Russ Feingold: “I enjoy and appreciate working with the Senator from Iowa on many issues, and I have enjoyed all of his remarks except…”

“I enjoy and appreciate working with the Senator from Iowa on many issues, and I have enjoyed all of his remarks except for the suggestion that somehow this is going to be a bad-faith attempt to try to improve the bill, or somehow attempt to benefit attorneys. I feel like I identified some very specific arguments that are real and that are important to the legal system; and, that, although I share the concerns of the Senator about the general system, in fact I think there are abuses in chapter 7. There is no question about that. But what I tried to do is craft an amendment that creates a fair balance. I am not trying to prevent punishment of an attorney who does something wrong. But let me just quickly review the arguments about why this is a reasonable amendment and I don't think was responded to. First of all, I heard nothing about my argument that this creates a conflict of interest. A lawyer has a responsibility under the rules of professional conduct to zealously advocate on behalf of their client. Therefore, it is very rare that our legal system would function well and that attorneys would zealously advocate for their clients if they are afraid that their family and their house could possibly be taken away because they might be assessed with the entire cost of litigation. That is the conflict of interest that this creates.”