CULTURE SHOCK FOR . . . Trial lawyers

GOV. FRANK MURKOWSKI, bless him, wants to sock a big group of Outside lawyers in the chops.

Or, to be more precise, he wants to chop off their claim to $12 million they think they deserve for losing big-time in court here.

They are the plaintiff attorneys who convinced some Alaska fishermen that they could win a billion dollars or more from processors, contending they were the victims of price fixing. No matter that the market, as usual, sets the price.

Well, they didn't win. But in the process of pursuing the case the lawsuit disrupted the fishery scene and consumed weeks of wasted court time.

Nonetheless, two of the defendant processors - apparently fearing the outcome of the trial - settled before the case went to court. They agreed to pay $40 million, which most people assumed would all go to the fishermen.

Think again. The lawyers claim that $12 million of that should be paid to them in fees and another $4.5 million to cover costs.

The upshot is that the 4,500 fishermen who were named as plaintiffs would each receive a little more than $2,100 each, according to the governor. The lawyers would take home many, many times that.

Said Murkowski: "I believe the fees should be shared by those who have been hurt by this exercise in poor judgment, namely, the fishermen and the processors."

He proposes adding $6 million to the take of the fishermen, which, he said, "could make a significant difference to many of them." For the rest: "And I think it only fair that the processors should get the other half," the governor said.

"They had their industry turned upside down. Their managers were sitting in depositions and in court instead of attending to business. They now have to reconstruct an industry left in shambles, while Outside lawyers left town in a limousine. That's not justice."

Murkowski has asked the state's attorney general to make that argument when the proposed financial split is submitted for judicial approval in Superior Court in Anchorage on Thursday.