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Welcome to Raising the Bar with RebuttalPR, the podcast where we elevate the stories of the plaintiff's bar and dive into the key trends shaping the civil justice system today. I'm your host, Ray DeLorenzi, and in each episode, we'll bring you insightful interviews with leading attorneys, expert perspectives on current legal events, and in-depth discussions on the issues that matter most. Now, let's jump in.
We come to this moment where Republicans and Democrats and independents agree that no one wants their rights taken away. Trial lawyers have such an important function, and we have to all band together.
Ray: Hey, everyone, and welcome to RebuttalPR's new podcast, Raising the Bar. I'm so thrilled today that for our first episode, we have a living legend, essentially, in Linda Lipsen, who is the CEO of the American Association for Justice, the association for trial lawyers. You know, full disclosure here. Linda's not only a friend, but she's a former boss, a mentor, someone who I just have deep respect and admiration for. So to have her as our first guest means a lot to me. So thank you, Linda, for joining the podcast.
Linda: Oh, happy to do it.
Ray: So we really want to spend more of this time talking about how you got into this world. You've been at AAJ for over 30 years now. But I would be remiss not to ask up front: so, that election, huh?
Linda: Well, it was surprising in some ways and not surprising in other ways. You know, we had hoped for a different conclusion at the top of the ticket, but we also helped elect a number of very strong pro-civil justice candidates. So with every election, afterwards you take stock and you figure out your good facts and your bad facts, and we're going to have some real challenges in front of us. I think the biggest challenge really is the fact that the lobby infrastructure, which really is composed of every defendant trade association that has ever existed, has a stranglehold around Washington, and they're ready to pounce. They want to use the results of the election to get immunity in all kinds of cases. And there really isn't a single case that's safe. So we have our work cut out for us. But honestly, the staff here — I always say that they'd be qualified to be Navy SEALs, because we always get all this incoming, and we put on our bulletproof vests every day and we go out and fight the good fight for the clients and the lawyers that make up our community.
Ray: I mean, we now know that Republicans are going to have both houses of Congress and the executive branch. But also, I wanted you to talk for a minute — and I don't think this has been appreciated enough — that it's not the Republican Party of 20 years ago, and that there's this populist streak that, when it comes to civil justice issues, there's been more receptiveness to. How does that sort of go into the soup, or how do you think about these things?
Linda: Well, going back into the Wayback Machine, when I first started 30 years ago, the Chamber of Commerce and the manufacturing community and the medical industry had just spent a gazillion dollars to try to take our white hats away. Trial lawyers always should have had the white hats, because we are providing a way for individuals that have been harmed, seriously harmed, by dangerous chemicals and dangerous manufacturing practices to rebuild their lives. So we should have always had the white hat. So what they did was they came in and they had some slogans like "frivolous lawsuits" or whatever, and they pounded the Congress and state legislatures throughout the country with this image of trial lawyers. And so, you know, we don't manufacture Coke or anything like that. We're just lawyers. And so we didn't have the resources to fight back in the way that we really should have, had we had the resources. So for years and years and years, it was trial lawyers being considered bottom feeders, whatever, which was ridiculous, because trial lawyers should have always been the champions for justice. Now we come to this moment where Republicans and Democrats and independents agree that no one wants their rights taken away. So in a strange way, even though we've experienced a difficult election cycle, I believe the public is on our side. So I think that gives us a lot of running room.
Ray: So I want to take a step back from the election and talk more about you and your bio and how you got to this point. And I want to really take it back from the beginning, because I know you had a really interesting upbringing being around Washington, and through your mother in particular. So can you give me, like, the Linda Lipsen helicopter tour?
Linda: Well, I grew up around politics. Both parents were engaged in politics at all kinds of levels. My father was the chief advance man for Lyndon Johnson, and my mother was actually the legislative director for the Speaker of the House during Watergate. And she was actually the first woman staffer to ever have floor privileges, House floor privileges. So we kind of grew up in this environment. My aunt also was a lobbyist and also a great fundraiser for Democrats, but then she merged into supporting other charities and things like that. And we kind of had this salon of people from both sides of the aisle coming to dinner at my aunt's house or my mother's house, talking about the great issues of the day. So I was just surrounded.
