s John Cooney netted two multibillion-dollar asbestos settlements with USG Corporation and Ohio-based Owens Corning.[151]   Cook County is also one of the trial bar’s favorite medical-malpractice venues. Med-mal verdicts there averaged over $1 million as recently as 1998, but they have since escalated to $4.45 million.[152] Trial Lawyers, Inc.’s big player in the med-mal field in Chicago is Power Rogers & Smith; founding partner Larry Rogers won a recent $55 million medical-malpractice verdict, the state’s largest in the last decade,[153] and name partner Todd Smith recently negotiated med-mal settlements of $17.25 and $20 million.[154] Each of these lawyers is also a power player in Trial Lawyers, Inc.’s government- and public-relations operations: Rogers is a past president of the Illinois Trial Lawyers Association, and Smith is the immediate past president of the Association of Trial Lawyers of America—or the “American Association for Justice,” as the organization sunnily rebranded itself this summer.[155]   Cook County judges abuse procedure in much the same way that their Madison and St. Clair County colleagues once did, welcoming far-flung cases with no real local contacts.[156] Even when such venue abuses are reversed on appeal, defendants cough up a lot of money litigating the claims. Cook County’s judges also routinely make questionable evidentiary decisions that prejudice defendants, such as excluding videotaped testimony showing purportedly injured plaintiffs engaged in strenuous activity—while accepting videotape evidence that disadvantages the defense.[157]   Unfortunately, reforming Chicago’s judiciary is like catching lightning in a bottle. A simple change in one judge can make a big difference in Madison or St. Clair County, but to clean up Cook County requires a massive effort. Statewide reforms—from legislative action on medical malpractice to shifts in personnel and opinion on the state supreme court—offer some hope, but much work remains. Let’s hope that Cook County can get its act together and elect judges with respect for the rule of law. Chicago may be proud of its position as America’s Second City, but placing second on the Judicial Hellholes list is a far less enviable distinction.

<<previous section | next section>> 147. See id. at 7. 148. See Litigation Imbalance, supra note 22, at 9. 149. Cooney & Conway Home Page, http://www.cooneyconway.com (last visited Oct. 5, 2006). 150. See American Tort Reform Foundation, supra note 20, at 16; Davies, supra note 3. 151. See David Mitchell, $5.2 Billion Owens Corning Asbestos Trust, Chi. Daily Ll. Bull., May 10, 2006, at 1; David Mitchell, $4 Billion Asbestos Accord Set, Chi. Daily Ll. Bull.., Jan. 30, 2006, at 1. 152. See Litigation Crisis, supra note 56, at 3. 153. Power Rogers & Smith, Chicago Medical Malpractice Verdicts & Settlements, http://www.prslaw.com/success.php?id=4 (last visited Oct. 5, 2006). 154. Power Rogers & Smith, Todd A. Smith, http://www.prslaw.com/attorneys_detail.php?id=9 (last visited Oct. 5, 2006). 155. Power Rogers & Smith, Larry R. Rogers, Sr., http://www.prslaw.com/attorneys_detail.php?id=8 (last visited Oct. 5, 2006); Todd A. Smith, supra note 154. 156. See American Tort Reform Fundation, supra note 20, at 16-17 (listing examples of cases that Cook County trial courts have taken and that have been later reversed because of the limited number of local contacts). 157. See id. at 17.