Insurance Mouthpiece THOMAS LEEK Wants to Erase Tort Plaintiff's Civil and Constitutional Rights. (Daytona Beach News Journal)

Chief Legal Officer for a nest of insurance oligopolists (Foundation Risk Partners), State Representative THOMAS LEEK wants to be your State Senator, running for State Senator TRAVIS JAMES HUTSON's Senate seat. (HUTSON is term-limited  LEEK works for corporate oligarchs and is now the new Chair of the Florida House Appropriations Committee.)

LEEK is a Stetson University College of Law graduate.

It's hard to understand why:

A. LEEK thinks a state law could curb Americans with Disabilities Act lawsuits in federal court?  Are you kidding me?

B. LEEK wants to limit attorney advertising, a matter of First Amendment rights already ruled on repeatedly by the U.S. Supreme Court? Are you kidding me?

C. LEEK did not identify himself as the Chief Legal Officer of Foundation Risk Partners, but only demurely as a state representative?  

As a conflicted insurance cartel mouthpiece and propagandist LEEK reeks.

As the corporate mouthpiece who wants to replace developer-Senator TRAVIS JAMES HUTSON, is LEEK   no more morally qualified for the gig than hubristic misanthrope HUTSON?

As they say in East Tennessee, LEEK "bears watching'."

From Daytona Beach News Journal:

STATE REP. TOM LEEK: Work together to shut down abuse of the legal system

Staff Writer

The Daytona Beach News-Journal

The Americans with Disabilities Act has single-handedly transformed the way we treat people with disabilities in this country. But in my 20 years of private practice, I had to watch as a handful of plaintiffs’ lawyers stole the ADA from the very people it was designed to protect and turned it into their own little ATM, spitting out cash every time they cranked up their lawsuit machine. These lawyers file carbon-copy lawsuits against small businesses and property owners by the hundreds, and take tens of thousands of dollars from hard working folks all over this state, and that’s not right.

[OUR VIEW: In Volusia, Flagler counties, a conflict of access]

My first bill as member of the Florida House of Representatives was a bill to curb abusive ADA lawsuits. Now, after three sessions, I can say that I’ve filed (and mostly passed) bills to take the abuse out of our legal system. Don’t get me wrong. I am not anti-plaintiff’s bar. The plaintiff’s bar is the reason kids’ pajamas are not flammable, and the reason light poles don’t fall over and kill people as the result of a five-mph tap from a car. The plaintiff’s bar is largely the reason corporate greed hasn’t endangered more people in commerce.

But who are we kidding? Our system is no longer just about righting some wrong. It’s no longer just about punishing the perpetrator. Our legal system has become about “how much” some attorney “got me.” Just look at the billboards up and down our roads. It’s become the lottery for the injured, and frankly, the not-so-injured. And, it shouldn’t be that way. My goal is to restore balance and integrity to a legal system that I love.

On August 23, 2019, one federal judge took a stand in defense of the integrity of our legal system. Judge Paul C. Huck sanctioned a Miami attorney who had filed more than 650 ADA lawsuits across the state. The court found that the attorney and his client “deliberately and knowingly abused the ADA and the legal system solely for their own financial gain, and in total disregard of [the disabled] for whom they sanctimoniously but disingenuously professed to have brought these lawsuits”, and “in doing so, they have, unfortunately, undermined the credibility of legitimate ADA cases.” In two sentences, Judge Huck captured all that is wrong with these drive-by ADA lawsuits, and the cottage industry they spun off.

We, as a society, need to stop the bastardization of our legal system. The courts and the Florida Bar need to police their own. The courts need to start taking action against those attorneys and who abuse the system for financial gain, and insurers whose tactics are designed to delay and stall. The Florida Bar needs to materially limit attorney advertising. And the Florida Legislature needs to continue down a path of passing meaningful tort reform. If we demand it, we will have a legal system with greater access for all, where the costs of litigation will be less, and where the time to justice will be quicker.

On August 23, 2019, one federal judge took a stand in defense of the integrity of our legal system. Judge Paul C. Huck sanctioned a Miami attorney who had filed more than 650 ADA lawsuits across the state. The court found that the attorney and his client “deliberately and knowingly abused the ADA and the legal system solely for their own financial gain, and in total disregard of [the disabled] for whom they sanctimoniously but disingenuously professed to have brought these lawsuits”, and “in doing so, they have, unfortunately, undermined the credibility of legitimate ADA cases.” In two sentences, Judge Huck captured all that is wrong with these drive-by ADA lawsuits, and the cottage industry they spun off.

We, as a society, need to stop the bastardization of our legal system. The courts and the Florida Bar need to police their own. The courts need to start taking action against those attorneys and who abuse the system for financial gain, and insurers whose tactics are designed to delay and stall. The Florida Bar needs to materially limit attorney advertising. And the Florida Legislature needs to continue down a path of passing meaningful tort reform. If we demand it, we will have a legal system with greater access for all, where the costs of litigation will be less, and where the time to justice will be quicker.

Leek, a Daytona Beach Republican, represents District 25 in the Florida House.