ABQjournal: Judge Appointee Ripped Insurance Field -
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Published on: 4/29/2005
Last Visited: 4/29/2005
Clay Campbell won't be sworn in for three weeks as the newest judge on the Bernalillo County District Court bench.But already his appointment has raised some eyebrows on the defense side of the legal community.The reason: Unabashedly critical commentary about insurance companies by Campbell in columns he wrote as editor of the New Mexico Trial Lawyers journal.Campbell, 43, invoked everyone from Chilean poet Pablo Neruda to the defunct political rock group Rage Against the Machine in editorials that suggested the insurance industry was populated by crybabies and whiners who aren't timid about stretching the truth.
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Campbell, a partner at McGinn, Carpenter, Campbell, Montoya & Love, a plaintiffs' firm that specializes in catastrophic injury cases, was appointed by Gov.
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Campbell wrote that he was proud of his work on behalf of injured people." ... In every single one of our cases, the plaintiff, the client, the human being, has been disadvantaged, disenfranchised, downtrodden, hurt or killed," he wrote.
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Campbell says he understands there's a difference between being an advocate and a judge, and the editorials were written as an advocate.The defrauder comment, he said, was made in regard to the national debate over what business interests call "tort reform" and the plaintiffs' bar calls "wrongdoers-don't-pay" legislation."Where I am no-apologies, no-pretensions being an advocate for the injured, I can understand how that would concern insurance defense lawyers who don't know me," he said."The best evidence of how I will be on the bench might be how I practice law.And I think virtually all of my opponents would say I'm a straight shooter and I'm fair."Campbell has a range of experience.He worked six months as an oilfield roughneck and saved enough to pay for college.He spent four years handling commercial transactions at a Richmond, Va., law firm after graduating from William and Mary Law School with honors.His cases over the last decade frequently involved industrial accidents where workers were severely injured or killed on the job.
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Campbell refuses to say categorically that he will not hear a case involving an insurance defendant, though he said he would recuse himself if there were particular facts that caused him concern or the appearance of impropriety."I wouldn't think that the fact that I've written these editorials would cause me to recuse from every insurance case," he said.
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