March 2007 Issue

Cover Story

Up in Smoke

The goal was “to bring this industry to its knees.”

That’s what Texas Attorney General Dan Morales said on March 28, 1996, as he an­nounced filing the first-ever federal civil racketeering lawsuit against the major tobacco companies.

“The purpose of this lawsuit is to change how this industry does business,” said Morales, who was the seventh state attorney general to sue the cigarette makers for smoking-related health care costs. “We are going to stop them from selling their deadly product to minors. We are going to force them to manufacture a safer product.”

In a little more than a year, 30 more states had filed similar lawsuits. The monetary claims topped $100 billion. Hun­dreds of lawyers were employed by both sides.

Feature Section

Fantasy Life, Real Law

Beathan Vale was concerned about his lo­cal court system, which had only one judge.

A Tangled Trail of Discovery

As a computer forensic examiner, Craig Ball has a speech he likes to give to the owners of the computers he intends to search. In it, he’s trying to dissuade them from deleting or destroying files.

The D.C. Power Web

With a new Democratic-controlled Congress warming up to exercise its investigative and oversight authority, the revolving door of lawyers moving between Washington’s K Street and Capitol Hill—and back again—is spinning fast.