Louisiana's Modern Day Pharaohs
Trial lawyers build monuments to themselves so we don't forget them while our state lies in ruins.
In ancient Egypt, pharaohs built massive pyramids—monuments to their power and legacy. They are one of the longest-standing symbols of power from Antiquity that still hold our imaginations in thrall. After all, these weren’t just tombs. They were designed to elevate their memory to the heavens and solidify their place in history. The Egyptians believed that the soul lived on as long as the person’s name was remembered.
Here in Louisiana, we’ve got our own version of that.
Look around Baton Rouge—or Lafayette, or New Orleans—and you’ll see them. Skyscrapers, buildings, and billboards emblazoned with oversized initials and grinning headshots. These are the monuments of our modern-day pharaohs: the larger-than-life trial lawyers who have made their names, and their fortunes, towering over the average Louisiana citizen.
I want to be clear—this isn’t some populist, left-wing attack on wealth. Many lawyers do honest, respectable work. But the men we’re talking about here aren’t just successful attorneys. They’re architects of an entire legal and political system that has been carefully constructed—over decades—to benefit themselves, often at the expense of everyone else.
These mega-lawyers aren’t breaking laws. They’re writing them—or at least helping shape them. They’ve funneled millions into political campaigns, usually to Democrats, but increasingly to anyone who can keep the system in place. And now they’ve found a new ally: Governor Jeff Landry.
The System Built by Influence, Not Integrity
Landry’s recent alignment with these trial lawyers is nothing short of baffling. Elected by a conservative wave demanding reform, he’s now backing the very people who’ve kept Louisiana’s litigious culture alive and thriving.
Jeff Landry’s Choice: Reform the System or Become It
This is an op-ed version of an analysis I gave on the tort reform situation in Louisiana while filling in for Moon Griffon on Friday. I have also done an expanded version and loaded it into the podcast, since I didn’t have my own show on Friday.
This isn’t about corruption in the traditional sense—no cash-stuffed envelopes, broken laws, etc. What we’re watching unfold is a slower, more calculated type of influence. Trial lawyers helped craft the system that lets them profit from endless lawsuits. They’ve created a culture so riddled with legal landmines that insurance companies either raise rates or leave the state altogether.
Landry still isn’t calling for real reform. Instead, he’s proposing something closer to economic central planning—demanding the Insurance Commissioner ignore the market and set rates by fiat.
That’s not conservative. It’s not free-market. It’s not even sensible. It’s socialism with a Southern accent.
The Monument That Hurts the Rest of Us
The end result is predictable: skyrocketing insurance rates, fewer insurers doing business in Louisiana, and a population of working families forced to shoulder the cost of a system built to enrich a few.
Even as companies try to explain that reform won’t lead to instant rate cuts—because they’re not legally allowed to promise that—the same lawyers who shaped the system are using that truth to block reform. You have guys like Morris Bart out there blasting insurance companies for not promising to lower rates, knowing full well that would be a legal trap. Guys like him have gamed the process so thoroughly that any attempt at honesty becomes a liability.
This legal-industrial complex is the real pyramid of our time. And while ancient Egyptians built theirs to honor the gods, ours seem built on self-interest, political influence, and a relentless desire for more.
Time to Tear It Down—Metaphorically
Jeff Landry still has time to do the right thing. He can stand up to the trial lawyers and advocate for the kind of tort reform Louisiana desperately needs. But that means listening to the people who elected him—not the ones who wrote him checks.
Because if he continues down this path, it won’t just be his political future on the line. It’ll be every homeowner, every driver, and every business owner who continues to suffer under an unsustainable system built to serve the few at the expense of the many.
Let’s stop building monuments to those who game the system. Let’s fix the system instead.