And when I went to law school, I thought I was going to be a real lawyer. And I went to an antitrust firm first of all, and it was really — I'm sorry — incredibly boring. They put me in a room full of documents, and it was not a good fit for me. So I kind of veered off into a policy direction. My father also, after being an advance man, was a lobbyist for a number of different organizations. And my mother, after working on the Hill, also became a lobbyist. And so all of this was flying around, and I wanted to be a real lawyer, and then decided that wasn't really for me, that I wanted to paint with a broader brush. So I went to Consumers Union, the publisher of Consumer Reports magazine, and they asked me to work on communication issues, and particularly issues involved with access fees for telephones. And I honestly thought that was the most boring of all the issues.
So after about a month, I went to my supervisor and said, I want to do healthcare, and I see this new issue developing on products liability that looks really interesting and profound, and I want to be doing that. And so he was very open to it. And so I changed — I didn't want to do access fees ever. And I ended up working on product liability and healthcare. So after that — fantastic, really wonderful working environment and great issues, and working on Capitol Hill, and so much that I felt like I was making a difference.
I was asked by AAJ, then ATLA, to run the public policy shop at ATLA/AAJ. And in the beginning, I had a great job that I loved, and I really didn't want to change my job. And it was this conspiracy of all my friends and all my colleagues ganging up on me, like, why don't you want to do this? And the reason why I didn't want to do it was because I thought the way it had been done by the previous head lobbyists was not something that I would want to do, where you just talk to two leaders and give money and not tell your story. And I thought, well, trial lawyers are the best storytellers in the country. Why aren't they coming to Capitol Hill? And so I remember in my interview I said, I don't really — it was kind of like dating, actually, because the more I didn't want to do it, the more they wanted me. So, okay, this is what I want to do, and they were open to it.
And so, again, I was having, like, a nervous breakdown over this, because I was a consumer advocate, and I didn't know if this was the right place for me. And so gradually, with everyone ganging up on me, including my husband — take this job, do this, take the plunge — and it's been my home ever since. So that's sort of my story. But it comes from a very strong belief that you use your legal training to make a difference. What better way to make a difference than by preventing all this so-called tort reform from getting passed that would completely undermine rights and remedies in this country. What a better way to do it. What a better perch. So it's been my home. And I never thought it would be. I thought I'd probably stay for about five years or something, but there was always something to fix, there was always something to do, there was always a new issue to work on. And then there are so many terrific people that work at AAJ and ATLA that I just got hooked.
Ray: So in the 30 years you've been at AAJ —
Linda: 30 years? Oh my God. I'll just keep saying that.
Ray: How has the organization evolved, or your vision for the organization? Now you've been CEO for 14 of those years. So how have things evolved and changed in ways that maybe you expected or didn't expect?
Linda: Well, we have so many more issues. You know, it used to be that we had very comprehensive issues, like a products liability bill that affected any kind of case involving a dangerously defective product. And that was what we would work on. Now we have not just products liability, medical malpractice, class actions, issues affecting class actions, issues affecting litigation financing. All of these issues are upon us. And we actually counted them up: our public affairs department handles 100 issues. Some of them — most of them, the vast majority — are defense, but some of them are on offense.
And we also have a new portfolio, which is on judges, which — when you talk about this election, the thing that I'm most remorseful about — is that there are 29 new trial lawyers that are now on the federal bench. That is a huge accomplishment. We're all very proud of that, and our members have helped identify vettable candidates, and that's fantastic. But under the new administration, I think that a lot of the progress that we've made to get lawyers on the bench that have represented real people, like trial lawyers — I don't think we're going to have as much progress there. So I'm sad about that. But what I've really found — and this sounds so incredibly trite, and just kill me for saying this — but when a door closes, another door opens, and we'll figure it out.
