Florida Needs New Class Action Forum at Miami Law Like It Needs a Category 5 Hurricane

With an apparent desire to ensure in perpetuity Florida’s status as a perennial Judicial Hellhole, three locally based class action law firms have donated $1 million to the University of Miami School of Law to fund an annual forum on complex mass torts and multidistrict litigation, according to Law360.com.

Personal injury lawyers from Kozyak Tropin & Throckmorton PA, Podhurst Orseck PA and Harke Clasby & Bushman LLP reportedly hope the forum “will become the premier conference on the subject of class action litigation.”

By scheduling the forum to coincide with a popular annual art fair in Miami, reports Law360, “the organizers hope to make the forum a ‘can’t miss’ event.”

“It’s a time of year when people really like to come to Miami not only because of the weather but also because Art Basel is a major cultural destination,” Miami Law School dean Patricia White says.  “It makes coming to this conference even more attractive, and we’re going to be offering some access to Art Basel for our guests that I think they will appreciate.”

That sounds just lovely.

But if ATRA may intrude as the skunk at this garden party, we’d note that Florida already suffers a glut of nearly 75,000 attorneys (only New York, California and Texas — all once and future Judicial Hellholes — suffer more).  More troubling is the fact that the Sunshine State’s lawyer population has ballooned by more than 53% during the past decade while its overall population has grown just 14%.  And with 12 law schools in the state cranking out nearly 3,000 newly-minted J.D.s each year, Miami needs an annual class-action forum like it needs a category 5 hurricane.