In the past year, Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal has tangled with powerful adversaries — Microsoft, Fleet Bank, Bank of Boston, Blue Cross, SNET, Publishers Clearinghouse and the State of New York — just to name a few. By the traditional civil litigation definitions of winning, Blumenthal has won some, lost some, and some are still pending.
But traditional “wins” may not be the way to measure Blumenthal’s record. In his statewide office, a sprawling public interest law firm of 200 lawyers toiling in 14 divisions, ordinary notions of victory and loss aren’t always apt. For one thing, many of Blumenthal’s biggest cases wind up settled by consent, where victory is largely a matter of public opinion.
