WEST VIRGINIA RECORD

CHARLESTON – Two candidates on West Virginia Citizens Against Lawsuit Abuse's "Dirty Dozen" list of candidates lost in Tuesday's election.

Democrats Paige Flanigan, who was running for the House of Delegates from the 25th District, and Jim Lees, who was running for state Senate from the 4th District, were the two candidates who lost on the list, which showed whose campaigns had accepted the most money from personal injury lawyers.

Two-thirds of the money Flanigan had raised in her campaign came from personal injury lawyers, according to CALA. Just over a third of Lees' contributions were from personal injury lawyers.

In addition, three candidates from CALA's primary election list had lost in the spring.

CALA Executive Director Steve Cohen said his group will continue to push civil justice reform.

"CALA and its 30,000 members in the state will continue to work to repair our state's broken legal system that drives away job opportunities," he said. "One of our priorities is to bring ethics reform to address the secret dealings between our attorney general and personal injury lawyers. A second is to close the loopholes that allow out-of-state lawyers and their clients to file lawsuits here at West Virginia taxpayers' expense."