Atlantic Legal Foundation

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ALF trumpets their "deep commitment to redressing the bias against business which manifests itself in favor of narrow 'consumer' or 'environmental' concerns" (ALF Annual Report, 1994). ALF also promotes "sound science" in the courtroom (ALF, "Our Philosophy," 2004). ALF has received funding from ASARCO, ARCO Chemical Co, Chevron, DuPont, Pfizer, and Texaco. Other funding sources include prominent conservative philanthropic foundations, including the Sarah Scaife, Claude Lambe, John Olin, Castle Rock (Coors) and the Philip McKenna Foundations.[1]

Helping corporations to ignore health and safety legislation

ALF does not appear to initiate lawsuits, but files numerous amicus briefs on issues including charter schools, affirmative action, and the use of scientific testimony in court. It is the latter issue that seems to occupy the most of ALF's recent efforts.
ALF has a science advisory board with 18 members, including 6 Nobel Laureates, most famous among them James Watson, the co-discoverer of DNA. Through its briefs, ALF succeeded in establishing (e.g. they have been cited in Supreme Court rulings) that a high standard should apply to the use of scientific experts. In three different Supreme Court cases (Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Joiner v. General Electric, and Kumho Tire Co. v. Carmichael) ALF convinced the high court that the judiciary should use high standards in determining which scientific evidence is admissible, succeeding in having plaintiff's scientific experts deemed unsuitable, and aided in the determination that trial judges should serve as "gatekeepers" for all experts, not merely scientific ones to ensure only relevant and reliable testimony.
The consequence of such rulings is that plaintiffs litigating against pharmaceutical companies, medical providers, or other corporate concerns will have a more difficult time establishing the scientific basis of their claims. Corporations which finance scientific experts, and the scientists who in many cases are implicated in these cases, would be unopposed in their "expert" claims in the courtroom. Having established this precedent on the federal level, Atlantic Legal Foundation is looking to further expand it at the state levels, where the majority of tort claims are pursued. The logical conclusion of such precedents would be a vast reduction in the size and frequency of judgments against corporations, thus making it profitable for them to disregard health and safety laws.[2]

People

Board of Directors

Atlantic Legal Officers

Advisory Council

  • David C. Apy Partner, McCarter & English Newark, NJ
  • Patricia Buffler, PhD., M.P.H. Prof. of Epidemiology Dean Emerita of the School of Public Health Univ. of California Berkeley, CA
  • Henry N. Butler J.D., Ph.D., Director, Judicial Education Program AEI-Brookings Joint Center for Regulatory Studies, Irvine, CA
  • John H. Carley Senior VP-Legal and Regulatory Affairs Cendant Corporation, New York, NY
  • Albert W. Driver Editor, The Metropolitan Corporate Counsel, General Counsel (Ret.), J.C. Penney Co. Mountainside, NJ
  • George E. Ehrlich, MD, Adjunct Prof. Univ. of Pennsylvania School of Medicine Philadelphia, PA
  • Frederick T. Elder Ph.D., P.E, Principal Frederick T. Elder & Associates, Madison, WI
  • Charles M. Elson
  • Edgar S. Woolard, Jr. Chair, John L. Weinberg Center for Corporate Governance Univ. of Delaware, Newark, DE
  • Arthur F. Fergenson Partner, DLA Piper Rudnick Gray Cary US LLP Baltimore, MD
  • Alfred L. Ferguson Counsel, McCarter & English, Newark, NJ
  • Ronald E. Gots, MD, Ph.D., Principal, International Center for Toxicology and Medicine Rockville, MD
  • Thomas R. Gottshall, Esq., Partner, Haynsworth Sinkler & Boyd, P.A. Columbia, SC
  • Philip S. Guzelian, MD, Director, Medical Toxicology, Department of Pharmacology, Univ. of Colorado Health Sciences Center, Denver, CO
  • Thor Halvorssen President, The Human Rights Foundation, New York, NY
  • Roger S. Kaplan Partner, Jackson Lewis LLP, Melville, NY
  • Dennis McBride, Ph.D., MPA, President, Potomac Institute for Policy Studies Arlington, VA
  • Susan L. Meade Senior VP (Ret.), JP Morgan Chase & Co. New York, NY
  • A. Alan Moghissi, PhD, President, Institute for Regulatory Science, Columbia, MD
  • Charles W. Mooney, Jr. Prof. of Law, Univ. of Pennsylvania School of Law, Philadelphia, PA
  • Rodney W. Nichols Former President and CEO, New York Academy of Sciences, New York, NY
  • Adam Offenhartz, Esq., Partner, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP, New York, NY
  • Hamilton Osborne, Jr. Partner, Haynsworth Sinkler & Boyd, P.A., Columbia, SC
  • William G. Primps Partner, Le Boeuf, Lamb, Greene & MacRae, New York, NY
  • Issac Rabino, PhD, Prof. Biological and Health Sciences, State Univ. of New York, New York, NY
  • Alan Charles Raul Partner, Sidley, Austin, Brown & Wood, Washington, DC
  • Paul C. Rooney, Jr., Esq., Partner (Ret.), White & Case Sharon, CT
  • Sally Satel, MD, Resident Scholar, American Enterprise Institute, Washington, DC
  • R. Edwin Selover Senior VP & General Counsel, Public Service Electric & Gas Co., Newark, NJ
  • Barry H. Smith, MD, Ph.D., Senior VP, The Rogosin Institute, New York, NY
  • A. F. Spilhaus, Jr., Ph.D., Exec. Director, American Geophysical Union, Washington, DC
  • Lance H. Wilson Senior VP, American Property Financing, New York, NY
  • Richard Wilson, D.Phil., Mallinckrodt Research, Prof. of Physics, Harvard Univ., Cambridge, MA

Note

^ Exxon Secrets profile of the Atlantic Legal Foundation

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