Community Voices: Billboard lawyers win, everybody else loses

Bakersfield Californian version posted here

By Kyla Christofferson Powell

If you’ve driven down any Central Valley freeway, you’ve seen the faces. The bright colors. The smiling lawyers looming from giant billboards, promising huge payouts and “justice” if you just call their number. These trial attorneys don’t work for free — they work for fees. The longer a case drags on, the more fees they likely pocket.

And while the Legislature promised to focus on affordability this year, what we actually saw were a number of bills that would drive up costs by increasing billboard attorney payouts.

Toward the top of the list is SB 82 (Umberg), a massive gift to the attorneys you see plastered all over California billboards. This bill would drive up costs for consumers and businesses by significantly restricting arbitration agreements, all but guaranteeing more lawsuits, longer delays and bigger paydays for lawyers. Consumers, employees, and small businesses — the very people this bill claims to help — will be the ones who lose.

Arbitration has long offered a faster, less expensive, and fairer way to resolve disputes. It’s not a loophole — it’s a proven system that gets results quicker and cheaper than a traditional courtroom lawsuit. Studies show employees are three times more likely to win in arbitration than in court and, when they do win, their awards are on average twice as high. Consumers fare better in arbitration as well, and cases are resolved in months rather than years.

The only group that doesn’t like arbitration? Trial lawyers, because it cuts into their fees.

SB 82 doesn’t just create bad policy — it almost certainly violates federal law. For decades, the U.S. Supreme Court has made clear that the Federal Arbitration Act preempts state laws that restrict arbitration. California has tried this before and failed. Our lawmakers passed a bill in 2019 that would have limited arbitration in the workplace. After years of expensive litigation, the Ninth Circuit struck it down, ruling that it conflicted with the FAA. California lost — and taxpayers were left with the bill: more than $800,000 in attorneys’ fees for the other side, plus the hidden state costs of defending a law the governor should never have signed.

SB 82 sets up the same fiasco. If signed into law, it will invite years of litigation, waste millions in taxpayer dollars, and likely be struck down.

The truth is simple: SB 82 helps only one group — the billboard attorneys who thrive on dragging cases through the courts and charging exorbitant fees. Everyone else loses. Consumers will wait longer and pay attorneys more. Employees will lose access to a venue where they can win faster and more often. Small businesses will face higher legal risks and costs. And taxpayers will foot the bill for another doomed legal battle against federal law.

California has urgent problems that deserve the state Legislature’s attention: High gasoline and energy prices, housing, homelessness, and our economic recovery. Instead, we are wasting time on a bill that is likely preempted by federal law, punishes consumers and small businesses, and rewards the trial bar.

Gov. Gavin Newsom should veto SB 82. He should stand with the Californians who rely on arbitration to resolve disputes fairly and efficiently, and against the billboard lawyers who profit only when cases drag on. Arbitration works. SB 82 does not.

Kyla Christoffersen Powell is the president and CEO of the Civil Justice Association of California.