Trial Magazine

In this month’s Trial, members write about post verdict and settlement issues and the importance of long-term­ planning for our clients. While a recovery typically marks the end of litigation, it is just the beginning of the next stage for clients. Read about enforcing settlement terms (p. 20), planning for a client with a disability (p. 28), and estate and family law considerations (p. 40). We need to make sure throughout a case that the building blocks are in place for our clients’ futures.

The future of AAJ, the plaintiff trial bar, and civil justice is no different. AAJ leads the fight to protect access to justice, facing opponents determined to restrict it. We are winning battles today, but they are just that—battles in a longer war to defend court access and other rights for future generations.

With that future in mind, the AAJ Board of Governors created the AAJ Foundation—a vehicle for planned giving to protect the Seventh Amendment and access to civil justice for generations to come. You can make a commitment to the association by including a gift to the AAJ Foundation in your estate plans. Your support will help AAJ in several important ways:

• Advance research on civil justice. As long as civil justice protects people harmed by dangerous products, corporate negligence, and medical negligence, opponents will always bend the truth to avoid accountability. One of the strongest weapons in AAJ’s ongoing fight will be quotable research that exposes the falsehoods that our opponents perpetuate. AAJ’s successful public education campaigns have all been supported by our substantial research—it lays the foundation for everything we do.
• Raise public awareness of Seventh Amendment rights. Armed with this research, AAJ will continue to conduct media campaigns that educate the public about their Seventh Amendment rights and crucial civil justice issues.
• Show how trial lawyers defend against big corporations. Trial lawyers take on powerful corporations every day, and we have helped make the world a better place through safer products, more corporate accountability, and safer medical practices.

Whether by naming the foundation in your will or trust, making the foundation a beneficiary of a life insurance policy, or designating retirement assets to the foundation, your generosity will make an invaluable contribution to sustaining our mission. As a 501(c)(3) organization, there also may be tax benefits from contributing to the foundation.

Some AAJ members already have made this commitment to the future of civil justice, such as Immediate Past President Elise Sanguinetti: “I know I want to do something that includes this wonderful organization. I also want to do something for the trial lawyers who will come after me. That is why my goal this year is to add the AAJ Foundation to my estate plan, and I ask that you do the same—defining your legacy forever.”

Planning is not always easy—whether for us, a client, or AAJ—but it is imperative. I encourage you to consider a planned gift to the AAJ Foundation. For more information, please visit https://planmylegacy.justice.org or call the AAJ Foundation Office of Planned Giving at (202) 944-2821. Thank you for everything you do for AAJ.

Bruce H. Stern is a shareholder at Stark & Stark in Lawrenceville, N.J. He can be reached at bruce.stern@justice.org.