Submitted by Scott Baker, Jan 31, 2008 10:09

As someone who has actively managed my own investments for 12 years, I regularly receive offers to "participate" in class action suits. These suits are one of the biggest scams out there. As Mr.Tofel points out, only the lawyers get rich off this. What's left for the average shareholder barely covers the cost of postage and getting copies of buy and sell statements going back years. And if you make even the slightest ommission, you're knocked out of the settlement class entirely. I call these vulture lawyers, picking off the scraps of distressed companies, even bankrupt ones. Has any of this made business more honest and accountable? It's hard to see how as we plummit through yet another greed-and-bust meltdown, this time by the banks and financial firms. It might make a little more sense if the lawyers went after these firms when they were still profiting from their fraud, but instead they wait until the dust has nearly settled. Bush promissed tort reform. Sadly, he has failed in this promise as well.

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