But the one thing that I have to say we have to figure out is we've got to get our membership up. We have to get our membership numbers up. What's happened in the last 30 years is there's a lot of competition in the trial lawyer community. There are all kinds of other groups, local groups, etc., that people are members of. Every trial lawyer has to be a member of AAJ, because we are the only group fighting on Capitol Hill to maintain your cases and maintain your clients' rights. So we've got to get our membership up. We have a new campaign called Join for Justice. And what's happened is, let's take a firm of 10 people. Usually the firm says, okay, well, two of them are going to be AAJ members, two of them are going to be state members. You've got to be both. You've got to be a member of the state and a member of AAJ, because the fight is on us, and we can't be a bystander of our own life. So we really have to, because all the lawyers are involved in this. Look, this is scary terrain. I'm not going to sugarcoat this. This is scary terrain. We have one company that actually manufactures a product called glyphosate that has just spent $15 million against us on Capitol Hill. $15 million. We're like the little engine that could. So I need everybody. So, you know, don't make me big, because that's not a good look. But I'm saying we've got to get our membership numbers up.
Ray: Yeah. I mean, what's interesting is the firm has, over the years, been growing, it's gotten younger, it's gotten more diverse, and all these things are great. But what do you say to members who are like, you know, what happens on Capitol Hill, how will that affect my practice? What's your message to those lawyers?
Linda: I get very disappointed when I hear that, because when I hear that, it means — and everyone's bombarded with information, and nobody's reading everything, because we're sending out a lot of emails about what's actually happening. There isn't a single cause of action that our lawyers are thinking about bringing or have brought that isn't under attack at some point. And whether it's loser pays, or how you finance a case, or caps on damages, or any of those things — and that's just on Capitol Hill. What's changed now is it's not just on Capitol Hill and in the state houses, it's also before the judicial conference. We have a Sue Seineman in our office who deals with all the rules that the companies are trying to get through that would make it harder for our lawyers to pursue justice for their clients.
So what has happened over the course of many years is that the industries that our lawyers are often pursuing for compensation for their clients — these industries are banding together and spending just huge sums on PR firms and lobbying, etc., to try to get Congress, the state houses, the judicial conference to limit the rights and remedies that people can obtain. And we're it. We are it. I do have to say that the one thing that I'm proud of and also scared of is that lawyers are the safety net right now. There is no other safety net. These agencies that are supposed to protect the public are going to be a ghost town. They were in 2016. They are going to be again. Trial lawyers have such an important function, and we have to all band together in this important time. And if we do, we're going to prevail.
But it's going to take everybody. It's a huge rock to move up the hill. It's heavy, it's cumbersome, everyone has an opinion about it, which is sometimes great. We've got to do better. We have to do better in working together, and everybody has to be a member. And I'm going to plead: anybody watching this, if you only have half your firm members of AAJ, I'm going to say, shame on you. And then I'm going to thank you, because you're going to come in and you're going to do the things that you need to do to sign up. It's not a lot of money, but — you don't want me to come in to a member of Congress who is trying to kill your clients' rights and say, I represent, like, I don't know, dozens of lawyers. You want a fighting force. So I'm really hopeful that our lawyers will answer the call.
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Ray: Again, we are here with Linda Lipsen, who's the CEO of the American Association for Justice. Linda, something — I guess tying back to the prior question, you sort of touched on this. It feels like a new challenge over the last — it's not so new, but I think a lot of lawyers don't appreciate this — is preemption, and how many of those fights, it's not like a big product liability bill, it's like one line buried in a 500-page bill that you're up at 3 a.m. trying to figure out. Tell us a little bit about that, and where you've seen that, and your expectations for this coming Congress.
Linda: Well, it really started with George W. Bush, who, the first week that he was in office, decreed basically that every agency should have preemption preambles and destroy all the cases involving the subject matter that the agency was designed to cover. We got rid of those — AAJ got rid of those through a ton of work. And so now all the trade associations that have the stranglehold around Washington think it's a great idea, if there's any kind of moving vehicle in Congress, to attach a little bit of preemption language, which is just immunity, into any bill moving.
