Over the past decade, Mississippi developed a nationwide reputation as an unfavorable legal forum for many civil defendants, particularly employers with their principal places of business in other states. The state became known as the "lawsuit capital of the world." A survey of senior attorneys sponsored by the U.S. Chamber Institute for Legal Reform ranked Mississippi as having the worst overall legal system in the entire country in 2002, 2003 and 2004.

Mississippi's legal system got its black eye from the state courts in a few counties. The American Tort Reform Foundation called these counties "Judicial Hellholes."  Prominent Mississippi plaintiffs' attorney Richard Scruggs has called them "magic jurisdictions":

[W]hat I call the "magic jurisdiction," . . . [is] where the judiciary is elected with verdict money. The trial lawyers have established relationships with the judges that are elected; they're State Court judges; they're popul[ists]. They've got large populations of voters who are in on the deal, they're getting their [piece] in many cases. And so, it's a political force in their jurisdiction, and it's almost impossible to get a fair trial if you're a defendant in some of these places. . . . These cases are not won in the courtroom. They're won on the back roads long before the case goes to trial. Any lawyer fresh out of law school can walk in there and win the case, so it doesn't matter what the evidence or law is.

The national media, including the New York Times,  the Los Angeles Times,  and the Washington Times, recognized the Mississippi lawsuit phenomenon as front-page news. The television news program 60 Minutes called Jefferson County, Mississippi, the "jackpot justice capital of America" in a story examining why plaintiffs from all over the country were flocking to Mississippi courts.

Locally, Jackson's Clarion-Ledger newspaper ran a series of front-page articles describing a legal environment where "the litigation industry . . . saturated the community with bias" against civil defendants.  Even a federal appellate court recognized that Mississippi's state courts were "a mecca for plaintiffs' claims against out-of-state businesses." One prominent Mississippi defense lawyer said that Mississippi's reputation as a place for plaintiffs to hit the jackpot was not only perception, but reality.

Clearly, if economic opportunity were to flourish in Mississippi, serious problems regarding the state's legal environment would need to be addressed.  As former Mississippi Supreme Court Justice Reuben Anderson explained in 2001, "[Mississippians] profit greatly from being part of a national economy. This state simply cannot expect to thumb its nose at national enterprise in the courtroom, while reaching out to shake its hand in the customer line."

Recently, Mississippi's legal system has made impressive strides to become fairer and more balanced. The state has gone from being the poster child of litigation abuse to a shining example of how a state can join the legal mainstream and foster economic growth through legal reform.  As one commentator has explained, "A combination of Haley Barbour's leadership, sound decisions from the Mississippi Supreme Court, and a slate of civil justice reforms are bringing business back to Mississippi and stabilizing the state's medical liability marketplace."

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