If Asbestos is Junk Science then this junk sdience won't mind breathing it in!

Current legislation aimed at class action reform-capping attorney's fees, requiring medical minimums, and shifting class actions from state to federal courts-are all means of curbing the abuse rather than deterring or punishing the abuser. While the obstacles and disincentives are certainly steps taken in the right direction, these measures alone do not reach the root of the matter and will not be sufficient to effectuate real change.7 In Texas, despite the 2003 attorney's fee caps, the state's medical minimum reform a year later, and the federal Class Action Fairness Act, corrupt asbestos lawyering has turned to corrupt silica lawyering and class action abuse continues unabated. For true reform to occur, both principally and practically, the current measures erected to block opportunistic and unethical behavior must be accompanied by measures designed to reprimand lawyers for their professional indiscretions. Such measures should be guided by the Model Rules of Professional Conduct.

Part I of this Note assesses the effectiveness of the primary instrument used to combat class action abuse, Rule 23 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, and concludes that relying on the rule as a procedural safeguard for class claimants, even with its new expanded judicial discretion, is insufficient. This section illustrates, through the two most recent asbestos decisions, Amchem Products v. Windsor and Ortiz v. Fibreboard Corp., how the Supreme Court's evaluation of class conduct governed solely by Rule 23's adequacy analysis leaves unethical lawyering largely unchecked, most dangerously in the context of settlement-only class actions.8 With the Class Action Fairness Act of 2005 likely to shift class action litigation from state to federal courts, revisiting Amchem and Ortiz, the two seminal decisions on ethical class representation within the Rule 23 framework, takes on added importance.

Part II examines why courts have been so reluctant to apply the state equivalents of the Model Rules to class actions. It concludes that the slightly imperfect fit of the ethical rules has not only rendered them inapplicable in the eyes of the courts, but has also stalled any effort to introduce meaningful alternative ethical guidelines.

Part III recommends that as mass tort litigation grows with no sign of slowing down, Congress or the American Bar Association must set clear ethical boundaries for the professional behavior of lawyers involved in such cases.

The amount of mass tort litigation has risen dramatically in recent decades, due partly to mass consumption of goods and increased communication to potential plaintiffs, but mostly because of aggressive lawyering created by the enormous financial incentive of serving as class counsel.9 Lessening this financial incentive is undoubtedly an effective means of combating class action abuse. However, it should not be a substitute for applying rules of professional conduct. Failure to accompany such reform with the application of recognized ethical standards is both practically insufficient and principally inconsistent. It means a lawyer's ethical obligations vary depending upon the number of clients he represents. And it means punishing the unethical crime without consequence for the unethical perpetrator. Judge Jack's nationally recognized intolerance towards the corrupt silica lawyers, the heightened public awareness of needed mass tort reform since the Class Action Fairness Act, and the growing state legislative response, provide a valuable opportunity to revisit and clarify the ethical ambiguities of class action litigation.