So we have thousands of pages that we have to sift through for that one line that is going to say — let's say it's a bill affecting the air or the water or anything like that — you're going to see a sentence that's going to say, oh, and by the way, all the cases at common law and statutorily are wiped out. By the way. And I go, no. And so what happens to us sometimes is that a lot of policymakers would like to get big things done, and so they come to us and they say, can't we just pass this without this provision? And the answer is a big no. Absolutely not. We're not a bargaining chip. So, big no. And so sometimes it makes us not so popular, but I can live with that. I can live with that.
Ray: Where do you see in this next Congress and administration the most acute threats? And what opportunities may be there as well?
Linda: The biggest threat really is on judges. I think, you know, President Biden has been able to put on the bench a record number of professionally diverse judges. That's the biggest challenge. But there are some incredible new champions for justice that are in the Senate that I'm really excited about. I'm really excited about Andy Kim in New Jersey. I'm really excited about Alyssa Slotkin in Michigan. I'm really excited about Ruben Gallego in Arizona. I have to say that Lisa Blunt Rochester in Delaware is a revelation. I am really excited about Angela Alsobrooks, who's now coming to Congress in Maryland — this is the first African-American woman elected to the Senate in Maryland, so I'm really excited about working with her. As a former prosecutor, she's going to be great. And then Adam Schiff — Adam Schiff, who's a fantastic champion for justice, is now the new senator from California. So I'm very excited to work with these new people.
You know, there's a lot to do. I just saw the movie Gladiator 2. These are our gladiators. And so we're going to fight back in every way we can. But again, I'm going to go back to my original message: I need everyone to be part of this. You know, you can't just buy the best security system for your house and leave your back door open. This is serious. Pay attention. Pay attention. This is your life, and everyone's got to be part of this. So I'm going to be talking to anyone I can to get them to sign up. It's not a lot, but it is a lot when you go to Congress and you're representing a horde of trial lawyers that are out there seeking justice for their clients.
Ray: I'm going to do this needling one more time regarding your more than 30 years at AAJ.
Linda: You have to keep saying 30 years.
Ray: Well, it's a perfect setup for this question. When you wake up in the morning, what keeps you motivated to keep coming back at it, despite challenges, year after year? What stirs you to keep doing this?
Linda: What stirs me to keep doing this are the clients that our lawyers represent. I have to tell you that I think a lot about our lawyers' opening statements and their closing arguments. And I have so much respect for them, because the stories are so profound — the stories about the dangers that our lawyers are told, and our lawyers coming up with a way to try to help them rebuild their lives. I don't think I could get through an opening argument and closing arguments, because I'd be crying. I'd be in tears. I wouldn't be able to do it. So I have so much respect for our lawyers that they can do this, that they can talk about a child that was brain damaged because of medical malpractice, or any of these stories.
And so what keeps me up at night is I think about the people that our lawyers have brought into our offices to tell their stories to Congress. And I have deep respect for them, because I know how hard that is to talk about those kinds of things. And they do. And right now we're trying to get accountability for the social media platforms, which is really hard. You talk about opponents — there's so many opponents that we have, from Meta to Snapchat, on and on, to TikTok — trying to get some accountability for these platforms. And the parents that have children that have unfortunately been addicted to internet algorithms and have suicidal ideation, or anorexia related to exposure to a constant barrage of advertising that being anorexic is a cool thing — this is really... I think about these parents all the time. And our lawyers get to help them. I mean, how incredible is that? What a great profession that is.
Ray: I'm going to let that be the last word, Linda. Okay? Because I can't end on a more powerful note than that. I want to thank you for joining. Appreciate your time and insights. If you are a trial lawyer out there and you are not a member of AAJ, you need to sign up yesterday.
Thanks for listening to this episode of Raising the Bar with RebuttalPR. Don't forget to subscribe and follow to join us next time. See you then.
