American Tort Reform Association

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The American Tort Reform Association (ATRA), founded in 1986, is an organization that advocates for "tort reform." Its membership consists of more than 300 businesses, corporations, municipalities, associations, and professional firms.

The ATRA supports an agenda to increase public awareness of, and suggest changes in, the manner in which tort litigation is conducted in the U.S.A. Some of these proposed changes would effectively limit the ability of tort plaintiffs to recover against defendants. Examples include:

Limitations on liability for medical malpractice.
Abolition of the rule of joint and several liability.
Abolition of the collateral source doctrine.
Limitations on punitive damages.
Limitations on noneconomic damages.
Changes in products liability law.
Greater skepticism in the admission of expert testimony.
Stopping so-called "regulation through litigation."
Promotion of jury service.

While ATRA has identified attorney misconduct as a part of the problem with the tort system and even displayed a billboard targetting a particular "unethical lawyer"^[1], ATRA has suggestion no reforms to address misconduct in the legal profession.

At the end of every year since 2002, ATRA publishes its annual Judicial Hellholes report, which is a list of locales that ATRA calls the worst courts in the United States.

The 2005 report lists Rio Grande Valley and the Gulf Coast of Texas as the worst courts in the country. Prior to 2005, the worst court according to ATRA was Madison County, Illinois.

The other judicial hellholes in 2005 were Cook County, Ill., the entire state of West Virginia, former top seed Madison County, St. Clair County, Ill., and south Florida.

ATRA also awards the Civil Justice Achievement Award annually.