Stephanie Herseth Sandlin: “Everyone is interested in fairness. Everyone is interested in transparency. I think no one has any opposition to making…”

“Everyone is interested in fairness. Everyone is interested in transparency. I think no one has any opposition to making sure that both sides in the litigation and the court know about the amount of attorneys' fees, and that is fine. But this amendment is one-sided, Mr. Chairman, because this amendment requires only that the plaintiffs' attorney reveal the amount of fees to the clients. That is fair to neither the plaintiffs nor the defendants. Also, our friends on the other side of the aisle forget to note that courts already review fees with a long laundry list of issues and criteria such as time and labor involved, novelty and difficulty of the questions, skill requisite to perform the employment, the customary fees and things such as that. So our position is that what is good for the goose is good for the gander. If we want to have transparency and we want to know what the fees are, let us talk about the fees on both sides so everyone knows where we are. I wonder if the gentleman from Florida would be willing to consider requiring equal treatment for both sides, require the disclosure of fees for both defense attorneys and plaintiffs' attorneys.”