Dick Weekley Talks Tort Reform at O’Neil Lecture

The SMU Daily Mustang
By Nadia Dabbakeh
October 28, 2009

Dick Weekley, at Thursday’s William J. O’Neil Lecture, SMU alum shared with students how media affects business. Weekley is the brains behind commercial real estate brokerage firm Weekley Properties and co-founder of privately owned, single-family home building company Weekley Homes, which operates out of Houston.

But it was a project closer to his heart that Weekley spoke about at the lecture: his work for Texans for Lawsuit Reform, a statewide tort reform organization dedicated to bringing fairness and balance back to Texas’ civil justice system, of which he is Co-Founder, Chairman and CEO. First, Weekley spoke about the massive effort and all the steps it takes to pass legislation.

“You must base everything on comprehensive research; we do market research, hire a legal team to write statutes, hire a lobby team, hire media consultants to communicate with the media, recruit speakers, build grassroots support, recruit civic leaders, recruit trade associations like home builders and realtors, raise money, and most importantly, get involved in politics.”

Co-Founder, Chairman, and CEO of Texans for Lawsuit Reform as well as SMU alum Dick Weekley spoke at Tuesday’s O’Neil Lecture. (PHOTO BY NADIA DABBAKEH/DAILY MUSTANG)

Weekley says that putting together the team and support to get a piece of legislation passed is time consuming and takes a lot of dedication and effort, which is why volunteers are so important.

“The key point is that these major initiatives must be run by volunteers,” Weekley said. “It is impossible to hire people to do all the things we have to go through. Volunteers are crucial.”

Thanks to Texans for Lawsuit Reform, freeways and byways have been reforested, an incentive program that rewards teachers who excel at their jobs has been launched, and now it’s impossible for attorneys to shop a lawsuit around different counties all around Texas looking for a favorable jury. Lawyers also can no longer benefit from class action lawsuits. Now people can’t sue because they were exposed to asbestos 30 years ago unless they’re sick, and more.

SMU student Orlando Rojas said, “Small businesses make up about 80 percent of jobs in the US, so it’s nice to know that there are people who are out there to help small businesses. I wanted to ask him about the case where they brought more doctors to Texas and whether the balance affected the quality of doctors, since it seemed they initially didn’t want to come.”

Weekley says the media are usually biased, running stories against Texans for Lawsuit Reform without listening to both sides or even contacting him, and it infuriates him.

Belo Distinguished Chair in journalism and former senior vice president and executive editor of the Houston Chronicle Tony Pederson said in response, “the press provides a voice for those who do not have one; sometimes it is perceived as having a liberal bias, but the idea of the press standing up for the little guy is still around.”

Weekley still does not agree. With Proposition 12, he said the public was for it 70 to 30 until the papers started saying it would close courthouse doors. It then slipped 55 to 35 – barely winning. He says the only people that would have benefited from the loss were lawyers taking advantage of the system, not the people.

“I learned from Weekley that people who advocate different political cause in politics are sometimes represented unfairly in the media,” SMU student Monica Sharma said. “As a journalism student, I think that as you go into the profession you need to look at both sides and have an unbiased opinion.”

See original article at http://www.smudailymustang.com/?p=17183