EMBARGOED FOR RELEASE: Tuesday, July 15, 2003

Contact: Bob Weiner 301-283-0821 or 202-361-0611

(San Francisco, CA) – Mary E. Alexander, San Francisco consumer attorney and president of the Association of Trial Lawyers of America, is bringing 2000 trial lawyers to their national convention in San Francisco July 23 "to strengthen the fight for consumer rights under attack by Congress and the White House."

Alexander is asserting that "consumer rights are under attack in the Congress and the White House." She chastises Senate and House bills to cap damages and block class action lawsuits, as well as "arbitrary bashing of lawyers", as "good for raising donations from corporate interests but doing no one any good."

In an op-ed today in the San Jose Mercury News, Alexander points out that President Bush has made over 50 attacks against trial lawyers in speeches since taking office. She asserts that the real agenda of the critics is to "reward the insurance industry and corporations with higher profits and less accountability and prohibit juries of regular Americans from holding harmful interests accountable."

She will address the opening and closing of the convention and will be available to media: 8 AM Sunday, July 20, and 6PM and 8 PM Wed., July 23. All events occur at the San Francisco Hilton, 333 O’Farrell Street.

The Association of Trial Lawyers of America (ATLA) has 60,000 members. Alexander stated that the convention would work "to strengthen the fight against the Administration’s and Congress’ anti-consumer actions, especially concerning medical malpractice rights, and class action lawsuits against major malfeasant corporations like Enron and Global Crossing, who are almost unaccountable on issues from pensions to pollution."

Alexander said that her first husband worked in a civil engineering lab testing asphalt road samples with pure benzene. When she attended UC Berkeley School of Public Health, she attended a lecture on the link between benzene and leukemia. Her husband died of leukemia, a motivating factor in her decision to "save American workers", become an attorney, and "use a courtroom to be effective."

(Source: Mary Alexander and Associates and Robert Weiner Associates 301-283-0821)