In The News Today – February 9, 2015

“Judges have helped turn Manhattan’s special asbestos court into a gold mine for Sheldon Silver’s law firm — and a former Long Island congresswoman could also reap the rewards.” Former Congresswoman Carolyn McCarthy, who “had smoked for 40 years”, claims “in a $100 million-plus lawsuit that she was exposed” to asbestos “as a child when her father and brothers unwittingly brought asbestos fibers home from their shipyard jobs.” (New York Post)

Newly elected New York Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie’s “right-hand man, lobbyist and consultant Patrick Jenkins … represents the New York State Trial Lawyers Association, a powerful group and a bane of business interests for its opposition to tort reform.” One of that group’s priorities “will be to get Mr. Heastie to block reform of the state’s 129-year-old scaffold law, as the last speaker, Sheldon Silver, did for years.” (Crain’s New York)